two bikes four Velocity.

Howdy y’all, Daichi from Blue Lug Hatagaya here.
Man, I don’t know how many times I have mentioned that it’s frickin hot.

Today I’m gonna be writing about two bikes with Velocity rims, simply because I feel like it.

Velocity plays a huge part in our builds and for other bike builds out there in the world. Most of the people who are reading this probably knows what the brand is about.

But did you know that one of their first products were bottle cages, in stead of rims?

This is the cage they use to make in the early days.
We actually had the dead stocks of those cages for sale a few years ago, but that doesn’t really matter. What I’m trying to say is that it’s hard to think that a brand so famous for rims used to make bottle cages for their first products.

Anyhow, Velocity provides a big selection of rims. 700C, 650B, 26″ and 20″, pretty much everything with different amount spoke holes for most of the models.

You can also choose machined side walls or non-machined side walls for the same models and I think that’s a very nice feature especially when you need to build a disc brake bike, using rims for rim brake bikes. It’s just nice from an aesthetic point of view, but it matters.

Machine processing the side walls, help the brake shoes for rim brakes to create more stopping power. This process is needed for anodized rims. For silver and polish rims, the machine processing is unnecessary, so most of the side walls for those certain colors are untouched.

Now, let’s look at some bikes shall we? Two of the bikes I am about to write has Velocity rims.

Bike number one, The lovely customer who ordered this bike, had already been riding the Affinity Cycles Kissena and had been racing many fixed gear criterium races. The choice for his new buddy was the Crust Bikes Evasion Step-Thru.

Check out those brake levers, headsets and spacers getting matchy matchy with the logo. We can all appreciate a bike with personality. You can never get tired of components like White Industries, Paul and more small American brands.
Oh, and I have to mention those brass bolts on the fork crown.

The frame color looks pitch black, but if you look closely, you can see that it has red and blue sparkles. You can also find a neat hang loose sign on the seat tube near the seat pin. Apparently, the hand sign means, “Hi” or “Thank you” other than “hang loose”.
I thought this was such a Crust Bikes thing to do, since the Matt the founder has a surfer background.

I also love that the owner of the bike chose the Flite Saddles. It’s a very “fixie rider choice”.

Check out the rims.

These are the Blunt SS by Velocity. They’re super light weight and can take fat MTB tires. The pros for having wide rims is that it makes the tires you put on, wider than when you have the same tires on a thinner rim. That way the tires can create more traction to the ground, making it helpful in Cross Country and other off-road races.

Great parts selection, sick color choices, overall a superb bike!

Next!

Here is a Surly Straggler I built for a lady who competed at the OMM Run race last year, but wanted to compete in OMM Bike this year. She successfully was able to be in the bike race with this bike, so let’s take a look!

She was really into the Jones SG Loop H-Bar, so we chose that and wrapped the Camp And Go Slow Rattler Bar Tape, which we just restocked. The multi position bars definitely eases your fatigue when riding, rather than riding in the same position for hours.

She was having a difficult time to decide whether to get a 1 x 9s set up or a 1 x 11s set up, but she went with the 1 x 9 set up.
That’s enough for commuting, but she said she wants to try how far she can go with this gearing.

Those pedals are the Panda Pedals in brown, which we make in Taiwan. They got a healthy amount of pins, so they’ll stick to your shoes nice and tight.

She apparently is going to ride the Niseko Gravel Autmn Ride and I’m really excited to see her figure out what she needs or doesn’t need on the bike for that ride.

The rims used in this build is the A23 rims.

Velocity was founded in Australia, so their old rims are labeled “MADE IN AUSTRALIA”, but they eventually made their move to the states. After the move their rims are labled “BORN IN AUSTRALIA” and “MADE IN USA”.

I love these types of minor details.

 It’s simple build by first look, but as you probably noticed, this bike is custom painted by Cook Paint Works, our painting studio.

The deep orange color was inspired by a Volvo car, believe it or not. I love how the color tone changes depending on the angle and lighting you look at this bike from and the shiny polished rims are beautiful.

Wheels are the second biggest parts of a bike, so they really set up the tone of the bike.
Velocity does a really great job at creating various types of wheels and it’s those things that make our job fun.

Speaking of rims, we made these clothing hangers out of old rims that had been sleeping in the warehouse for a long long time.