Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
I don't think the internet knew that about the Soma vs Soma Fabrications, I checked and the internet said the Olympiad was made by Soma Fabrications, which must be wrong, then the internet was calling the modern bikes just Soma, it all just makes me want to
. That is a bit confusing, but thanks for clearing that up. The Olympiad must have been a rare bike because not much is found about it.
Not surprising that the original Soma bikes are underrepresented on the internet. The importer might have brought in only whatever Kuwahara's minimum order was for a private label bike brand. Maybe 1,000. Maybe more like 600 or so.
Fewer than the Colnagos and Cinellis of the same period by far. The Olympiad was the entry-level model, but they still wouldn't have amounted to more than half the total number sold. So, rare in that sense.
Also, regarding their lack of internet representation, there were probably few dealers outside the mid-Atlantic area. And many or most of those dealers would have those that were too small to carry one of the major brands in the late '70's: Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, Motobecane, maybe Fuji. So they wouldn't have sold many units during the few years that Soma bikes were on the market.
Looking back, I'm surprised that our customers were willing to buy a bike whose brand none of them had heard of. I guess they looked at them the way the proliferating mid-level Japanese hi-fi system brands were regarded at the time: if the store said it was a good model, there was no compelling reason to investigate further.