broomhandle

i guess we should just start a thread of just "what the hell is this bike"

but....

what the hell is this bike?

its a shogun, made in tawain. it seams to be made pretty well. anybody heard of these?

zonatandem

Yup, they were around in the 80s then disappeared.

broomhandle

where they crap bikes? or OK bikes?

well biked

Shoguns were originally a Japanese brand, I guess they moved production to Taiwan in late '80's, early '90's because of economic factors. I've seen some nice ones (by my standards, anyway), I'd say they're generally on the same level as Centurion, Panasonic, Fuji, etc. They made road bikes and mountain bikes.

broomhandle

cool. thanx!

clipped

I commuted on one for some time and have fond memories. It was lugged, made well, handled fine but was a bit too small for me so eventually it was sold to a friend in need. The first biopace road bike I'd ridden it suprised on my hilly route with the lack of shifting required. great commuter.

chajmahal

I saw a lugged frame Shogun with the Shimano 600/Arabesque group at a thrift store for $40. Very clean. I was gonna grab it when a clerk told me they were having a 50% off sale in 2 hours. The place was empty on a weekday afternoon so I decided it was safe to kill the 2 hours shopping in the nearby mall and save $20. Short story? Bike wasn't there when I got back.

Saintly Loser

A few years ago, I picked up an absolutely mint Shogun clone of a Raleigh Sports (3-speed) at a flea market. It looked brand new. I have no idea when it was made. The paint was beautiful -- it was maroon and cream.

Unfortunately it was stolen from outside the Brooklyn Inn at Hoyt and Bergen. I really liked that bike.

jfmckenna

I am fixing up an old Shogun at the moment for my brother who bought it new in late 80's. It's a really nice bike actually. Tange Infinity, lugged and made in Japan. It's a Shogun Katana model red and white, nice looking. It has Shimano Exage Sport and shifts flawlesy. Unfortunatlly I crashed it in a race ride and ruined the rear wheel which I have found very difficult to replace. My Bro has one arm so I plan on building it up with a brifter and a top mount or bar con on the right side. I've been meaning to take pics and post them here, now maybe I finally will.

broomhandle

this is a pretty nice bike, a little small, but hey its a MTB bike. this has Shimano Exage Sport too? is that good? it even has a U-Brake on the back. im fixing the bars, and shifters, somebody took off the index and put on friction, but they included the original index thumb shifters. go fig. this bike alos has really strange hubs.

well biked

Shogun had a very nice mountain bike (I thought it was nice, anyway) called the Prairie Breaker......The Exage stuff on mountain bikes is pretty much entry level, I believe it should be specified "Exage Mountain," as there was ( still is?) an Exage road group also. As far as the shifters go, of all the shifters I've ever used, I have to say the indexed thumb shifters are my least favorites. The ones I've used, particularly the front shifter, seemed very weak, like it just wasn't strong enough to stand the force necessary to move the chain to the big ring. Maybe that's why the previous owner changed to friction shifting on that bike, some of those early indexed thumb shifters left a lot to be desired, in my opinion.

richiedcruz

I know this is an old thread, but I just had to respond. I got pretty much the same bike brand new in '88 as a birthday present and replacement for a my first mountain bike which was stolen. My dad works for the Port of Oakland and talked to someone at the factory and got a deal on it. Unfortunately it was a real parts-bin special. Would you believe that it was delivered with two right hand shifters installed and an unidentifiable Shimano front derailleur that my LBS thought might have been meant for a double?

Anyway, I got that bike working right, complete with more identifiable mid-grade Suntour and Shimano components and went riding. My favorite memory of that bike is riding full speed through some brush and finding that I had just ridden off a eight foot cliff. Honest. The friend I was riding with that day and I went back to the base of it and measured with the old standing up next to it and staring up at it method. I couldn't have stopped even if I had wanted to, said friend was right on my heels. And, of course, being young and stupid we went right back up to the top of that hill and did it again, and again. And again. And again some more.

