Nishiki (bicycle company) Nishiki (bicycle company) Nishiki is a brand of bicycles designed, specified, marketed and distributed by "West Coast Cycle" in the United States, initially manufactured by Kawamura Cycle Co. in Kobe, Japan, and subsequently by Giant of Taiwan. The bicycles were first marketed under the "American Eagle" brand beginning in 1965 and later under the "Nishiki" brand until 2001. Throughout the U.S. bike boom of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Nishiki and "West Coast Cycle" competed with domestic companies including Schwinn, Huffy, and Murray; European companies including Raleigh, Peugeot and Motobecane—as well as other nascent Japanese brands including Miyata, Fuji,
Vitus (bicycle company) Vitus (bicycle company) Vitus is a French bicycle manufacturer best known for its steel cycle frame tubing, and its frames built with aluminium tubes joined to aluminium lugs by bonding - a construction method the company pioneered in the late 1970s. Compared to modern aluminium bicycle frames, early Vitus aluminium frames, such as the 979, offered more comfort because of the small diameter of the tubes. As a result, the frames lacked some degree of lateral stiffness compared to their steel counterparts. The Vitus 992 improved on the 979 design by pinching the aluminum tubes into an ovoid shape at