NJS -The Vanity Hipster

Japan Report: Fixed Gear Bicycles I'm starting this Blog off with a very well written article on "Bike Messenger Culture". Included is the following:

"Companies like Kalavinka, Nitto and Suzue, that produce relatively low-tech bicycle parts in today's high-tech bicycle world must realize that something's up because their products are selling out when normally they wouldn't be. The fact that these brands are enjoying success is definitely because of this latest trend sweeping Japan, but also because they hold the official NJS certification meaning that their bike parts are good to go on the Japanese Keirin circuit.

This NJS acronym has also enjoyed a newfound surge in popularity as they seem to be the gold standard for fixed gear riders; if it's good enough for Keirin riders, it's good enough for me, plus it's rare. You won't find a single NJS piece on Lance Armstrong's bike, or even keirin world champion Theo Bos's bike, but you will find it on every major street corner in Japan (as well as in SF and NYC), usually hooked up to a Kalavinka frame (also NJS and apparently one of the more popular frames), or on a Keirin track in Japan."

From my previous Blog "Why Single Speed #1":

In Japan they know how to be fanatics. They make rituals and religions about almost everything. There they have track bike racing called Keirin. It’s kind of a cross between horse racing and sumo wrestling. Check it out Every single part of the bike, every component, frame, wheels, spokes, chain, everything has to be approved with N.J.S. (Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai), the Japanese Bicycling Association, stamp of approval. The standard is almost the same as the Campagnolo ISO Track parts standard. There is another standard used by Shimano called JIS (Japanese Industrial standard). This standard has minor differences from ISO in the square taper interface between bottom brackets and cranks, and the frames have different size headtubes and fork races. This is different from the English/US Standard of ISO that Shimano builds for biikes here in the US. One of the primary reasons for NJS is so all the parts will fit together without concern for any discrepancies between standards. What a concept. Unfortunately it falls too short of this, but it does maintain a large margin of safety.

But NJS is so close. Imagine the holy grail of standards, where if the component has the standard stamp of approval, then interchangeability is assured. One seatpost size; 27.2 mm. Its the universal standard, why do you need 26.8 and 27. Seat rail distance, the universal standard is 44 mm and Keirin is 30mm, but NJS allows for both; choose one! But the worse is Shimano Octalink. It seems that Shimano no longer makes square taper DuraAce track cranks, they only come in Octalink; so now Octalink is NJS approved. Never mind that almost no Keirin will use Octalink, it just shows that even NJS has it's price. Still imagine NJS without these discrepancies(from Sheldon Brown).

1" x 24 tpi headset thread with loose ball bearings
1" (25.4 mm) handlebar/stem clamp diameter
1.375" x 24 tpi bottom bracket thread (left-hand on the fixed cup)
56 TPI spoke thread
1 mm axle thread
36 spoke loose ball bearing hubs
ISO square taper axles and cranks
144mm 1/8" chain rings
1/8" chains
1/8" cogs
9/16" pedal axle diameter
Loose ball bearing track pedals with toe clips
(27.7mm seatpost with 44mm seat rails)
(steel frame and fork).

Parenthetical added by me. There is of course alot more to NJS than interchangeability, but none the less it would be awful nice

From a couple of postings from fixedgeargallery; these were random photos taken in Tokoyo.

The next two are classic Vanity NJS bikes.

The Riddle Bike??

Quick rundown for the gear enthusiasts: 59cm c-c Jonny Cycles frame fork with a mix of Dedaccai OS steel tubing, Kalavinka lugs, fork crown and BB shell, and Jonny's signature track dropouts; Chris King 1" threaded headset, anodized Nitto Pearl stem (110mm) and Jaguar seatpost; Syntace Stratos 200 TT bars, Kashimax 5 Gold 4P Keirin saddle; Sugino 75 cranks (170mm) and 52t chainring; EAI 14t cog for the fixed/fixed rear hub (12t? or 16t? for the other side); MKS Custom Nuevo Pedals with Cinelli Toe Clips and Toshi Double toe straps; Izumi Model V chain; Blood Red 36h Phil Wood High-Flange track hubs laced to 700c Velocity Deep V's, rolling on 700c/23 Continental GP4000 clinchers; to top it all off the very elusive Green Tressostar cloth tape...

and the Jesse's Nagasawa

Nagasawa 56 cm all NJS except Velocitys, Campy BB spindle Phils and saddle. Seat post was signed by the Keirin rider. (Oooo!)

But this is what I want; an NJS Vanity is my next bike.

The Hipster Bike Part 2.