That old bike went right on working without complaint, through three sets of wheels, two sets of derailleurs, cranksets and brakes and enough cheesy Shimano BB's and cranks arms to to put me off of their products forever. Lately, I was using it as a commuter, but I figure that it has more than earned itself a full restoration.

top506

Out in the workshop right now is a '83 Shogun 400 road bike I'm re-habing for my daughter. Rather nice entry-mid range bike with tange champion #2 tubing and Shimano and SR comps. If it were a 56 rather than a 52 I'd keep it myself....
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FWIW, I just got back from a week on Cape Cod and saw more nice old Japanese road bikes on the trails than I'd ever hoped to see again. Mainly ridden by moms and dads while the kids scooted by on their ATBs.

moxfyre

I got a nice cromo Shogun for $20, which I then traded for a much inferior frame because it was my size (dumb move ).

They were basically just one of many Japanese bike brands that proliferated in the 1980s, as far as I know. Similar to Centurion, Nishiki, Panasonic, Lotus they're no longer in the market today, but made perfectly good bikes. Nothing as special as Bridgestone or Miyata that I've seen. Most of the frames were Tange, and I like the paint schemes and lettering on all the Shoguns that I've seen. I'd happily buy another if it came my way

LWaB

Shogun existed for longer in Australia, until just a few years ago. I heard they might still be available as 'forward order' but I'm not in the business anymore.

Korina

Resurrecting an ancient thread to say, guess what I found in our garage? It's MIL's busted down bike that I always ignored, because I thought it was an old Schwinn or something. After lurking around you guys, I thought to take a look and it's a Shogun, series 400! Cro-moly frame, about my size, so it's not going anywhere. There's some rust, but it has all the badges and will make a nice project bike. No, no pics, sorry; camera on the fritz.

rando_couche

House brand of Seattle Bike Supply maybe? Nothing special, but OK enough.

SP
OC, OR

Fahrenheit531 

Well as long as the undead are roaming the forums I may as well mix in a pic:

Because as Andre Agassi was saying around this time, "Images are everything."
Well that's sort of what he said anyway.

Lascauxcaveman 

Me too. My 1985 Prairie Breaker I with drop bars swapped in. Seattle area find where Shoguns are still quite common on the secondary market.

top506

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Chr0m0ly 

Metro AT with a pannier I built from a German surplus combat pack. I pulled off the fenders to do some trail riding. The saddle was in the LBS in a bin of $15.00 seats taken off of other bikes when the owners updated, and it has pin-striping in an exact match to the mint green frame. That find made me happier than it should have

T-Mar

I used to think that Shogun were a marketing brand created by Seattle Supply Company too, but recent research indicates Shogun may be a brand of Marui, a Japanese trading company specializing in bicycles. They had been known in Japan for their Orions brand and debuted the Shogun name in the USA circa 1977. The bicycles appear to have been contract manufactured by various sources over the years. The last record of their appearance that I have on file is 1993.

Chr0m0ly 

I have been scouring the Internet for information on my Metro and I can't find a thing. Looks like you can still get a shogun metro in Australia, but now they're aluminum. I wish I could find out what that tubing is.

I suspect it's non butted chromoly main tubing and forks, and the stays are tensile steel or Manganese. The groupo just says Shimano, and it looks like it has plastic parts in the derailleurs. Still, I like it. It rides nice and I like having a basic bike with truck tires I can take under the powerlines.

Makes me want to find a nicer early rigid mountain bike. Cause you know n+1...

T-Mar

Chr0m0ly, given the apparent era, your assumption on the frame material is not unreasonable. In 1992 the USA had a model called the Metro. It used a Tange CrMo main triangle with Tangalloy forks and stays. If you look at the dropouts there should be a name stamped on them and I wouldn't surprised if it was Tange. If you remove the forks, there would probably be a date code, though we may also be able to discern the year from the serial number and/or component date codes.

stebson

What do you guys think of this Shogun? He says it is made in Japan. ROAD BIKE