Shogun Bicycles was a full range marketing brand originally owned by the Japanese trading company Marui Ltd. in Kobe Japan and founded by Rio Marui. They had been known in Japan for years for their Orions brand. Marui handled most of specialized purchasing in Japan
Marui Ltd. (Rio) was close to Shimano and was the Shimano supplier to Merida, Ideal and a few others. But at some stage, when the export business started drying up out of Japan, they made the decision to go wholesale.
Marui also developed and owns the Tioga line of components & parts. Marui opened a USA office under
the name Boeki, located in Glendale, CA; Rio`s son, Shinji, worked in this office with Mark Pippin.
The Shogun name debuted in the USA circa 1977. The last record of their appearance on file is 1993. However, some examples have shown up that appear to have been manufactured in the 60’s.
Shogun bicycles were contract manufactured by various sources including Merida, Miki, Tano, Yamaguchi and several unidentified sources. Since 2004, the brand has been owned by Kent International of New Jersey.
SHOGUN BICYCLES EAST TO WEST COAST
In the early 1980s, Shogun operated its distribution out of New Jersey. Later, in the late 1980s, they shifted to a dual distributorship based in both New York and Washington. By 1990, they dropped the East Coast distributor and focused solely on Seattle Bicycle Supply in Kent, Washington. Eventually, Toker’s Seattle Bike Supply (SBS) became part of the Accel Group, a Dutch company, in 2006.
Shogun’s road model with Tange Prestige was the Ninja, while the ATB model utilizing Prestige was the Prairie Breaker Team. Other Shogun MTB models were the Ground Breaker, Trail Breaker and Prairie Breaker.
Shogun had probably the best mountain bike for competing. All the guys who were winning were riding it and so everybody wanted one.
SHOGUN BICYCLES ORDERED BY THE CONTAINER
A Shogun distributor in Australia, Bikecorp, ordered these bikes by the container load. Remarkably, even though they only requested one model, one color, and three frame sizes, the entire container was sold out before it even left Japan.
In addition, Marui handled several other brands, including CENTURION Centurion, TOPEAK Topeak, TIOGA Tioga, ERGON Elgon, Schwinn, and FINISH LINE Finish Line.
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