Subject: [CR] Help dating/identifying possible Echelon/Cherubim?
Robert asked: Are any listmembers acquainted with either 70s Echelons or Cherubims?
Yes, I am, from seeing them in the importer's warehouse, from visiting them
in Japan, and from repairing and repainting them.
> I recently acquired a bike from the original owner, who said that friends
of his from CA owned DIN Importers in the 1970s and gave him this unlabeled
frameset, which they'd purchased in bulk from an unknown (to him) shop in
Japan and which they intended to brand as "Echelon," and re-sell A little
CR list research indicates that DIN importers did indeed import bikes and
sell them under the label, "Echelon." Supposedly, they bought them from
Cherubim.
Yes, this is correct.
>Supposedly, Yoshi Konno was a builder at Cherubim in the mid/late 70s?
I don't think so. Yoshi Konno was the originator and designer of San Rensho
(3Rensho).
> So, what do you think? I have no doubt that it was an "Echelon."
> But, anybody out there have any corroborating or contradictory evidence
> that this was built by Cherubim? Any clue what year?
The Echelon frames definitely were built by Cherubim but possibly in the early 1980's.
My frame building shop/warehouse was about a block away from DIN Industries and I remember seeing them at DIN sometime between 1978 and 1985. The Cherubim certainly lacked the stylistic touches of San Rensho but were still nicely made. The only really distinctive feature I remember, and one that was hard to see, was the use of very stout fork blades which often meant that when an Echelon was crashed it was the top and down tubes that failed while the fork remained just fine (just as with Cinelli frames!). As a contract builder, Cherubim used the materials and features specified by its customers so their frames had the features the customer specified.
I did spend a day visiting Cherubim in the early 1980's and I would term them a specialist builder.....not large enough to supply containers of bikes or frames but much larger and more productive than "craftsman" builders. Cherubim was about the same size as Toyo, another specialist buider I visited.
Typical of many Japanese factories, the Cherubim offices were located above the shop floor. I think I saw fewer than ten employees.
Hugh Enox
La Honda, California USA
Sunny today.