trail_monkey

I am a Panasonic nut after finding my vintage 85 Panasonic and fixing it up and riding it regularly. I just stumbled across the website called yellow Jersey and I called and talked to them and they're telling me that Panasonic only closed their American office in 1989 but they are still making bicycles over in Japan today. And he said they are dealer for them but he was busy so he had to get off the phone and didn't have a lot of time for my many questions. If this is true I am completely confused as to why there isn't more privately owned bike shops across the u.s. selling the Panasonic brand? If they could be a dealer then why couldn't your average Trek and specialized and Cannondale dealership also sell Panasonic? I have never heard of any of this until just now. Can somebody shed some light on this subject cause I am extremely curious.

nlerner

Time to brush up on your Japanese:

********************????Panasonic

oddjob2

Just grab a 1980's Schwinn, many of which were made by Panasonic.

If Panasonic has essentially withdrawn from much of the consumer electronics market segments in the USA, I doubt they'd be competitive in the bicycle market.

9volt 

Yellow Jersey is a small shop kind of in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. I was there a few weeks ago and they had a couple Panasonic framesets in the window.

trail_monkey

I just find it interesting. I hear how great Panasonic was in the day and i can agree as mine rides super sweet. They seem to be collectible and some people look for them hard. Now I find out they are still making bikes lol. Just a weird twist to me.

So does anyone know..... is the current stuff as high grade as the vintage stuff was?

clubman 

If they could market them in NA at a price point that made them money, they would.

corrado33

Unfortunately, it looks like they only cell city bikes now. No more high quality tange frames of the past!

trail_monkey

Intersting.....

nlerner

You might want to take a closer look at that website. I see semi-custom Ti and CroMo frames:

FRTD02**********???/????POS******************************Panasonic

KAH

What size are you looking for?
I might have a lead on a 21"

Rocket-Sauce 

Cool frames. Any idea how much?
**********????POS******************************Panasonic







Full bikes also available.

brianmcg123

They used to make bikes for Rivendell also. Don't know if they still do or not.

trail_monkey

Man those bikes are awesome! I hadn't had time to look at their website yet. Drooling!

trail_monkey

Not looking... but always looking..... if that makes sense..😆 I can't be buying another bike right now but i love to study bikes

9volt 

Here's the Panasonic catalog. The custom paint variants at the bottom are interesting.

https://cycle.panasonic.jp/catalog/pos_catalog.pdf

And a vintage Panasonic with a carbon fork and modern parts that I've been working on

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...fessional.html

KAH

Makes sense to me

9volt 

2017 Panasonic OJC4 Touring

carbomb

I saw some new ones in a bike shop window in Kyoto. Looks like you can order some custom if you have the coin:
**********????POS******************************Panasonic

clubman 

These frames makes modern kit look good.

USAZorro

Waiting for a touring rig that has a built-in toaster.

Sorry, but I got kinda jaded to new steel made to a spec when I got a Surly LHT about 9 years back. There was nothing wrong with it, and it was quite functional - yet there was nothing special about it either. If I were to go looking for a new steel frame, I'd first look to builders who never went the route of contracting everything out of house, or completely stopped production until some conglomerate bought up the name and went looking for a factory to crank them out. Not many like that still around. Bob Jackson is the only sizeable shop that comes to mind.

Have to admit, the pictures do look pretty sharp, but then, so do new Raleighs.

pcb 

Panasonic is still a big player in the bike biz in Japan, they still own their own factory/ies and build frames in-house, at least their high-end models. They are a HUGE company, with bicycles being a fairly small part of their business, and they have very little time/interest for the US market, other than looking into the E-bike market.

If you're interested in their built-to-order high-end frames, which have been linked to above, Yellow Jersey in/near Madison, WI will take your order and import one for you. They are parallel-importing Panasonic from a dealer friend in Japan, Panasonic has no direct US dealers. There are also Japanese bike shops actively exporting these frames user-direct, alexjapon on ebay, his store GiraGira Cycle, also using the name Track Supermarket.

mstateglfr 

To be fair, you were riding a frame whose purpose is to handle a junkton of weight acroas continents. Its utilitarian not lustful. Its function over form.

Thick tubes and relaxed quasi80s MTB touring geometry dont really create special...unless special means doing what its meant to do- handle a lot of gear and weight.

There are solid fun modern steels frames out there by many brands.

pcb 

"Made to spec" = "made to a price point" Once you get over that Taiwan-build $500-$600 price point there may be more builders out there than you think that are making very special steel.

Waterford/Gunnar in the US are probably the largest outfit for high-end custom steel, but there's a ton of smaller builders putting out incredible stuff. There are full-custom builders aplenty, there are also custom builders who offer non-custom/built-to-order frames: Jeff Lyon/Lyonsport's L'Avecaise, Wraith, Elephant's NFE, Black Mountain Cycles has MUSA frames, I'm sure there are others. Some of these guys build in batches, so you put your order in for the size you want and wait.

In the UK Mercian may be putting out more frames than Bob Jackson, there's also Woodrup (Kevin Sayles builds for them); gotta be others as well.

corrado33

My uh... japanese is uh... rusty *cough* non-existent *cough*.

I simply scrolled through the buttons up top and didn't see any road frames.

USAZorro

I realized I was missing at least a couple, and Waterford occurred to me as I laid down to sleep. Also, I was intending to limit the list to builders that have been continuously building since "back in the day", since the nostalgia factor is strong here. If Panasonic has been producing bikes continuously, then I am wrong and have words to eat. I thought that they had gone the way of Schwinn, and Raleigh and others, who either ceased production entirely for a time, or whose production locations and methods are greatly disconnected from their roots.