Tarini Track Bike

 Tarini is not a name in cycling (in NZ)

that would usually get any enthusiast or

collector too worked up, they are known for their 
range of pretty mundane late 1980'early 90's 
entry level road bikes, I know I haven't

ever aspired to have one in my collection...

..until I saw this frame for sale recently.

it was being advertised along with another three track bikes, 

 which had gathered a lot of interest, but I kept going

back to the unlovedTarini frame, here is the original photo
 from the listing.

There was something very serious about this bike.

Anyway I got it real cheap, as I said Tarini just don't 

get the local bike guys going.

It duly arrived, and straight away I knew I had made

the right decision, although sparse in detail, it was 

very nicely built and once stripped, cleaned and 

reassembled, and set up.. looked like it meant business.

Nice clean Tange fork crown detail. 

So cut to a few days later, I am at my local bike shop

The Hub, and mention the Tarini to the owner Rob, who tells

me you could order a custom built Tarini back in the day, and

in fact he had had one built for his son's first road bike.

 Tange 2 tube set, about the same gauge as Columbus SL

 Pretty tight clearance.

But here is where the story gets real interesting, it also

turns out that the main frame builder at Tarini was 

none other than Mark Mcclean, the same Mcclean

who built one of my favorite NZ race bikes..

Mitchell 

So now I am doubly pleased I took the punt on

this Tarini, and also put another piece of the

NZ frame building history jigsaw together. 

Strangely enough I brought this pretty ugly jersey

a couple of years back, I didn't really want to, but thought

at the time that maybe it would have some sort of 

NZ cycling historical significance in the future...turns out it has.

Here is a piece of new information that David Benson has
just enlightened me with.
"This looks like one of a batch of Japanese track frames that 
Cycle Manufacturing Co, aka Tarini, imported in the late 80s. 
Does the bottom bracket have an NJS approval logo?"

I have double checked the frame and, couldn't find any NJS
logo's, damn shame. Will have to look into this interesting bit
of history.
Thanks David.