Orange 20 Bikes

Kazane frames and parts are now available in LA. Orange 20 has their first shipment of frames on the way now. They recently moved to a new bigger location at 4351 Melrose ave. The link to the shop is on the right of this page. I don't really need to say anything about the shop because everybody knows already.

What the hell happened to Bottecchia?

In 1924 and 1925 Ottavio Bottechia won the Tour de France. The next year he started his own line of race bikes. They made some nice bikes over the years. And they were very Italian.
A few years ago, I think in 2004, I was working for a small road bike distributor. We already had a Taiwanese brand that actually made really nice road and track bikes. The builder was small and we needed another brand to sell to shops in the US. The logical choice was an Italian company because there were a few with no US representation. I can remember Bottecchia's booth in the Italian pavilion of the Interbike show. It was twice the size of most other booths but only had 4 bikes. They did, however, have a giant backdrop with a picture of one of their bikes beside a semi-nude woman. Right away we were impressed. The bikes themselves were beautiful and very Italian. The problem was that the prices just too high, higher even than the better-known Italian brands like Colnago and DeRosa. We left the meeting empty-handed and Bottecchia's Italian bikes never found a home in the US.
Fast forward to this morning. Being a lover of Italian bikes I occasionally search different builders on ebay to see what's floating around. After searching this revered brand's name I found out there is now a "Bottecchia USA" selling discount Chinese road bikes on ebay. Bottecchia, like other brands like Tommaso, sold the use of their name to some US company with Chinese connections that just design the cheapest bikes they can and sell them to unsuspecting ebayers (if there is such a thing). Ottavio must be spinning in his grave.

chrome forks

I've set up an email list for people who want kazane chrome threaded track forks. I'm not sure when they'll show up so I'm not taking pre-payment. Send me an email at njs@keirinculture.com and I'll put you on the list. These will sell out fast (again).

cure for insomnia

Fixy Life #1 from Fixy Life on Vimeo.

CSK Aero Track Bike

I'm selling this complete on ebay here. This is a pure race from built from Italian Dedacciai 7003 aero tubing. My friend got it but it was too small so I'm selling it for him. I built it with mostly new parts. The wheelset is really nice - 36h Kazane gold hubs built onto black nonmachined 30mm Kinlin rims. A Nitto njs bar rounds out the package.

new kazane crank color

Kazane cranks will now be available in blue for purchase around Christmas from keirin culture and other fine establishments (listed right). All of the other colors will be back in stock then, too.

now on keirinculture.com