FOR SALE: Rata JOPO

Olli is selling his unique Rata Jopo, here.

Truly one of a kind custom tarck bike. Don't sleep on this, collectors.

Helkama Starts Manufacturing Jopo Bikes In Finland Again

News of the day: manufacturing of the Jopo, the most classic and loved Finnish single speed bike, will be brought back to the original site in Hanko, Finland from Taiwan. Even the steel used in the frame will be sourced from the Finnish Rautaruukki mills from now on. Bite it, globalization! Too bad the modern re-designed version is ugly as sin.

Also, one of the reasons for this move is, and I quote the Helkama Velox CEO Mr. Jarmo Elamo: "... the need to able to react quickly enough to the changing color trends in the market." All right. Great news nonetheless.

Here's little something I've written about Jopo bikes long time ago:

"Everyone in Finland knows Jopo -bikes because between 1964 and 1975 Helkama company manufactured over 250 000 of them in their factory in Hanko in southwestern Finland. They also manufactured fridges and other stuff but Jopos were always their #1 product.

The name Jopo stands for an abbreviation of 'JOkaisen POlkupyörä', meaning 'EVerybody's BIcycle', and in a this size country basically everyone and their grandmother had one of those. The design of the bike stayed almost the same until the manufacturing stopped in 1975 and today the classic Jopo is considered a modern Finnish industrial design classic.

In fact there were several models besides the standard one, there was an official orange mailman version used by all the mailmen of The Post of Finland, there was Jopo Rodeo, an extra rare chopper-style model, small kiddie-size Jopo called 'Joponen' and larger-sized Iso Jopo, a foldable Jopo Mobil, a Jopomatic with gears and a super rare early bmx-style Jopo Cross. They even had an exercise model for the gym.


The main selling point was that they were affordable, good quality, durable and good to ride. Then of course Jopos became somewhat trendy some years ago and soon after that Helkama company who owns the brand name released a modernized new Jopo, which, just like the new VW Beetle, sucks. On the other hand it has never been difficult to find an old Jopo in Finland even if people are nowadays trying to ask for really outrageous prices for them."

TdF 2009 Stage 2: Jussi Veikkanen wins the maillot à pois rouges !!!

The Tour 2009 had begun and what's going on? My countryman with whom I also share same first name Jussi Veikkanen (Francaise des Jeux) wins the polka dot Jersey at the second stage, which he took away from Alberto Contador himself BTW. And he also made Finnish cycling history by being the first Finn ever to ride in a winner's jersey at any of the big races.

The King of the Mountains! Pure fucking awesomeness !!!

Itera Plastic Bike

This is a nice one. A super-rare Swedish early 1980s all-plastic Itera bicycle, spotted on a Finnish online auction site. I actually remember when these were around, how could you forget something as cool as this? I was pretty young back then but that was the days of Tron, remember?

"The Itera Plastic Bicycle was an attempt in Sweden in the early 1980s to modernize the bicycle by replacing metal with plastic fiber composite materials and using injection moulding. The project ended after three years as a commercial failure..."

If you read the bike's history on Wikipedia, you realize that it just was like IKEA furniture, only 20 years before IKEA went big:

"... The bikes were delivered unassembled with tools provided in the box. In autumn 1981, more than 100,000 Swedes indicated they were interested. ...  However, sales were slow and the news media lost interest. The fact that not every box contained every part to assemble a bicycle frustrated many customers. ... Boxes of bicycles piled up in shops. Among them were returns, mostly with broken. Where metal bends, plastic breaks."

Anyhow, there was a kind of a happy end to the story of Itera:

"Production ended in 1985. The stock was sold to the West Indies where they became popular as rust is a problem with metal bicycles."

Oh, I would so like to see a picture of a Rastaman happily riding that bike in Kingston's Shanty Town back in 1986. 

But who will buy the one linked above, just for the front wheel? The fork is also pretty funky. 

Vintage Finnish Track Bike: Peto

Ok, I'm from Finland and while our country is not known for its glorious cycling history by any means, we do have one very beautiful Velodrome, in Helsinki and built for the 1952 Olymic Games. In addition to that there's been at least one Finnish bicycle company/brand making track bikes. Long long time ago. 

Check out the pics above & below for a vintage Finnish Peto track bike. The brand does not exist anymore, the name 'Peto' stands for 'Beast' (for real!) and the bike is probably from 1950s, I guess?  

You can see it at the Velomania exhibition in Vapriikki Museum Centre, Tampere, if you're really interested. 

In fact, I do remember reading somewhere that Tunturi, one of the oldest and largest Finnish bicycle manufacturers, did build the bikes for the Finnish (rather unsuccesful...) track cycling team of the 1952 olympic games but I've never seen any pics of them. 

(Pics by MrVelo, thanks!)