Saitama Criterium

After almost being cancelled due to a typhoon the Saitama Criterium went ahead as planned last weekend. Our good friend Hiroshi braved the elements and sent us a few of his photos from the day...

As expected there was a huge turnout of spectators, it's not often the Tour De France comes to Asia, let alone sleepy Saitama...

 The "race" was won, somewhat unsurprisingly by Team Sky's TDF winner Chris Froome...

...Who also managed to try out a few more traditional Japanese sports while he was here...

There is talk of the actual Tour De France one day having a start in Asia, if that ever happens we highly recommend they hold a time trial around Nara Koen! There are more photos of the event over on Enomoto Yasutake's Flickr page.

Master Pista Osaka

We took a trip out to Umeda, Osaka yesterday evening to visit the recently opened store Master Pista...

Master Pista, Osaka. Photo via Master Pista Blog

As the name suggests the store specialize in Piste and fixed bikes but also have some really interesting builds on display inside, such as this vintage BSA custom creation...

The wall space in the small but cosy store is taken up with other impressive custom builds, from the classic looking...

...To the more up to date and colourful...

 ...And there are some nice bits of bicycle related kit on display like this seriously bling Aerospoke in one of the coolest wheel truing stands we have seen...

And of course there are off the peg options like this RockBikes Melancholy...

Outside the store there are even more cool custom creations....

A really nice new store. Owner Junichi-san was very welcoming, friendly and enthusiastic about his stock. It will be interesting to follow the store's progress and their funky creations via their blog or their Twitter page. If you are in the area we recommend dropping in to check out this cool new shop. Arigato and good luck to Junichi-san!

Bear Faced Bike

We spotted this out in Osaka as we were heading to the Noridaore, an ordinary looking hybrid bike with an extraordinary custom number plate/head badge...

...Closer inspection reveals it to be some kind of novelty mask but we think there is definitely a gap in the market for animal themed custom number plates, come on all you Kickstarters, stop trying to redesign the wheel and make us our animal number plates!

KRAY Summer Shit

Some seriously slick riding from over in Shizuoka...


KRAY Summer Shit from GMN TV on Vimeo.

Noridaore Bikes

A few more photos taken at the Osaka Fixed Bike Festival (we are milking these photos for all they are worth!), this time shots of some of the rider's and spectator's bikes....

Most of the rider's bikes were somewhat obviously along the same theme, brakeless, fat tyres and tight back ends...

While the spectator's bikes were more varied, a few fixies, lots of BMX's and we even saw a Brompton or two parked up...

Hayato Kobayashi short edit VOL.04

Short but sweet street from the FuckFlatland Crew...


Hayato Kobayashi short edit VOL.04 from FuckFlatlandEntertainment.TMBS on Vimeo.

FLAT ARK 2013

Next weekend Kobe will play host to Flat Ark, part of the BMX World Flatland Circuit. Team Guell will be representing and we will be there to support them and report on the action...

Fortnightly Pictures

It's been a while since we posted our weekly photos so here is a round up of randomness from the past few weeks...

Resting up over the Yodo river, Osaka.

Namba Hatch, Osaka.

Autumn is here in full force now with both the leaves and the temperature dropping...

Kasuga Shrine Gate

Autumn skies over Kofuku-ji

Sunseting over a local Nara scene.

A near deserted Nara koen after a typhoon had cleared.

Green tea ice cream on sale in Uji.

Autumn's arrival means more chances to ride now that the sweltering summer heat has gone...

Todai-ji, Nara.

One of Toshio-san's photos during our night ride last week.

Shadow shot taken on the Guell Kyoto ride.

Another view of Todai-ji

 And, of course, the Shika shot...

Dear Deer Here.

Girl's Keirin Bike

We did mean to post this a while back, one for all you NJS fans out there. Taken at Nara Keirin a couple of weeks ago, a few detailed shots of one of the girl's bikes. The people at the keirin track were kind enough to bring the bike out of the office into the sunshine to allow us to photograph it...

Obviously Nitto bars and stem...

And you guessed it, Nara's own Sugino providing the cranks...

Osaka Noridaore Vol 4 (Part 2)

Our good friend Brad was kind enough to send us some of his excellent photos taken at last weekend's Osaka Fixed Bike Festival...

One day we hope our own photographs will be of this kind of quality! A big thank you to Brad for letting us use his pictures.

As well as Bob Wood's wonderful pictures there are even more photos of the event over on Genboo's Flickr page.

Osaka Noridaore Vol 4

After Saturday's exertions we enjoyed a chilled out Sunday at the 4th Osaka Fixed Bike Festival yesterday.... 

Some serious skills on display early in the afternoon as the riders made the most of the open space at Namba River Place...

The laidback contest was sponsored by some big names including Stussy, Leader Bike, the Clan BMX Store and the 8to8 guys...

Amongst all the thrills there were the inevitable spills, very cooly handled by the competitors...

A relaxing afternoon for the spectators enjoying the autumn sunshine...

It wasn't all about fakies and foot straps, there were many BMX riders out too...

The day saw the invention of a new trick, possibly the world's first sprocket stall footplant fist-bump!...

The Namba Hatch venue filled up with spectators as the day went on...

...All coming down to see some seriously impressive riding...

As the daylight faded and the competitions drew to a close the course was opened up for a jam session where riders of all types showed off their mad skills, fixed gear freestyle, BMX,..

 ...And even Trials riders were out there riding hard...

A great day with some supreme riding and skill on display. We took quite a few photos while we were there and will post more here once we have gone through and deleted the many, many blurred and out of focus shots! No doubt there will be some decent videos of the action put together by Ryo Yokota. Bob Woods already has many, excellent pictures up for view on his Flickr page.

We leave you with a panoramic shot of the jam session that ended the day...