Over the last couple of days, a large group of 11 consisting of our customers, the Circles team, and the SimWorks staff headed out for the "Single Speed MTB Japan Open."
This year's race venue was Hakuba Iwatake in Nagano, a stage that turns into a ski resort in the winter.
The vast fields of Hakuba Iwatake seemed to be saying, "Let's race to our hearts' content on our MTBs before the snow piles up and turns this into a ski slope."
The weather was clear, the visibility was great, and it was a perfect day for mountain biking. But it was cold. That's exactly why we race—on single speeds. This course was a very tough and adventurous one, requiring us to complete two laps of a roughly 9-kilometer trail. It was incredibly, incredibly grueling, haha.
But as is the case with any race, the grand panorama of Hakuba you see when climbing gives you a real sense of accomplishment. Can you smile when you're up there? Those who truly enjoyed themselves are the real winners.
We at Circles also set up an outdoor shop, providing pit service and selling merchandise.
Some people were looking to change their gear ratios after their test runs, and having anticipated that, we had cleverly brought along several spare cogs. Because they are single-speed bikes, we didn't see any major mechanical trouble, but by setting up a booth, we were able to connect with many people from all sorts of places.
We are planning to put on an even better performance at our booth for the "Nobeyama Cyclocross" coming up at the end of November. We hope all the race participants will look forward to it!Thank you to the organizers, everyone involved in running the event, and all the customers who visited our booth!
Believe it or not, the SSWC (Single Speed World Championships) will be held at this same Hakuba Iwatake on October 11th, 2015! It’s sure to be an even bigger event than this year's. We’re already plotting our participation, of course!