F-i-N's Look KG361

When F-i-N's Giant TCR road bike got a crack on the BB shell a couple of months back he began the hunt for a new frame. The mighty Giracha had a beautiful early 2000's Look KG361 in stock. F-i-N snapped it up and swapped the parts from his Giant on to it. The results are stunning. A perfect match of old and new...

THE KATANA PROJECT: Look Ma No Brakes II

So this might take some explaining. Last Friday night Sayaca messaged me to tell me about an event happening on Saturday at the Kashimax workshop in south Osaka. THE KATANA PROJECT: Look Ma No Brakes II is a collaboration between some very legendary people, basically Nagasawa-san builds the frames, Kashima-san makes the saddles and artists Stash, Rcade and Futura do their thing decorating them. Fixed In Nara and I headed south on Saturday afternoon...

Party time.

The bikes are stunning...

Stash

Rcade

Futura

Watching Futura live paint was possibly the coolest thing that's ever happened...

Master...

At...

Work.

Oh yeah, Mr Nagasawa was there too...

Local legends. F-i-N, Nagasawa-san and Principedal.

Seeing him check over F-i-N's bike was a very special moment...

Inspection by the master.

Having Koichi Nakano's bike there just added to the insanely cool day...

Nagasawa X Rcade

OK, so many people to thank. Firstly Nadir the man who put all of this together and made everyone feel welcome. Kashima-san one of the nicest guys in the business. Sayaca, Rene, Tsutsumi, Taira and all the Giracha crew and everyone else who made this such a special, cool day.

Nagasawa x Kashimax.

Obviously we have a fuckton more photos from the day that will be posted here and on Instagram in the coming days, weeks, moths etc.

F-i-N Fixed Touring

Fixed In Nara is a very nice guy but he has way too many fucking bikes...

And when that happens you start doing crazy things like throwing a set of Nitto Randonneuring bars on a Nagasawa...

See what other mental shit he gets up to by trolling following his Instagram.

East Side Osaka Mountain Cat Club

The things Fixed In Nara finds on his morning commute...

Follow F-i-N's adventure on Instagram and Twitter.

The Cat Came Back...

A few quick snaps of FiN's newly repaired vintage Panasonic Mountain Cat, now back in action with a "new" rear NoS Mavic rim and 8 speed hub...

Knowing FiN he'll be riding this into the ground for the foreseeable future, be sure to follow his Instagram account to see where he takes it.

FiN Ridin' South

Fixed In Nara, doing his thing down in Asuka...

Photo Credit: FiN.

Wakakusa Wednesday

Last Wednesday saw the inaugural #WakakusaWednesday night ride. After sending out a few texts and a couple of Instagram posts with the details we ( F-i-N, Kentaro-san, Mikey, Takao and Nuho) all met up at JR Nara for a climb in the darkness up and over Wakakusayama...

Nuho arrived from Osaka on his gorgeous new (Movement built) Monk Bicycles dirt drop MTB...

Out into the streets we go...

Into the darkness we head, this is the only shot worth posting from the actual ride, it's fucking dark up there, FiN was shooting shots like a paparazzi in a Parisian tunnel so there may be something over on his blog soon...

Back down at JR Nara after the climb...

Cheers to everyone who came out. This will be a regular event, possibly once a month depending on the weather and if we can be arsed. Stay tuned to the Instagram.

Sunday Morning, Coming Down...

About time we had a little local flavour round here. An early start yesterday morning, joining up with F-i-N with the original idea being to head to Kyoto for the Achieve Ride. Shitty unreliable weather forecasts scuppered that plan so instead we headed south from Nara city on one of F-i-N's famous "shall we just do a loop?" discovery rides...

Say what you like about F-i-N (and many people do!) he knows the backroads of Nara very, very well...

Past the factory where all of the world's skaters are made...

A chance discovery of an American car garage/graveyard was worth a shot..

Or two...

Maybe three...

Further south and with the temperature and humidity becoming unbearable (it was still only 9am and 30C+) we took shelter and shade in a local shrine...

A bit of bike shooting...

And then back out into the heat...

Past the space station...

And the essential K-Coffee stop...

As always, thanks to the man, the legend F-i-N.