Kashimax CEO Eijiro Kashima recently met Kouichi Nakano at the Beijin World Cup to catch up and tell old stories. Nakano who is a ten-time world champion track racing cyclist from 1977 to 1988 was a good friend of Kashima’s father and of course Yoshiaki Nagasawa. Nakano exclusively rode a NAGASAWA Keirin Frame that was made by Yoshiaki Nagasawa who studied building under Ugo De Rosa of De Rosa Bicycles, and has been building bicycles in Japan since the late 1970s. Kashima once told me that when Nakano was starting his racing career, he didn’t have enought money to live anywhere so he would sleep in Nagasawa’s workspace and they would discuss all night the perfect bicycle that he would evevntually ride to becoming world champ.
We all know that a rear fender is an absolute necessity when conditions are wet and gross. After all, being covered in street sludge is never a good look. But let’s be real here–some of us just don’t want to have a bulky fender messing up the clean lines of our pretty track bikes. Luckily, Kashimax has the OCD folks among us covered (literally and figuratively) with their telescoping Rain Tail fender. Now you see it; now you don’t!
Handmade by master Japanese craftsmen, Kashimax saddles are among the world’s finest. They’ve been ridden by countless keirin champs, and they look equally at home on steel NJS frames and on fat-tubed aluminum warhammers. We’re extremely proud to carry a wide variety of Kashimax saddles–including a few models that can only be found at Chari & Co. NYC.
Kashimax Saddle Co has finally updated their website and entered the year 2011 with a nice new fresh website, we stock most styles of Kashimax saddles in the store.
We already showed you photographs from Yuki’s trip to the Kashimax Factory a couple weeks ago. Today we bring you the video portion. Kashimax was nice enough to take time out of their busy schedule to let us run around and capture the amazing process of hand made saddles. It’s a beautiful craft and makes you appreciate where you sit on your bicycle that much more. Thank you to Kashimax for being patient with us and welcoming us into their home.
Kashimax is the only NJS certified saddle left for Keirin racers today, Located in Osaka, all Five Gold saddles are hand made by a few workers where each saddle is carefully crafted to NJS standards. It’s quite amazing the amount of saddles these guys produce, family owned and ridden by 10 time world champion, Koichi Nakano.
