Practical steel bike

Ingola · Jan 3, 2024

Norco is a funny brand especially in the 80s and 90s you'll find a lot of sleepers and same models with various steal. They had so many models and styles quite often they were overstocked in frames so use a better steal with lower cost hardware was common. I don't mind leaves a lot of sleepers that go for cheap I paid 25 bucks for that one

dirttorpedo · Jan 3, 2024

MattiThundrrr said:
Funny thing that you mentioned those two brands, they were both associated with Norco, Fiori was actually a Norco sub brand to trick us into thinking they were Italian , not Canadian. I have a bike designed by Norco, made by Nishiki. I was surprised by ishtawa too, but mainly because I usually see Tange stickers on their products.

That was deliberate - I'm Canadian and live near the Norco head office so I knew that Fiori and Nishiki were the upmarket brands for Norco bikes.

Tange was definitely the more common tube brand in Norcos, BRC's, etc. BITD. I do have an Ishiwata EX Kuwahara frame that I built into a bike for my son - maybe those frames were made by Kuwahara for Norco?

MattiThundrrr · Jan 3, 2024

dirttorpedo said:
That was deliberate - I'm Canadian and live near the Norco head office so I knew that Fiori and Nishiki were the upmarket brands for Norco bikes

Lol as soon as we started talking about nitty gritty details of Canadian bikes, I checked out your credentials. I wasn't necessarily sharing the information for you specifically, but for future readers as well. That's the benefit of forums vs social media, this will be a searchable resource.

PS, funny you should mention BRC...
Ingola has an ultra unusual, and I'm assuming rare, one of those too

Ingola · Jan 3, 2024

MattiThundrrr said:
Lol as soon as we started talking about nitty gritty details of Canadian bikes, I checked out your credentials. I wasn't necessarily sharing the information for you specifically, but for future readers as well. That's the benefit of forums vs social media, this will be a searchable resource.

PS, funny you should mention BRC...
Ingola has an ultra unusual, and I'm assuming rare, one of those too

Interesting thing about this BRC made for far west it was actually built better than the top of the line BRC

dirttorpedo · Jan 3, 2024

MattiThundrrr said:
Lol as soon as we started talking about nitty gritty details of Canadian bikes, I checked out your credentials. I wasn't necessarily sharing the information for you specifically, but for future readers as well. That's the benefit of forums vs social media, this will be a searchable resource.

PS, funny you should mention BRC...
Ingola has an ultra unusual, and I'm assuming rare, one of those too

BRC built some interesting mountain bikes before they went bankrupt. When I was looking for a parts bike a few years back I was tempted to pick up one will full XT and a very steeply sloping top tube. Can't remember the model number.