Sasha Eysymontt wrote:
> Nagasawa's drifting into cut'n'plug and huge, garish decals is one
> of the
> saddest things in framebuilding, IMHO. I've seen late 1970s
> Nagasawas with
> a vast amount of handwork, and really modern ones with
> significantly less,
> and the amount of mojo in each frame just isn't the same. I find it
> interesting that Kiyo (who trained under Marc Rossin) has stuck
> with the
> older methods while Nagasawa-san has moved to seemingly more
> production-line
> oriented building. I'd be curious to hear what his reasoning
> behind it is.
Yeah Sasha, I've seen some 70s/80s Nagasawas whose beauty almost brought tears to my eyes. I'd heard Nagasawa worked at DeRosa for a few years(?) and I was in love with his bikes. But the current ones with the cut and plug construction don't exhibit that mojo that his 70s/80s frames had. You're right... very sad when you've seen his early stuff.
My Kiyo Miyazawa has the following pantographed in the underside of the BB shell,
KIYO (green paint-filled logotype) PER (white paint-filled capitals) VINCERE (red paint-filled capitals)
Italian flag style, ya just gotta love it... a homage to his time spent in Italy working at Rossin!
Chuck Schmidt
South Pasadena, CA USA
http://www.velo-retro.com (reprints, t-shirts & timelines)