Woolys Wheels

General Post your ride
1

Here’s my new project. I found this frame and fork set-up out the back at work. So according to the decals on the frame it’s a ‘Woolies Wheels’ road bike frame made in Osaka, Japan. By a factory called ‘Kuwahara’ I guess? The serial number stamped in the side ‘83-4-41495’. I stripped it down to its bare minimum.

Once stripped I sent the frame and fork off to my friendly-neighbourhood-powdercoaters. They bead-blast and zinc coat the frame before laying the powder down which should help with future corrosion. I chose to go with a ‘Mistletoe green’ for the colour, almost a british racing green. I’ll be putting a basic wheelset on with a front brake, possibly a rear. I’ll also be using some older tourney cranks and polish them up really nicely, hopefully get my hands on some older dual-pivot tourney brake calipers at work, to match the cranks. Was thinking a brown saddle and some brown bar-tape with chrome parts to finish it off as well.

Also if anyone could shed some light on the origin or any information on the frame that would be great! I’ll try get it running in the next week or two.

2

pls use the search function. enter term: kuwahara. you will be pleasantly surprised.

3

Woolys is a bike shop here in Sydney. Mustve used Kuwahara as their stock rebranded frames. (As did a few other companies)

4

Apollo bikes were re-branded Kuwaharas for a while as well.

5

Correct.
As above kuwahara (which I believe is pronouced kira-ha-ra) made a lot a bicycle frames from track to road and bmx etc. in japan. They made bicycles for themselves under their brand as well as for others.
Mostly famous for there bmx’s which are still raced and loved today, but more commonly loved for a particularly bmx - the one in ET!

6

Every time i see a cool looking frame with a bit of patina powdercoated, i cry, and so does James.

7

That decal was so sweet…

8

eek +1

It looked cool rusty.

9

+1.
Such a rad decal. Such a weird find that is now just another boring powdercoated frame.

10

What a shame it looked so cool before the paint.

11

Nice find. What are your plans for it? Fixed? Roadie? Singlespeed?

12

gotta agree. the decals were sweet, the rust wasn’t bad, and clearly it’s not some sort of amazing frame (though i imagine you already knew that from the weight of it…)

13

I figured quite a few people wouldn’t be a fan of the powder-coating and would prefer the patina finish. It’s just whenever I do a build from scratch I always start it fresh and get it powdercoated. However I am planning on getting some decals made up that will look identical to these ones, it’ll be hard to organise but I’ll work something out.

The build is going to be a singlespeed for simplicity and cost. Just a front brake will be used, I’ll hopefully find some nice, comfortable drops to put on there too.

14

Cost? Minus a powdercoat puts $80 back in your pocket and enough money to afford a front and rear brake. Because running only a front brake on a single speed is dangerous.

15

ruined, cos you dumb
we were all dumb once though.
that’s why someone thought it would be a sweet idea to domesticate cats
masticate those cats
MASTICATE

16

My Gordonson (WA Frame, no longer made) is a rebranded Kuwahara, as well as many other bike companies. I left mine all patina’d and I love it, preferred it before but whatever you’re happy with! Looking forward to some progress.

17

I already have all the brake hardware sitting around, along with the rest of the parts for the build. $80 for a powdercoat job that will last a long time and look new is more than acceptable to me.

18

… and forum members NEVER do anything dangerous

19

Agreed, I hear riding brakeless fixed is also somewhat dangerous :wink:

20

i like the new colour. that decal was awesome though, hopefully you can replace it. would look nice set up tourer or townie style.