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,
Nishiki (bicycle company) name. In 1989, Cohen sold the Kuwahara name back to the Japanese parent company. In 1992, Cohen returned to the bicycle industry to assist the Gary Fisher bike brand — 18 months later brokering the acquisition of Gary Fisher Mountain Bikes by Trek Bicycle Corporation. Cohen later worked as a consultant in the bicycle industry for several companies, including Rotor Componentes of Spain, and subsequently retired from Lomita, California to Colorado where he and his wife, Kay (Kay Piercy Guithues Cohen) catalogued his collection of bicycling memorabilia and maintained his website, "HowieBikeMan.com." When Howie Cohen died on July 11, 2013,