Les Straggleurs
Rides for the rest of us.Simon's monster-cross Koga Singlespeed
Posted at 30/03/2025 @ 18:36:44Reader’s Rides - part the second
Think of the Netherlands and what comes to mind? Tulips? Windmills? Cheese?
Beach racing ….?
Apparently it’s a thing whereby crazy Dutch people race along the beaches and dunes of the North Sea beaches - think cyclocross but with more sand and salt. Koga even make a dedicated bike for it - the aptly named ‘Beach Racer’
Koga aren’t a Japanese brand, even though it sounds like it should be, and to confuse matters further they were known as Koga-Miyata on account of their early frames being made by …. Miyata in Japan. Nope, Koga are Dutch. They’re probably better known for their touring bikes, such as the World Traveller, but they also manufacture road bike and MTBs as well. Whilst they’re not as ‘out there’ as the likes of Surly, they’re clearly not afraid to do things a little bit differently.
The Beach Racer is an odd machine - mine is a 2017 model and the stock spec would have put you in mind of a slightly portly gravel bike or an MTB that has been on a crash diet. Aluminium frame with definite ‘long and low’ geometry and full carbon fork and SRAM Rival GX 1x11 transmission, combined with 29x2.1" tyres and a load of clearance, particularly at the back, for mud and gooey sand. Naturally, it has the wide, flared bars that are beloved of gravel and ‘cross riders.
2017 Koga BeachRacer
So far, so conventional … that saddle has to go, though
Inveterate tinkerer that I am, it didn’t remain in the stock configuration for long - for a start, there were a number of modifications made as a concession to my fifty-something back most notably a Brooks B17 saddle and an adjustable stem, not to mention changing the gearing to something a bit more sensible (38x11-32? No thanks …. 34x11-42 worked much better for me, thank you)
As ever, new bikes came along (in no approximate order, a Surly Karate Monkey, a Surly Straggler, two Salsa Cutthroats and an assortment of Bromptons) and the Koga ended up being stripped of parts and consigned to the shed. Matters weren’t helped by the frame being slightly too small for me - this one is a 54cm, but it was actually a better fit than the 56cm. Go figure … must be that road-like geometry or something.
Fast forward to now and the Green Machine has emerged blinking into the sunlight as a fat-tyred singlespeed bikepacking and trail shredder - in this incarnation it’s light, surprisingly fast and an absolute hoot to ride with the big tyres.
There’s not a lot of the original bike left - the frame and fork, obviously, the chainset and the brakes. Everything else is different. Especially the cockpit. Oh yes.
The wheels are a bit of a mismatch too - the front is a Halo Vapour 29er rim with an SP hub dynamo, shod with a 29x2.1" WTB Nano. This wheel was built for me by Tom at Twisted Cogs in York. He’s a great guy and a fantastic wheelbuilder. The Nano represents possibly my favourite tyre in the universe but, as Sod’s law dictates, is now incredibly difficult to get hold of. It manages to be reasonably fast on the road and appropriately grippy off it - it copes fine with hardpack, even in the wet, but hardcore clag will defeat it.
Where there’s a dynamo, there are usually lights and this is no exception. Headlight is a B&M IQ-X, which I’d heartily recommend despite the slightly odd beam pattern and there’s the small-and-funky B&M [my:] at the back. Sadly, my headlight of choice (Supernova E3 Triple) is no longer available but the IQ-X is a worthy successor.
The rear wheel is a remnant of an old bike, possibly a Genesis High Latitude - it’s an unnamed singlespeed hub laced to an Alex XD rim. Very definitely at the utilitarian end of the scale, but it works. An upgrade to a Surly SS hub and a Vapour rim is definitely in the offing. The rear tyre is a 29x2.2 Conti Race King - up there with the Nano in terms of ‘tyres that I like’ but again, seemingly hard to find. Finally, to top it off there’s a 17T White Industries freewheel, because why the hell not.
Combine this with the original SRAM chainset with a 38T chainwheel and you’ve got a gear of 38x17, or around 65 inches. It works for me and I’m one of these people who has absolutely no qualms about getting off and pushing if I have to, and I’ve got an assortment of 94mm BCD chainrings that I can swap to should I feel the need. The only real downer is that the cranks are 170mm and I’m more used to riding 175s - not a deal breaker, but it feels a bit weird to begin with.
The frame has vertical dropouts, necessitating the use of a chain tensioner - fortunately, the length of the chainstays and the ratio of choice means that I don’t have the tensioner danging straight down like a hamstrung derailleur; the tensioner is a knockoff of the old Surly design and is only capable of pushing down. Since there’s not a whole load of slack in the chain, this doesn’t represent a problem in that there’s plenty of chain wrap round the freewheel and the arm of the tensioner is tucked up out of harm’s way.
Brakes are TRP Spyres which are, in my opinion, about the best purely mechanical disc brakes you can get - they’re dual piston and, unlike the execrable Avid BB7s, are easy to adjust and are relatively quiet even in the wet. A combination of Shimano RT-66 rotors and sintered pads gives plenty of stopping power, even when the going gets a bit gnarly. Normally I’d run a pair of 180mm rotors but the maximum size that the frame can accomodate is 160mm so that’s where we are - I was initially skeptical but it seems like 160 front, 160 rear and a decent set of sintered pads means don’t have to slow down by colliding with things. Levers are Shimano BL-R400s - I find that these have a far nicer ‘feel’ to them than the Tektro levers I have on my Straggler.
The main contact point, that is to say my backside, is a Brooks B17 Standard. I’ve run them on nearly all of my bikes for the last 20-25 years and won’t perch on anything else. Yes, they’re like a block of wood when you first fit them, not to mention insanely slippy (someone call NASA …) but after the inevitable ‘breaking in’ period, which will vary - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, the level of comfort cannot be understated. Granted, they take some looking after and TLC but they’re surprisingly good for off-road riding. Just make sure you apply Proofide to the underside of the saddle as well if you’re not running mudguards.
Anyway, about the front end …
The first thing that people tend to notice is the handlebars. What the hell is going on there?
Well, dear reader, those are Redshift ‘Top Shelf’ handlebars and they are ideal for people like me with knackered backs that prefer a more upright riding position. The ones I’ve fitted are the 75mm(!) rise variety and allowed me to do away with a heavy and clunky adjustable stem, replacing them with a far nicer 40mm Thomson stem and a set of freaky handlebars. I will write more about the Redshift bars in due course, suffice to say that despite looking extremely strange they work extremely well. The 46cm version is just the right width for me to ride comfortably on the hoods and the backsweep and relatively shallow drop mean that I can actually ride on the drops for extended periods without my vertebrae protesting (too much) and the short stem means that the handling is pretty nippy as well. Since I spend most of my time riding on the hoods or tops, the tops are double-wrapped: one layer of Cinelli ‘Chunky’ bar tape over a layer of Cinelli Kaleido tape.
How does it ride? Very nicely, thank you - it started out running a pair of 700x40c Pirelli Cintaurato tyres at around 45psi until I discovered, during one particularly blustery Saturday Straggle, that you need something with a bit more cushion. Hence the fat(ter) 29er tyres running at 35-40psi. The 38x17 gear is more than adequate for the rolling terrain hereabouts and since I tend to spin rather than mash I can maintain 15-16mph quite easily on the flat. The combination of a carbon fork and chunky bar tape means that my wrists are happy too, even after 50-60 miles of pothole hell. Hills aren’t necessarily an issue as I’m one of those people who has precisely zero qualms about getting off and pushing should the need arise.
Stock builds are for suckers … get your weird on (and singlespeeding is fun, too)
(Words and layout by Simon)