The Recherché was a private label frame, built for Kent and Kyle Radford, owners of a bike store in Rancho Bernardo, CA. (San Diego County.) They wanted a frame they could sell in their store and also market to other Southern California bicycle dealers.
They had a name for the product, Recherché, and a decal design. The frame was the exact same geometry as the Fuso, in fact one of the reasons I took on this project was because I could build the frames in with the Fusos.
I usually worked on batches of five frames minimum, all the same size. So I would build 3 Fuso frames and 2 Recherché for example. There were slight aesthetic differences in the two frames, like different seatstay caps and fork crown, and a different treatment was given to where the front and rear dropouts joined the tubes.
The Recherché frames were originally offered only in red, but later blue, yellow, black and white were added. The frames were a single color with a white decal panel on the seat and down tube. Some 200 were built, mostly in 1985 through 1987.
One of the French interpretations of the word Recherché is “Sought After,” which is somewhat prophetic. They were a no frills frame with a slightly simplified paint job when compared to the Fuso, but because there were far less built, there is a rarity appeal to this model.
| Frame # | Size | Owner | City and State | Owner Since | Org. Paint/RP |
| 001 | 52 | Kent Radford (2) | San Diego, CA | 1985 Org. Own | Org. Paint |
| 008 | 53 | John Kerridge | Del Mar, CA | 1991 | Org. Paint |
| 024 | 58 | Neville Stranger | San Diego, CA | 1996 | Org. Paint |
| 037 | 53 | Adam Richman | Bozeman, MT | 1985 Org. Own | RP |
| 038 | 53 | Ken Wallace (2) | Bizbee, AZ | 2007 | Org. Paint |
| 040 | 51 | Albert Sison (5) | Beaumont, CA | 2010 | Org. Paint |
| 041 | 51 | Justin Schmidt | Brooklyn, NY | 2009 | Org. Paint |
| 043 | 51 | Judith Moore | San Diego, CA | 1985 Org. Own | Org. Paint |
| 062 | 53 | Karen Rawls | Winchester, VA | 2008 | Org. Paint |
| 071 | 56 | Zach Pollard | Seattle, WA | 2006 | Org. Paint |
| 081 | 62 | Lorin Youde (4) | Carlsbad, CA | 2009 | Org. Paint |
| 094 | 53 | Anonymous Owner | 2009 | Org. Paint | |
| 098 | 51 | Dave Moulton (2) | Charleston, SC | 2007 NOS | Org. Paint |
| 102 | 51 | Rhonda Radford | San Diego, CA | Org. Paint | |
| 117 | 62 | Bill Kloos (2) | Eugene, OR | 2010 | RP |
| 146 | 56 | Bob Bruton | Torrance, CA | 2011 | Org. Paint |
| 152 | 57 | Scott Reder | Butler, NJ | 2008 | Org. Paint |
| 166 | 56 | Burke Grantham | San Diego, CA | 2010 | Org. Paint |
| 207 | 53 | Albert Sison (5) | Beaumont, CA | 2011 | Org. Paint |
| 218 | 53 | Andrew Stahl | Seattle, WA | 2011 | Org. Paint |