Kamiuma Store 11th Anniversary

Hi, it’s Tani from Kamiuma store.

The Kamiuma store turned 11 years old on September 8th.

 

First of all, I’d like to say thank you to all. Every year I get surprised how quick time flies, but I’m sure that’s because we are able to serve all of you who came to our store throughout the whole year. We appreciate all of your support!

Thank you for all who have built and custom bikes at our store for the last 11 years.

We are ready to make all of you excited this year as well, including all the travel stories from our recent trip to the US…

 

So, do you remember what happened on our 10th anniversary?

“You took Konno-san’s funny photo”

True, but I’m not talking about that…

To congratulate our anniversary, we made “a request” to Rivendell.

It was a HUGE one, so I was thinking “If this came to reality, we would be extremely lucky”, and if I remember things well, I also wrote to our blog readers not to expect too much.

And as planned? a year left since our request haha. But that’s great for us! We already appreciate that they have listened to us, and I like that kind of tempo of Rivendell.

 

But, during our Riv visit recently,

“It’s definitely moving forward!” said Grant-san. That said, if I get excited too much, I’d probably go crazy just waiting for it. I’ll chill out and take this as if it’s a dream.

But, but, but…

When we met Mr. Joe Bell, the legendary painter who’ve done historical paintwork throughout his life, he told us “I know Blue Lug, heard stories from Grant…”

“…So about you guys’ frame’s color…” our legend almost made a slip of a tongue! “WAIT, I want you to surprise us when everything is ready, so please, don’t spoil it nowwww!!”

Well, I’m chill, still just dreaming y’know??

 

What if all of this actually happened, and what if we could hang that frame at our Kamiuma store one day… Imagining Kamiuma customers gasp in awe, I hope you guys too, can wait our “request” to come to life with us staffs.

 

I only talk about Rivendell recently, but there are other bikes I would really would like you to ride just like a Rivendell.

I’m talking about “American Handmade Bikes”, like the ones I saw at MADE bike show recently.

An ethos similar to Rivendell, and the very reason why Kamiuma store was set up in the first place. A craftsman called “frame builders”, making bikes frame by frame.

Frame builders for me are another aspirational group of people, although they produce bikes differently from people like Grant-san and Mike-san from BMC. I’d like you to ride bikes made from them someday!!!

Because of exchange rates and the social trend in general, we had few chances to introduce handmade bikes to customers, and this has been making me feel uneasy for the last 5 years. I hope this year we can go back to our drawing board, and share more about those bikes.

AND all the Parts manufacturers, bag makers, and bike shop around this community…

 

PAUL COMPONENTS for example, which you may only know about their high-end parts, are a group of super talented craftsmen. PAUL-san is the guy in the middle.

WHITE INDUSTRIES’ engineer Shaun is a ex-frame builder, the very guy who built the SOULCRAFT Chuyan and Aze-san rides. (I hope he makes frames again…)

And of course Matt-san from PASS AND STOW,

or KING CAGE, also handmade bike parts manufacturers!

Our mission is to gather all of those craftsmen, and show off their works in Japan, and make our cycling life as profound as ever.

 

Writing this blog made me sort of emotional… Like how we have been for the last 11 years, we will be waiting for all of your arrivals to our store as Blue Lug’s bike geeks, to share current and new bike products with passion.