Tom La Marche Was Here!
Hello, good afternoon, This is Cent from Blue Lug Yoyogipark.
Early this month, it was Golden Week in Japan, which is a week where we have consecutive holidays. I saw many people out riding their bikes. I spent most of the time working at the shop, but it was fun to chat with people who came out to visit us on their vacation.
During that special week, we had a very special guest in town!
Tom La Marche from La Marche bike co. and his partner Brittany came to Japan!
If you’re reading this, you may already know who and what he does, but he is the bike builder of his own brand, that we carry at Blue Lug and my favorite frame builder.
Some people were lucky and got to meet them while they visited all three shops in Tokyo.
They were on a vacation, so we didn’t plan any events, but I fortunately got to hang out with them, so I’d like to share some of the things we did.
Day 1 : We invited the two to our restaurant Lug, to welcome them.
The two brought their own bikes, so our staffs were super curious about them and asking so many questions.
Teppei a.k.a. Nasty, who is an old friend from Tom’s FGFS pro rider days made a surprise visit.
“I remember you just disappearing before the main event at the San Francisco Red Bull Style, 15 years ago. Everyone was like, where the hell is Tom!” says Teppei.
I feel like there are two type of riders in extreme sports, contest riders and street riders. I love both types of riders, but I think Tom wasn’t a big fan of competing with close friends he’s ridden with. I may be completely wrong though.
This is Tom trying on the random gift he received from the Kamiuma guys. It’s a pair of glasses made of bottoms of bottles, which is a thing in Kamiuma.
The staffs that ordered Tom’s frames were constantly asking for advice. He was very nice and was answering all the questions. That’s why we love him!
The next day, we rode to LEVEL‘s workshop in Arakawa.
The picture shows us talking about the time trial bike on the wall. Matsuda-san, the president of LEVEL said they made the bike for a bike show that took place 40 years ago. Someone offered them 6 million yen for the bike but, declined because the bike was so hard to build and they didn’t want to do it again.
According to Matsuda-san, the horizontal placed frame building jigs are the standard for keirin frames, but this was apparently rare in America, so Tom was very curious about this jig.
Matsuda-san also mentioned that this jig was made about 70 years ago, but it never had any issues. (Amazing!)
Tom really likes these types of old machinery and is one of his inspirations for his frame colors. He was saying that he could spend a couple of hours taking pictures if he had the time.
Now, I’d like to show the two bikes they brought to Japan.
The yellow bike in the very front is Brittany’s Phat Track. The brown-ish bike behind is Tom’s bike, which is also a Phat Track, and the bike at the very end is my Town & Country. All La Marche bikes.
The Phat Track is a track frame that fits fat tires, as its name suggests. The forks and the spacings were different. I think they were testing things out. These track frames are available for order.
The bikes that Tom builds are all simple and clean. His frames does not have flashy decorations, but the silhouette and the small details are very beautiful.
His frames have a practical design, so you can ride them in your daily lives, but there are so many interesting details that make you want to stare at the bike for hours.
Like this S bend on the chain stay to the drop out. It’s truly a work of art! I also love that he put brakes on his track bike to respect the Japanese law.。
You can see the full bike check by clicking the two images above.
After visiting LEVEL, we went to Shami’s workshop. Tom looks so cool with a blow torch! Shami and Tom were working on something together, so we might have an update from Shami soon.
One night after a few days, Tom came out to one of our trick sessions.
We have this session in a secret spot in Setagaya every week. Tom mentioned that he wanted to check it out before the trip, so I was super stoked to have him join in.
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Boy, was I fan boying. He said he haven’t been doing tricks for a while, but he was still super good.
Around 20 people got together. It was such a great night!
We invited Teppei and Marco, two old friends of Tom as a surprise and it worked! All of these people are riders who spent a long time riding bikes and doing tricks. Everyone had become older and it was a bit touching to see them reunite. In fact, Kaneyan was probably crying. Thank you Toku-san for arranging this surprise.
The two went to Hakone for a couple of days and headed back to the states.
I already miss them! I hope I can visit Oregon soon.
Thank you Tom & Brittany!
