Innerlight Tanaka Fillet Brazed Columbus EL Road Frame/Fork: XS 50cm - 130mm Spacing - 700c - Vintage 1990's - Breezer Dropouts - Handmade in USA

Innerlight Cycles was founded in 1982 by Kimo Tanaka of Davis, California.  It appears he has stopped building, but was still making top quality fillet brazed frames until at least 2012.  This frame is stylistically vaguely similar to a Ritchey Road Logic, just without the fastback stays. In fact, Kimo built his ultralight versions with Ritchey Nitanium tubing.  This frame used the Columbus EL that he used throughout much of the 1990's and 2000's. 

This frame is several sizes too small for me, but luckily it came to me with a riser stem so I gave it a ride.  Even being 7cm smaller than I prefer, this is one of the most fun to pedal frames I've experienced.  If you drink the Bicycle Quarterly Kool-Aid, this frame planes EXTREMELY well for me at a lanky 145 pounds.  It's flexy in all the right ways, yet I didn't feel any frame twist or BB movement.

The Columbus El steel with it's 7/4/7 top tube 8/4/8 downtube was the Italian tubing giant's lightest and thinnest steel until Spirit tubing came along. The build is masterfully fillet brazed at all joints, save the lugged sloping fork crown.  The dropouts are Joe Breeze's Breeze-In "hooded" dropouts for a stronger connection of the seat/chain stays while saving weight over traditional dropouts. 

The paint is quite versatile.  Under direct light, it is vibrant and full of sparkle as seen in most of these photos.  In dimmer light, it becomes darker and more matte-looking (as seen in the dropout photo).  The decals are whimsical and playful, featuring hand-scrawled slanty font with cute snail like spirals dotting the i's as well as Tanaka's clover logo on the headtube.

Size

• Tubing: Columbus EL frame, Columbus SL fork legs
• Effective top tube: 50cm
• Top tube: 50.5cm
• Seat tube: 49.5cm c-t
• Headtube: 136mm
• Chainstays: 410mm
• Seatpost size: 27.2mm
• BB threads: English
• Headset included: Ritchey Logic

Condition

Excellent used rider condition.  The frame is free from rust or major damage.  It has just one very shallow dent, a handlebar ding on the non-driveside top tube.  The paint overall looks quite nice, but not perfect.  There are some scratches and chips here and there.  The photos illustrate this well.  Decals are close to mint.  It's not a show bike with this paint job, but if you want a restoration show bike this would be an easy candidate with only that one shallow ding to pull out.