There will be a change of business hours for the Hatagaya store.

September 3rd (Tue.) OPEN
September 4th (Wed.) OPEN
September 5th (Thu.) OPEN
September 6th (Fri)　CLOSED
September 7th (Sat.)　CLOSED

The Hatagaya store will not be opened in the next weekend. The other store branches will stick to their usual business hours. Thank you for your kind understanding in advance.

You may wonder, what the heck are these guys doing in such an important time for a bicycle shop? As said in the title of this post, the Hatagaya mechanic staff will be attending the Rapha Prestige race.

The members will be Chuyan, Kaneyan, Duncan, Daichi and myself. 5 old dudes.

The Rapha Prestige is an event in which teams of four to five people ride together in some of the most enchanting places around  for cycling. The route is not easy at all, approximately 150km long and has an elevation gain of approximately 3000 mha.

It’s not a race about speed. It’s about reaching the goal with your teammates. It’s about conquering the tough challenges with your team mates, and to share the joy of riding through a path with astonishing view with your teammates.

Adventure, team work and adaptability. These are the key elements to the event.

I was the one who suggested to attend this race, as I had wanted to be in this race for over a decade, when the event was still called “Rapha Gentlemen’s Race”, which a lot of my colleges would attend back in the day.

I not a fast rider, but I love riding tough routs in places I don’t know with my friends, so I entered the event. I know that it isn’t going to easy, but the smile on the people who attended the event in the past in the gave me the inspiration (I think that’s why i like RPG games)

I love my profession called “Blue Lug”. I’m putting quotation marks, because people normally would refer their profession as a bike mechanic or a bike shop staff, but our shop is very unique, so I consider my profession to be “Blue Lug”.

I love the fact that we have various divisions here and achieving big goals that we would not be able to do alone. Don’t get me wrong, I have huge respect for people who run a bike shop alone as well.

I am just a bike mechanic and that’s it. I’m not a good photographer, I don’t speak english, and I’m not a good designer.

However, we have great people here, who can take beautiful photos and share them to the world,  we have people who can speak English to talk with people outside of Japan, we have people who can make great graphics for our merch and we have people who can sew high quality bags.

The new staffs who joined our team is grinding their asses off to keep up with the co-works, while putting price tags on all the products that gets delivered to our warehouse in huge bulks, which is the reason that the old staffs like myself is able to build bikes for our dear customers. I am grateful for every single person who work here. (Can you imagine putting price tags on all these products?)

Not just Blue Lug, we also have LUG and HUB who serve really good food and gives the locals fine haircuts.
Each individuals are constantly trying to make the company grow by giving their best.

A company with multiple divisions is nothing rare…yes, that is true, but are their many companies that every person shares the same interest? I don’t think so. The fact that everybody is utilizing their unique skills while looking at the same direction is pretty insane to me.

This is why I refer my profession to be “Blue Lug” instead of a “bike shop employee”.

It’s almost been 10 years since I joined the Blue Lug team. I spent most of the ten years at the Hatagaya store. I’ve worked with Chuyan and Kaneyan for a very long time. Daichi, who joined the team mid COVID has grown a lot as a human and as a bike mechanic. He was a huge help since day one and still is doing great. Duncan transferred from the Kamiuma store and made a new wave of fast riding in Hatagaya. Duncan’s transfer is actually one of the main reasons why I made the decision to attend this race.

These five people know each other’s weak points and what we’re good at. We look out for each other all the time and that is the reason why we are able to provide our service here at Blue Lug Hatagaya.

I spend more time with these guys than my family, so I love them. Being around them gives me comfort.

I got married last year and now I have a daughter. Wanting to spend more time with my family, I decided to change how I work. I stopped working til midnight like the old days. I was scared to ask them, but they all gave me a big smile and said yes.

These guys made it possible for me to take a month off from work when my daughter was born.

I felt like the concept of our job at Blue Lug and the Rapha Prestige was a perfect match, so I wanted to go with these five people.

Many staffs of Hatagaya has a family of their own. Chuyan, Kaneyan and Duncan all have a family, so it’s pretty difficult plan out a big ride nowadays. I felt a bit sad to think that it may become even more difficult to do these kind of stuff, as time goes by. So I thought we’d give it a try while we can.

I just wanted to make my dream come true with these four dudes. Thank you to the wives of the three members who are married for letting us attend the race and thank you all for your kind understanding!

We have been training for the race in our days off.

“It’s not worth riding fast in Prestige. I recommend taking as much time and enjoy the view” says Pusan, the OG member of Blue Lug who came to coach us this day.

I think we’re gonna do just what he says.

We will be working at the shop from the next day of the last day of the race, so come see us suffer from soreness.

Wish us luck!