Heading to Australia

After four years in Japan I'm heading back to my hometown, Adelaide, a place I haven't called home for 15 years.

So my wife and I are selling off some stuff - not a lot. But if you're a cyclist in particular you might find a few things you like on sale.

Items include a very rare Campagnolo 151pcd 48 tooth chainring, Sugino 144pcd chainrings and a pre NJS lockring - perfect for a fixie. Hysteric Glamour clothing and a pair of John Moore shoes.





All the stuff for sale can be found here: http://openuser.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/user/kanki_knight

A stab in the dark at Lance's new team

So Lance Armstrong has a new team - and he's signing new riders every minute. Here's my guess at the line up

LA
Chris Horner
Cadel Evans
Jack Bobridge
Taylor Phinney
Levi Leipheimer
Brice Feillu
Mark Cavendish (depending on budget)
Mark Renshaw (depending on Cavendish)
George Hincapie (depending on all of above plus ability to forgive LA)
Simon Gerrans
plus a dozen big motors - anonymous guys like Popo who would be team leader on your average French team.

teamradioshack.com/getready/

Fixed gear bikes in Tokyo

It's been awhile since I loaded up some pics of bikes spotted on the streets of Tokyo. Enjoy...


This is one of the best looking Level's I've ever seen. The Tokyo-based atelier run by Shiko Matsuda has been building frames since 1975 and has been an NJS-approved frame-builder since 1980. He's a nice guy too.



This frame is a smoked grey over chrome, finished off with Sugino 75 cranks, a pretty nazzy Shimano 1/8th inch oval plate chain and, of course, Matsuda-san's signature.

The bars are Nitto RB-021 matched to the very rare Nitto badged stem from 1983 (?)


The Level had an Araya ADX-1 rim on the front. A great rim. Very narrow - just 19mm wide, it weighs 330 grams. This was the rim used by Koichi Nakano for some of his world championship wins.






And on the rear, a Wolber Profil 20. A rare rim in that it's made of a magnesium alloy. These weigh somewhere around the 300 gram mark. They were released in 1985.




This bike is a bit of a mess, but the frame is a killer - a Katakura Silk, handbuilt by Tadashi Arai, one of the gods of the frame-building world.


Sugino Super Mighty cranks - nothing wrong with them.



An old Bridgestone frame, obviously an ex-racer's bike, it's sporting Araya 16B rims laced to Dura-Ace hubs, a drop stem and tubs, but...




It's got a pair of mad Nitto B617AA "moustache" handlebars on it.



Don't know much about this bike - I just liked the chainring


What's this frame? An old San Rensho? A lugged Makino?




Nice chain too - hollow pins?

Well done Tom Boonen

Yesterday, Tom Boonen won his third Paris-Roubaix - the world's hardest one-day cycle race.


For the race Boonen used handmade Dugast tubulars instead of his sponsor's tyres.


Tornado Tom lived up to his name.


Boonen doesn't forget the fans, even after a tough ride (seen here in the Tour de France)

The Lance question

As a cyclist, I often have friends and colleagues ask me "So, do you think Lance ever used drugs?" The problem of course is most people want a one sentence answer like "He's the most tested guy on the planet, he never failed a drug test, of course he was clean." But the answer I really want to give is READ THIS:

http://velocitynation.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden

A tale from 2003

Back in 2003, I made a trip back to Adelaide to see family and friends. After a night spent at the Exeter pub with a few mates I was making my way back to the train station when I spotted someone who looked familiar. I realised it was a cyclist I'd seen on TV quite a bit.
It was probably the beers that made me go up to him and say hi, but he didn't seem to mind. He talked to me about his racing - he'd recently won a world championship in the keirin event - and was telling me about his training. He even asked if I raced.
All I was expecting was a quick exchange - one of those awkward "Good on ya mate, love your work" type exchanges you have with celebs. But he was a nice guy, and he walked along with me for a good 10 minutes. Chatting like we'd known each other for years.
A couple of hours ago, the cyclist Jobie Dajka, was found dead in his house. Aged 27. News reports say he battled depression, aggression and with the bottle. But that night I met a really down-to-earth, well adjusted guy.

Keirin rider Keisuke Tejima dead at 33

Top keirin rider Keisuke Tejima has died. Tejima was ranked among the top 18 riders in the nation. Some websites are hinting that he commited suicide.
Tejima won the SS Cup Minori in 2008 and raced for Japan in Copenhagen.

I'm Tweeting

I've begun Twittering on art, architecture, design and travel in Japan. I'll be posting on bicycle design a lot as well as some running oriented stuff such as buildings used in the '64 Olympics and new shoe designs from Japanese brands.

You can find me here:

www.twitter.com/KankiKnight

MASH SF

I see I was recently added to the MASH blog roll. Does that mean I'm a hipster now?

www.mashsf.com

Great news for Japanese cycling

Former national road race champion Yukira Arashiro has been signed by French team bouygues Telecom, which is great news because Bouygues will field a team in next year's Tour de France - and Arashiro is a "rouler" - the type of rider made for stage racing, long breakaways and rolling terrain.

The rider has certainly put in years of hard work, riding for the Vang team before getting picked up by Dutch/Japanese team Skil-Shimano.

But now he's in the big league riding the big races - perhaps Paris-Nice, Route du Sud, Paris Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The races you can see on TV - races young kids in Japan can watch on J-Sports. I hope Arashiro scores a few wins so we see more kids go get on a bike.

Cycle Mode Tokyo part 2 - Mini velos, Cervelos and velos

Nice Bomber Pro

Of all the keirin frames made in Japan there are three that I like the most - Makino, Cherubim and this one - a Bomber Pro. Try to ignore the awful saddle and rims.