I hung out with a bud today while he readied his early 80's Maruishi Mountace MT18 for an upcoming tour. He got the bike as a frame/fork and did a nice job building it up with a bit of a Rivy style. Looks good to me. This frame has the semi dreaded 21.1mm stem/fork but Ben managed to find a nice Nitto stem for the job. I poked around a bit and it seems that Maruishi is still around and that they rebranded at some point for the US market and sold as Jamis. The bike is lugged and well made. Closer examination of the lugs and other details makes me wonder if Maruishi (or whoever made bikes for Maruishi) also made my 84 Bianchi Grizzly. The lugs/fork crown/cable stop/braze ons seem to be the same on the two bikes. The fork crown is no suprise because many Japanese bikes of that era used the same fake bi-plane crown but the other details really make me wonder. Whatever the case it's a cool bike with some unique details.
Just a better shot of the fast back style stay attachment.
Double dimple
Bad pic here but these babies were crazy long. I measured the chainstays at 480mm.
Nice long horizontal dropout.
And for reference the rack mount and cable stop on the Grizz.
more grizz
more grizz
