Yoshi Nishikawa — Invisible Quality

A Papersky Japan Story

Outdoors & Design 08

Yoshi Nishikawa
The Invisible Quality of KUALIS Cycles.

Bicycles are simple products, vehicles with simple intelligent structures. This is the attraction for me and why I want to design and build them with stories.

If you’re going to visit a bicycle frame builder, it only seems fit to visit them on two wheels. The question is, can my two legs turn my two wheels the 380 km from Ishikawa to Wakayama, the home of KUALIS Cycles? This is my human powered journey to visit Yoshi Nishikawa and listen to the stories that go into each custom bicycle frame he designs.

The first thing Yoshi does is make us a cup of KUALIS dark roast coffee, before jumping into technical talk. The Titanium frame making process is more complex than steel. Off the shelf titanium butted tubing is more complex than straight tubing and custom made butted tubing more complex still. Yoshi enjoys using all types of tubing, each having their own particular look and feel, all good for different reasons. Nonetheless, his unique skill lies in making titanium frames with custom made butted tubing. What is butted tubing? Butted tube design means carefully making different thickness sections along the length of a bicycle frame tube. To be precise, along the top tube, down tube and seat tube. Different types of butting in different combinations create different ride feels. He is the only frame builder in Japan making custom titanium frames this way and his frames are beautiful not only to look at, but to ride. However, the real beauty lies in the invisible design. The invisible is where the design magic happens and it is this invisible design that excites Yoshi the most.

A winter has passed since I’d ridden my bike and years since I’d ridden so far. Friends came together to help me on my way; A stock of The Small Twist Trailfoods ‘The BAG’ from Yuka & Kosuke Yamato, A KS Ultralight Daypack from Laurent Barikosky and a tenugui from Keigo Kamide. The going was easy until I turned southwest into the coastal headwinds. As I cycled I repeated the mantra “you are not allowed to order a new bike… you are not allowed to order a new bike”.

Yoshi has put in the hours, studying architecture at Tokyo Gakugei University, before realising that he not only wanted to design, but also to make. He’s modest when it comes to why he wanted to make bicycle frames, simply saying that he wanted to make something smaller than a house and it was the cycling culture that attracted him. Bicycles are simple intelligent machines taking mastery of material and technique to build. Add to that a background in architecture and you have a mastery of geometry and structural integrity too. This is the invisible magic I mentioned. Yoshi’s frames are stunningly designed in both the visible and invisible, following a unique story he creates for each customer.

Starting his apprenticeship at Level Cycles in Japan, moving to Seven Cycles in Boston a few years later. It was here where he mastered the technique of TIG welding and the use of titanium as a frame material. After more than 11 years of frame design and building experience, it was time for Yoshi to breakaway and start KUALIS Cycles on his own. 

Leaving the wonderful Ayukawaenchi Camping Ground at 6am, I pedalled on through the Fukui headwind, now with rain for good measure. Sheltering under the roof of a rundown rest stop I peered down the misty coast towards what I thought might be today’s destination; Tsuruga.

The story continues at Papersky Japan Stories

OUTDOORS & DESIGN Series
James Gibson, an outdoor enthusiast and designer - bring his two passions ‘OUTDOORS & DESIGN’ together to shed sunshine on Japanese: projects, art, creative endeavours and brands that are enlightening our natural world.