Continued from Part 1

#4)Brakes, or lack there of. On the Velodrome there is no need for brakes. Track bike racers ride round and round on the track at speeds to match the level of rake (the steeper the rake the more track bike rider can maintain his speed through the turns. Since the riders are so close to each other, any rider with the ability to suddenly stop would be a hazard on the track. Since track races started when bikes were all fixed gear, there has been no need for the bikes to evolve, but road bikes have freewheels, which allow coasting and the necessity for brakes. There is a simplicity, out of necessity to brakeless track bikes, which continues even today. That said however, most track racers would think it looney to ride their track bikes on the road without a brake. The truth being you just can’t stop fast enough. The track racers in Japan (called Keirin) when training on the road, will mount a front brake, the hole in the front fork making the bike ineligible to return to the track, for the safety of having a brake. Why just a front brake you ask? Won’t you flip over the front wheel with just one brake? Well you will if you don’t know what you’re doing. 80-90 percent of your braking ability comes from your front brake. The harder you brake, the more weight is transferred from the rear to the front wheel, making the rear brake almost useless. This does however allow you to use the back pressure on the fixed drive train to help modulate your braking. Without this modulation you probably would fly over the handlebars.

Now if you intend to use this back pressure as your sole means of braking, you are going to have to REALLY pay attention to traffic. You can't slow down as quickly just using back pressure, but believe it or not, avoiding or steering around a problem with a bicycle, is often more effective then trying to stop. The problem is, if the time comes when you really need to stop, you can’t. This problem is made even more problematic the steeper the incline, which leads us to the next hipster braking topic,”Skidding”. Yes, you can skid the rear tire of a fixed gear bike quite easily; it’s a technique sort of like track stands (keeping upright on a bike without moving or touching your feet to the ground). You simply transfer as much weight to the front wheel as possible, this often looking life the rider is having sex with his handle bar, and lock your pedals; if you do this wrong it will buck you off the bike or break your knee. Some riders will lock their knee under the top tube to create the same effect (probably the only reason to have a bike pad). This is considered an essential art needed if you ride a hipster bike. Here's a pretty well done video on skidding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0AFpq6jFok.

The problem here, is that locking the rear wheel is the most ineffective way to stop a bike. Campagnolo knew something when he said a brake is meant to slow a bike down, not stop it. Granted he was justifying the poor power of his early brake componentry, but truthfully, you don’t want brakes that lock up your bicycle’s wheels. There are two reasons you want your wheels to keep turning when you brake. The first is the true braking surfaces are your wheels tires. When you brake, your speed is turned into heat. And heat is good; it will cause better adhesion to the road. However, at some point your tires will start to melt dissolving your tires and that’s bad; that is also called a skid. When you skid, small pieces of the tire turn into BB’s, and the tire just rides on those BB’s, not contacting the road, until the tire material is ground off (that’s why cars have anti-locking brakes). So what you want is the tire to roll slower then your forward speed without skidding, so the heat is dissipated throughout the circumference of the entire tire, not just the one inch contact patch. The second reason is physics. Since the front brake is doing 80-90 percent of the braking and you have no front brake, physics is going to try and make your back brake turn into your front brake. In other words, your rear tire will slide out from under you and your bike will want to turn 180 degrees , so you are skidding backwards. This of course never really happens; you will either stop skidding on purpose or fall down and start skidding again, only this time it’s not pieces of tire that are balling up, it’s you skin.

As a final caveat, the tread of a tire is made up of different compounds; softer rubber has a better ride and holds the road better, harder rubbers last longer and hold up to more abuse. Regardless, the life span of the rear tire of someone Skidding is about 20 seconds. If your really good you can keep your skid going by letting the wheel rotate ever so often to a new patch; hipster bike riders actually make videos of this talent and compete at it and track stands, when they join together.

#5)Powder coating. The Hipster bike is all about color. When you are saving that frame from the scrape heap, you are going to want to make it pretty. Powder coating is the mainstay of mountain bike frames. While the Italians may want to turn each frame into vomit fade, mountain biker just want paint that will stay on the bike. Powder coating if cheap, durable and comes in almost as many colors as bicycle pads. And then there is "Shaving". If you are going to go to all the trouble of stripping a bike down and powder coating it, you may also want to shave it. Huh? That's right I said shave it. "Shaving" is such a descriptive term that I knew what it meant the first time I heard it. Remember that a fixie Hipster bike is a converted geared bike. A dedicated fixie bike has no bosses on the frame for brake or derailleur cables and obviously no derailleur hanger. A converted geared bike is going to have these bosses. So for aesthetics sake, one may want to grind off the bosses and derailleur hanger or "shave" the frame.

