Such a small world, seems every day brings another reminder. I recently sold an FSA spoke tension gauge to Charles Carrie, an accomplished wheel builder and triathlete (11 Ironmans!), whose shop is 20 km southeast of Paris. He began asking question about Ghisallo wood rims. Before you know it, he built a pair:

Bianchi never looked better

His curiosity just grew from there and last week he became the Ghisallo distributor for France and Monaco. If you read French, check his site.

Wood rims have a hypnotic effect on bystanders but they exert a greater effect on wheel builders. Read more →

It hardly seems that I missed the Taipei Show this year (mid-March). The coverage afforded such events is so comprehensive, you nearly see as much browsing blogs as actually being there. Of course, there’s nothing like seeing old friends face-to-face, but at least I was able to spend some time there the month before. Nothing beats visiting Taiwan just after Chinese New Year. The country is still festive and the weather cool and mild.

This year’s Show featured many memorable machines but I’d like to point out a couple of knockout concept bikes offered by Fritz Jou, the famous bike assembly factory. These folks are masters of the trade, creating and delivering entire bike lines for European and American customers. Part of their strength is staying close to style and design trends and one of their in-house experts is Monie (pronounced “moonie”) Gaba, formerly director of Omnium, that performed a similar function to Fritz Jou, but from Oxnard, CA. When their biggest customers (GT, Schwinn, etc.) shut down US production, they closed.

Monie produced two retro style fixed gear bikes that featured Ghisallo wood rims. Check these shots:

Red and wood beauty

Cream and green dream

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For high quality, close up images of the tool, please visit this previous post.

Machines do not happen by themselves, and behind every great one is impressive talent. Morizumi designed his spoke cutter/threader based on extensive experience with spoke manufacturing at Asahi Spoke Company in Osaka. This tool combines that special insight with his own cleverness. It’s certainly one of the most elegant and effective devices I have used.

He runs a one-man shop where every task is handled personally.

Morizumi builds a cutter

Some of you will recognize this distinctive track bike:

Schwinn Paramount, circa 1938-39

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