Welcome to a new theme in the blog: Japanese Bike of the Week. A weekly (or more likely whenever I can find the time...) post about the most intriguing finds in Japanese steel bikes, components, tools and cycling related accessories.
To unwind in the evenings, I often flick through the online cycling market places here in Japan to see what's on offer. Most of the components for my Japanese vintage bike fleet are sourced via this means and these themed blog posts will briefly introduce what I've 'had on my watch list' for that week.
I'll kick things off with this absolute gem of a bike, a Limited Model Toei Project 2000.
Any Toei bike draws a crowd when posted but this rare sized 58cm limited edition model in pristine condition wasn't going to go cheap, finally selling at a respectable 327,000 JPY.
I'm yet to make it out to Toei's frame building workshop in Kawaguchi Saitama but it's certainly on the list of things to do.
At present, the current wait time for a custom order Toei bike frame is 3-6 months which is rather reasonable when compared with other local frame builders, particularly those specialising in NJS builds.
Photos courtesy of Yahoo Auction Japan
Toeisha (Toei Bicycles) (東叡社): http://www.generalworks.com/toeisha/index_jp.html