There’s a great little write up on our favorite Japanese bicycle components manufacturer, Nitto, over on the Tokyo Fixed Gear blog. Check it out.
Nitto is located in Fukushima Prefecture, the region in Japan that was severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. It’s heartening to see the Nitto factory is up and running, full steam ahead, especially considering how sketchy things remain in that part of Japan. Sometimes, one’s work can help the heart navigate so much uncertainty. I definitely can find solace in my workshop. Headaches and bloody fingers, too, but there’s good borne out of such toil.
The Tokyo Fixed Gear profile of Nitto includes a little history of the company, a great short video of some production processes (I never knew that was how a drop handlebar was made*) and gorgeous photography. Thanks for sharing the good stuff, TFG!
Tokyo Fixed visits Nitto from Tokyo Fixed on Vimeo.
More and more, I’m seeing bike related sites and blogs and people incorporating very nice photos, and it’s inspiring to an amateur photography hobbiest, like myself.
I’ve been documenting my frame builds on digital media for a few years now. In the past year, I’ve started to incorporate some actual film photographs. I like the digital for immediate gratification and straight up documentation. I, too, like the freedom I feel to just snap away, without repercussion.
For me, film photography is akin to my framebuilding process; precise, deliberate, careful, warm, colorful, captured and controlled light/flame, crafted, costly, requiring technique and skill honed by repetition and practice and sensitivity, timing and most especially patience.
Nitto, too, demonstrates many of these attributes. While watching the Tokyo Fixed Gear video I delighted in the thought that those people may have made my handlebars or stems or seatposts. Someone, possibly in that video, may have brazed, welded, machined, chromed, inspected or packed so many of the wonderful Nitto products I’ve enjoyed over the years. I also wished I could have a Nitto factory work shirt – looks snazzy and a great blue.
Thank you Nitto!
*Those tube benders used for handlebar shaping must have some kind of hydraulic assist on the actual bending process, and yet the workers make it look like human force is required to move the bender.
I’m also glad to see that the anodizing and chrome plating processes are automated, and not just some poor shmo dipping bars in an acid bath with a wire coat hanger. Then again, this is Nitto. Did I expect any less?
