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U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix

Tag: Shinya Tanaka

What Comes Around

a Modhoney S frame, beautifully painted in rich green and bright orange with silver accents

The circle is a powerful symbol and a strong shape. Our friends at Circles Japan commissioned this paint scheme, dubbed, aptly enough,  “the circle,” for a run of road and cyclocross bikes we did with them. Shinya Tanaka, Circles’ owner and big-thinker, loves the idea of iterative learning and improvement, of putting back into his cycling community all the good things he takes out. We iterated this scheme in five different colourways for him.

There are a lot of great pictures of these bikes here. It is good to work with people you can call friends, people who can teach you about their cycling culture and reinforce what we all, as bike lovers, have in common. Watch this space for more collaborations with Circles and others in our extended circle of friends.

Images: Ryota Kemmochi

Perfect Circles

Circles is a different kind of bike shop. Nestled into a busy neighborhood in Nagoya, Japan, Circles is a multi-level celebration of cycling and cycling culture that includes a high-volume service center, a paint shop, a clothing store, a breakfast cafe, and at any given moment another business that springs from the mind of its owner, Shinya Tanaka. Shinya is a dreamer, a guy who spends as much time thinking about where cycling fits in Japanese society as he does about what bikes to stock in his shop, and we have enjoyed working with him to augment what we are doing in Japan. From his office at Circles he also runs a nationwide distribution network called SimWorks.

During a recent visit, he brought a photographer and videographer to capture what we do, so that he can share his passion for hand-made bikes with his already ardent customer base.

Here are just a few of the images they captured.

All photos by Ryota Kemmochi.

See more about Circles, SimWorks and Seven here.