#6) Wheels. As I mentioned before, the classic Hipster bike uses a suicide hub. However there is another acceptable setup, that being Velocity rims laced to Formula hubs. Both are used because they are readily available and reasonably priced. Formula makes a very generic but good looking hub. Unlike higher priced hubs that use loose balls and cups, Formula uses inexpensive cartridge bearings. Since there is no freehub, all that is necessary is an axle suspended in the hub by two cartridge bearings. These bearings are so cheap, you can by them $2 or $3 @. Velocity rims however are a style choice; a Hipster style of course. The Hipster choice is the “Deep V”. The allure of the Velocity Deep V is they come in 24 colors. That’s right, Hipster bikes are all about form over function so why not a “Bubble Gum Pink” rim to go with your lime green powder coated bike. But wait there’s more! If you are looking for that really “fresh” look, check out http://fatlace.com/lacedup/2007/06/04/more-tae-x-fatlace-wheelsets/ for zebra strips or argyle rims.


Okay I said I would come back to this bike, so lets take a look.



Fixed gear; check
MTB bar w/pink OURY grips; check
Deep V Velocity with Formula hub; check

But we also have an Aerospoke front wheel and some cards in the spokes of the rear wheel; what about those cards? I once read someone describe the look as a bike that was ridden through trash and picked up some on the way. The history behind these cards is again the couriers. On their off times bike couriers have races called Alleycats. The participants would race from location to location using what ever route they thought the fastest. The cards, originally tarot cards, were simply identifiers for the race. Today they represent pretty much what ever the rider wants them to represent.

Now the Aerospoke wheel has been around for over 25 years. It was once the hot setup for race bicycles when aerodynamics was big factor; that would be triathlon/ time trails and to a lesser degree track bikes. Once Velodromes moved inside, the need for aerodynamic wheels on track bikes also went away and with the advent of carbon fiber wheels with bladed and lower spoke counts, Aerospoke wheels started to find themselves in the Bargin Barn. Then something happened; again it was the couriers. Turns out it’s a pain in the ass to thread a chain through a spoked wheel, but throwing one through an Aerospoke is a breeze. And since for a while you could pick up a front Aerospoke for about $100, they started showing up on the couriers’ bikes and Viola! it became the style. Demand then increased, but unfortunately Aerospoke already sold off all their stock and it seems all the bargains are gone. But you still see them, like this one that has been polished and posed in front of a charming washer and dryer set.

You'll notice too, this bike and the one above have a lot in common; that's not by accident, it's truly by design. After all they are both Hipster bikes!

Why Single Speed #1

To really under stand single speed you have to be kind of a fanatic about bicycling. Bicycling has to have a special meaning for you. I stopped a YWM (young white male) on a bike the other day as he was pedaling the wrong way on a one way street, at night without a light. He was riding an old single speed cruiser with cream colored fenders and big old chrome (non-functioning) headlight. I asked him how old the bike was and just stared at me and said, “It’s just a bike.” So I figured he stole it.

In Japan they know how to be fanatics. They make rituals and religions about almost everything. There they have track bike racing called Keirin. It’s kind of a cross between horse racing and sumo wrestling. Check it out Every single part of the bike, every component, frame, wheels, spokes, chain, everything has to be approved with N.J.S. (Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai), the Japanese Bicycling Association, stamp of approval. The standard is almost the same as the Campagnolo ISO Track parts standard. There is another standard used by Shimano called JIS (Japanese Industrial standard). This standard has minor differences from ISO in the square taper interface between bottom brackets and cranks, and the frames have different size headtubes and fork races. This is different from the English/US Standard of ISO that Shimano builds for biikes here in the US. One of the primary reasons for NJS is so all the parts will fit together without concern for any discrepancies between standards. What a concept. Unfortunately it falls too short of this, but it does maintain a large margin of safety.


Once you develop this fanticism of bicycling, single speed starts to make sense. No, it’s not for everyone or it may be for everyone but not all the time. But it is bicycling at its lowest common denominator. I have been riding my fixed gear almost on a daily basis since 2001 when I bought it from a neighbor for a couple hundred dollars. I have changed it over the years. First switched out the 140mm Salsa track stem for a more comfortable 100mm Cinelli, then I switched out the sewups for some clinchers and added front brake. It stayed in that configuration until this years when a pot hole took me down, broke 5 ribs and turned my handle bar and brake levers on a Beef-a-Roni (noodles and hamburger); too bad too, because the levers were some classy Campy Athena’s. I replaced the Bar and Stem with new Salsa and Cane Creek Brakes levers. The bike seems to fit me better now than it did before and I ride it everywhere. It goes to work with me, it climbs the local mountains, cruises the local farmland and has finished the Solvang Century twice. However what led to the fixie was a single speed mountain bike but that's another story.