Road Fixie

Since <re>starting my passion for cycling and especially fixed gear in general, I’ve entered some events as incentive and for fun. I promised myself (and my family) that I wouldn’t train seriously and let the sport overtake me – but use it as a positive lifestyle element. The Tour de Kusatsu was the first such event that I entered after beginning my conditioning regime and I managed to break the 1hr mark after just a few months cycling. Not bad, I thought. After 1yr and a few thousand more kilometers let’s see what this old cat can pull out of the bag.

First is the bike:

I started with an old Panasonic muletto, broke that. Then got a cool Japanese steelie and broke that, too. Resolved in my quest to build the perfect roadfixie, I designed and built the Toge Warrior. A titanium classic design with the stuff that makes me happy. On this bike I have been riding all over the Japanese mountains and enjoying every kilometer of it! I made some small upgrades for this race and everything came together.

I’m a big fan of the CHUB HUB, and if you see the pics of my bikes , you’ll almost always see the CHUB riding the rear! It’s a great riding hub and I couldn’t be happier with that choice. But, for a purposebuilt hillclimb, I wanted something just a little lighter and more svelte. So, I turned to my latest project, GS Astuto, and produced a special set of lightweight fixie wheels. These are based on pure carbon rimset, DT spokes and Bitex / Novatec hubs.  Strong and lightweight – they come in under 1200 gr for the pair!

Next up came the cockpit, and I upgraded to a lighter fork, carbon saddle, seatpost, stem and bars. Another substantial weight savings over my daily riding gear. You can see it here on my workbench ready to install.

The net result was an even lighter and more responsive Toge Warrior ready to do battle on the mountain! BTW – this shows the rear Chub wheel, but I had managed to get my new wheel built up at the 11th hour so I was running both front and back GSAstuto RFC-20′s!

The Training:

By habit I’m a pretty lazy guy. I let myself get heavy and out of shape, don’t stick to solid training plan or good diet. But I have been keeping up a more or less dedicated ‘concept’ of preparation which hearkens back to my old Zen Monk training days by simply ‘riding with intent’. This is more a visualization and imagination method than a hardcore play it by the numbers method. I set out riding with intention to increase effort with the imagination that I’ll do better. if I actually do – its great, if actually not, it doesn’t matter because I’ve created the space for improvement and just let the mind and body follow that. On the practical side, I ramped up my riding a notch or two and the 2 weeks prior to the event, I increased some interval cycles to get my cardio system prepped for the hard effort. That’s about it.

The results:

First off, I gotta say that this was one of the most enjoyable events I’ve participated in not because of me – but because of the family and friends around me! I spent some really quality time both on and off bike with those people I love and treasure most and at the end of the day, the bike is just spice on the pie.

Here is my coach giving me last minute position pointers on the morning of the event!

The race itself was fantastic. A beautiful day, great crowd and a challenging course. We gave our 100% and at the goal the final results were amazing. I had managed to complete the climb in 45min knocking more than 14min off my previous year’s time! This was good enough for a 7th place finish and I really couldn’t be more, literally, on top of the world.

So, what’s next? Just keep on keeping on! As the tagline of my blog says -  Push Harder, Ride Longer!

We’ve taken the bike out on several shakedown cruises and its performing beautifully. I want to get several hundred more km of climbing in and also some test rides with various VIP rider friends. Some people have requested some more pictures so we snapped a few while we’re waiting for the ultra cool studio shots.

Profile shot of the bike.

Business end – notice the extra long raised-face drops!

Crank-end. ISCG tabs are visible. Ready for the HammerSchmidt!

Titanium Coupler Detail.

While this bike is not commercially available just yet – we are very close to finalizing design and all the details to make it so. If you are interested, then please drop us a line. All of these bikes are handmade and custom designed to meet each individual’s size and details.

P.S. I’ll be out stomping up Yabitsu Toge this weekend if you wanna test ride or take a closer look in the element we created this for.

About a year ago I started riding in earnest.  What I mean is that I had not actually ridden seriously for more than 20yrs and just decided based on circumstances to get back on the bike.  Alot had changed in those 20yrs – material sciences brought us carbon and other composites, exotic metals were affordable and workable, techniques improved, bio-metrics evolved along with a major advancement in technology. Alot has not changed either. We still use the same basic drivetrain and more importantly, the ‘engine’  itself is the same. And underneath the skin, there is still the same driving forces of passion, innovation, competition and conditioning. As for me – I just wanted to get back on the bike and recover my body from some past injuries and feel the wind again in my face. A little gentlemen’s ‘king of the hill’ now and then wouldn’t hurt either.

Along the course of re-training I came across the TCC (Tokyo Cycling Club) and read their spirited posts about cycling in the mountains of Japan, winning races and overall passion and somewhat obsession for all things cycling. In particular I was drawn to the challenge of conquering a few of these famous ‘toge’ or passes in a slightly different way – on a fixed gear. Why? Other than the fact thats what I happened to be riding at the time – it raised a new challenge to me. Personally I had raced and toured all over the US and Europe and no longer wanted to assume the tortuous regime required to raise myself to an elite level. However – this fixed gear challenge was of a different sort. A very pure and natural challenge based on the simple mechanics of bike and rider. A strong connection to the road and the mountain which presents itself as the insurmountable object. So, somehow, the tortuous regime of training became one of necessity to meet the challenge of the Toge rather than the mass hysteria of the Peloton. It was something I could do on and by myself. With results being the simple satisfaction of  ‘I MADE IT’.

Now then, humans are social creatures and I’m no different. I like to ride with people as much as alone. And through these jaunts (and taunts) I discovered that a few other brave souls were indeed similar minded and experiencing the same things as I especially regarding the fixed gear on the road (hence RoadFixie). We pondered and pained our way up thousands of kilometers of roads and meters of climbs. During those times, I formed the basis for the frame delivered today. Something that would be a kindred spirit and tool for these rides and also a result of my experiences cycling through the years. So it was born. The ‘Toge Warrior’

Here are a few pictures from the first ride – I’ll let them speak for themselves!

The ‘rear set’. As you can see – we fitted it with a Chub Hub / Mavic CXP. I love this combo and it works very well on this bike. The slightly heavier wheel helps to reduce skipping and stutter under seriously hard sprints – especially uphills. And the Chub Hub gives noticeable improvement in power transfer. Note the gorgeous dropouts – shamelessly inspired by the Kalavinka, what can I say?

Ready to roll on the first climb up Wada. For the proto build we just slapped on some generic reversible pedals and Daeda cockpit. The Thompson Elite seatpost will stay and probably the Fizik , though an upgraded Aliante.  Crankset is a SRAM 300 – which seems pretty good for the moment and use a standard NJS chain by HKK.

There she is sitting pretty at the top of the mount. Notice the brushed finish and you can just barely make out the couplers. I placed a couple of  oba^san arm warmers over the tubes to protect them in transit – and to somewhat camouflage the frame.

I’ll be posting more pictures as we go along farther in this evolution and journey of the perfect frame.