SoCaled 

I was looking at used bike listings, hunting for the little clues, when I saw this Soma - https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...256613156040/?


looking at the tubing sticker, color and shape, I thought great, that looks like an "Ishiwata" decal, I wonder what variety?

I opened the detail shot and my eyes went straight to the "number" expecting to see the more common 022 or 019 . . . 014!!? oh wait, Not Ishiwata? Soma - Hi-tensile?



I have seen many Reynolds 531 knock-offs, but this is the first Ishiwata knock-off I have seen. Anyone else have examples?

Velo Mule

Wow, that is interesting. Aside from the numbers and text it is a straight up copy. It's odd because beside us bike nerds, who amongst consumers really looked for Ishiwata tubing? Perhaps they were hoping that a customer seeing a label that looked like a label on a better model Trek would be swayed?

For comparison sake, here is the proper Ishiwata label that would go on the top of the seat tube:

Hondo6

OK, I'm stumped - who made the crankset above? Neat logo, but I don't have a clue and can't find it on Velobase.

Piff 

Funny decal! I would assume Soma did that almost as an in-joke for their own benefit given their very long Japanese partnership.

Trakhak

The Soma bikes in question - not to be confused with those offered by the modern, unrelated Soma bike company - were only on the market for a few years, from approximately 1978 to 1982 - maybe a year one way or the other. So no long partnership.

As I recall from the days when we were selling them in a Baltimore bike shop in the early '80's, Soma bikes were built by Kuwahara for Shofer's Furniture, a Baltimore wholesaler/retailer, back when many U.S. importing companies were bringing in private label bikes from Japanese factories. (Shofer's Furniture, I just learned from a search, was founded in Baltimore in 1913 as a bicycle repair shop.)

Edit:

"built by Kuwahara for Shofer's Furniture" is probably putting it a bit strongly. More likely someone at Shofer's picked a few models from Kuwahara's wholesale catalog, along with decals and paint schemes (the Cosmopolitan looked almost exactly like a Motobecane Super Mirage). Probably brought in enough bikes to fill a few containers, which they gradually sold through and didn't reorder.

The Soma mixte shown in the photos in this thread is the only one I've ever seen with a fake Ishiwata-looking decal. The top of the line, the Soma Cosmopolitan (which would have been mid-level at best for most major bike brands), had, I believe, Champion No. 2 frame tubes. The other models, the Sport (second from the bottom) and whatever the entry-level model was, had no frame tubing decals.

unterhausen

I was a bike snob when I worked at Trek. I used tubing decals to mark which one of my cross country skis was which. Columbus on the right ski, Ishiwata on the wrong ski (sorry sinister'ers).

I didn't mind 022, I forget what Ishiwata we used on the 300 series, and I always thought it looked like there was cruft trapped in it. The only thing was all their tubing was a little undersized, metric maybe?

SoCaled 

Thanks for the good info, that's why I included the last 2 pics, to make clear which "Soma"

stoneageyosh

Dust cap says Takagi.

non-fixie 

On an early eighties Jan Janssen Tour de France, built by Vaneenooghe:

Hondo6

Thanks. I couldn't make out either the text on the crank or the lettering on the dust caps.

stoneageyosh

Could be Tourney crankset.

Ha! Without glasses, I have to squint which means my eyes are about closed. And, at my age if they close I’m not far from nodding off.

Hondo6

Maybe. The only Takagi crankset that Velobase lists is an early/mid-80s Tourney XT version having completely different lettering, but the one in question here might well be an earlier Tourney version.

Thanks again.

Trakhak

At a New York City bike trade show back in the early '80's, I had a conversation at the little Ishiwata booth. The English spoken by the Japanese rep was painfully limited, and I spoke no Japanese, so it was a short talk. But he did use the word "surroundness" several times, while miming a circle.

It wasn't until I read some Bike Forums threads decades later that I learned that Ishiwata tubing was highly respected by some frame builders for its consistency in quality control. I guess the surroundness would have been one aspect of that.

JohnDThompson 

Looks like "Tourney," which, IIRC was made by Takagi, later acquired by Shimano.

Hondo6

stoneageyosh also noted the same possibility above. I don't think I've personally seen an early version of the Takagi Tourney or their early logo, so that's indeed a possibility.

The Takagi Tourney XT (early/mid 1980s and possibly a later version) is the only Takagi crankset I could find listed at Velobase. However, in photos there the Tourney XT does not appear to have the same logo or use that style of lettering. That's why I initially discounted the possibility of it being a Takagi; looks like I shouldn't have.

Thanks to you both for the input/education.

non-fixie 

Definitely Takagi Tourney:

stoneageyosh

OK, another trip in the wayback machine.
First saw custom frames with Ishiwata 022 and 019 in 1972 during the Grand Prix of the United States held at Encino Velodrome in California. Built by Schroeder (Schroder) in Denmark for Niels Fredborg and Reno Olsen, both Danish Olympic gold medalists.
At the encouragement of Tim Zasadny, 1971 US National 1000m champ, George Garvey, owner of Marina Del Rey Bike ordered some road and track Schroder framesets. All were built with Ishiwata tubes. When asked about Ishiwata tubing, Vilhelm Christian the owner/framebuilder said he preferred it because of its quality.
MDR Bike brought in Schroder frames for a few years. Most if not all were painted red and white.

