The    History    of    Sekai  Bicycles

We want to extend our gratitude to Robert Freeman for granting us permission to share his article on the history of Sekai bicycles and the Velo bike shop in Seattle.  We also appreciate the images provided by Mr. Freeman shown in the article.

Sekai Bicycle Company was started in Seattle in the late 60s by a local family with Japanese roots and connections.  They had started as Velocipede bike shop and were importing bikes and parts from Europe and Asia.  Additionally, they developed a small mail order business, and grew quickly in the bike boom years, practically selling bikes right out of the truck at times.

SEKAI BICYCLES: A TESTAMENT OF DETERMINATION

They partnered with Shin-wa trading company of Osaka to contract Sekai bikes to be built by several Japanese factories.  The top of the line Sekai 4000 road and track frames, and superlight 5000 frames were made by a small custom frame shop called Miki.  As a matter of fact, they had several distribution partners for the bikes including Merry Sales of San Francisco, Yellow Jersey of Madison, Freewheel Bike Co-op of Minneapolis, and Turin Denver.

SEKAI BICYCLE COMPANY

Unfortunately, in 1977 Sekai was forced by Shinwa and its Japanese suppliers to divorce their retail and mail order operation from the wholesale, and start over as Sekai Bicycle Company.  Furthermore, Sekai  was undercapitalized and fell victim to rapidly increasing exchange rates in the late 70s,  and eventually was taken over by another Shin-wa customer, Norco of Canada.

Subsequently, they discontinued the Sekai name in favor of the Norco brand in the early 90s, but finally pulled out of the US market in the mid 90s.  Sadly, Velo Bike Shop closed it’s doors in May of 2023.

TEAM VELOCIPEDE OF SEATTLE

The owners were former racers and always wanted to have a high profile presence in Seattle.  As a result, they started a racing team also called Velocipede of Seattle.  In fact, they got some sponsorship from Sugino and also chipped some in through their Sekai brand name.

They spawned such racers as Mark Pringle (later to be a National Team member and ride in Europe), Rebecca Twigg (later to be World Champion), Kay Henshaw (World Masters Champion), Graham Garcia, Jane Robinson (National Road Champion), Linda Peters, and Dennis Palmer.   The team pretty much folded when Norco took over the company in 1979.

Here are some of the various Sekai models:

2500                                                    2000 Super SX

4000                                                     2700 Gt Deluxe

Competition                                      Magnum GT

Limited 2400                                    Magnum S7

Grandtour 2500                                3000

2500 Grandtour                                2500

4000 Criterium                                Sasquatch

4000 Professional                           Bigfoot

2400                                                    Sprint

1000                                                    4000

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