Spotted in Tokyo...

coincidentally, i was in tokyo last week for a lecture in the former vivalo factory above the carnival shop. I learnt about the intriguing 'missing link' between japanese, italian and us frame manufacturers... And, bizarrely, a connection with the star wars trilogy.
Apparently, late one night in 1974 yoshi kono, then head of 3rensho predecessor cyclone ltd, was knocking back the saki in a downtown bar with mentor and legendary italian counterpart gino cinelli to whom he was apprenticed, when they bumped into a young george lucas who was in japan with actor friend burt reynolds and burt's brother jim, researching samurai lore for a certain sci-fi film he was thinking of making. To cut a long story short, the group ended up having a drinking session in a backroom at the cyclone factory. While discussing lucas's film project and keirin racing, kono learnt that jim also made bikes back in the us and drunkenly suggested a collaboration between himself, cinelli and jim. To symbolise the triple alliance he proposed calling the company 3rensho (japanese translation: 'threesome'). This led to an argument between him and cinelli about whose tubing was the best. In an attempt to prove his was best kono grabbed a section of a frame that was lying about in his workshop and mimed attacking cinelli. Entering into the knockabout spirit of the moment, cinelli grabbed a similar length of tube and the pair had a playful sword fight, with the tubes clashing noisily. Nothing came of the proposed collaboration, but interestingly the new friends all stayed in touch, and the 3rensho name was later adopted by kono, and, of course, the lightsaber fight in star wars bears a striking resemblance to the mock sword duel an inebritated lucas witnessed that night. Kono later accused reynolds of stealing a section of his tubing that evening and using it as the basis for his own line of strong leightweight tubing. He may have a point. Reynolds 531 tubing came out the very next year. And mysteriously, kono was crippled in an apparent drink-drive car smash just weeks before a copyright case against reynolds was due to be heard in court. Cinelli gave up making frames soon after and passed ownership of his factory to his brother guissepi before changing his surname to ginelli, in order to avoid confusion with his new ice cream-manufacturing business. Gino ginelli, as many of you perhaps know, invented the tri-colour neapolitan ice cream. Less well-known is that fact that this was a playful tribute to his old friend yoshi kono's idea of a 'threesome' frame manufacturing enterprise. Each of the three colours symbolised a different maker: Cinelli, reynolds and 3rensho. Kono repaid the compliment by designing a pursuit frame with a matching tri-colour 'neapolitan' paintjob and 'melty ice cream' style geometry. Incredibly, that bike frame is currently for sale at tokyofixedgear.com!
A fascinating footnote: The lecturer also told us that the name vivalo does not, as is commonly believed, derive from a conflation of the words 'viva' and 'velo', but from an english football team and a swedish car both much admired by the frame builder for their respective creative flair and sturdiness - volvo and aston villa no less! Fascinating stuff.

qft!!!