Trakhak

Bumping the thread while quoting the post above in the hope that some frame builders here will see it. This isn't the first time I've seen a testimony to the high quality of Ishiwata frames.

We have at least a couple of Bike Forums regulars who were in-house Trek frame builders in (I would guess) the days when Trek used a lot of Ishiwata tubing (unterhausen and JohnDThompson). Here's hoping they see this and weigh in on their experiences building with Ishiwata.

Hondo6

I've heard the same about both Ishiwata and Tange upper-end tubing. Specifically: while high-end Reynolds and Columbus tubing had the public name recognition, what I've read leads me to believe that upper-end Ishiwata and Tange were in practical and technical terms absolutely their equals. When one considers just how good Japanese metallurgy had become by the 1970s and 1980s, that stands to reason.

I also hope both unterhausen and JohnDThompson weigh in here. I'd love to hear their takes on Ishiwata/Tange/Columbus/Reynolds comparison.

Hondo6

Guess that settles it; clear pix are definitely worth 1000 words.

FWIW: IMO that's a great logo. Wonder why Takagi didn't keep using it on their (apparently later) Tourney XT and other later products?

rekmeyata

The 014A tubing was associated with Soma Fabrications ladies Olympiad bike frames made in the early 70's as a low-end bike, the tubing was made by Ishiwata, it was their lowest end tube set.

unterhausen

Looking back on those days, I was so prejudiced against everything about Japanese bicycle manufacturing and parts that I couldn't be fair to Ishiwata. I wouldn't mind having some some 019 to make a frame with just to see what I was missing. Considering a full set of Columbus SL or 531 including fork blades cost me less than $20, and Ishiwata couldn't have been much less, it didn't make sense for me to buy any.

Frame tubing now is much nicer than it was back then. I suppose they had to get more serious with surface finish when they went to thinner tubes. Ishiwata wasn't markedly different than Reynolds or Columbus in that sense. And as I said, whatever the cheap Ishiwata was that we used, it was really unimpressive. Fit for purpose, I guess, because it was heavy. In the greater scheme of things, the 300 series bikes was probably a mistake at that time, and I don't think they sold that many in the '70s. The stuff we made 500 series with was very similar to the European brands, and I imagine I would like a frame made out of it. Trek only had sizes that didn't fit me in those days, I'm somewhere between their vintage 21 and 23.

Trakhak

Soma Fabrications, the modern San Francisco-based company, was established in 2001. Entirely separate company. (They mention in one of their blog posts that they'd been in business for two years before someone sent them a photo of one of the earlier Soma bikes. When they started their business, they were unaware that there had been a previous line of bikes with the same name.)

I think the earlier Soma bikes, bought from Kuwahara and wholesaled to bike stores by Shofer's, Inc., didn't appear in the market until the late '70's. I could be wrong about that, but I've never seen one from earlier than about 1978 or 1979.

I'm sure they were discontinued by 1983 at the latest.

Thanks for mentioning the Olympiad. I'd been trying to remember the name of the entry-level model in what I believe was a three-model lineup. Olympiad, Sport, Cosmopolitan.

Trakhak

I remember being mildly shocked when the 330 (or whatever it was) first appeared in the Trek lineup. It felt wrong, somehow.

Can't remember why, exactly: was it their first road bike built in Asia rather than the U.S.?

The 300 series bikes were manifestations of John Burke's grand vision for Trek, I guess. At a trade show back then, a Trek rep, in response to some remark of mine about an unexpected change - maybe when they started importing Gitane bikes - said (a bit smugly), "We have one-year plans and five-year plans and ten-year plans." Result: first the 300 series bikes, then the Jazz bikes, then . . .

" . . . prejudiced against everything about Japanese bicycle manufacturing . . ." Sometime in the early or mid-1970's, one of the strongest racers in the New Haven area showed up at a race with a "high-end" Japanese bike. Now that was a shock! Couldn't get my head around it. You deliberately bought a Japanese bike? To race on?

A large proportion of the C&V people here got into high-performance bikes in the late '70's or thereafter, by which time the better Japanese bikes and components had won great respect, so that description must seem incomprehensible to them. All I can say is that, from 1964 (when I started racing) until the day that guy hit the starting line with his Japanese bike (probably a Fuji, but I'm not sure), I'd never seen anything other than English, French, Italian, and American (Paramount) bikes at races.

SoCaled 

So 014A is Ishiwata? so not mimicry
What about the Super tubes 220 above on the Jan Jenssen? I see numerous examples of Ishiwata 022 Jan Jenssen frames, is this like the Soma where they appropriated/self branded the tubing?

So maybe no Mimicry? Just making it their own? what would be the terminology for that?