The Shinken track bike is a stunning collaboration between Zach Small of Amigo Frameworks, painter Jonny Pucci, and spacciatori d’acciaio Lorenzo Romagnoli. Built with modified vintage 3Rensho Modeulo lugs and a combination of legacy craftsmanship and modern methodology, it is a labor of love that gave form to an idea Zach originally dreamt up years ago when Josh visited his workshop in Nashville, TN. With the help of Jonny and Lorenzo, the frame was brought to life, featuring a remarkable finish and dialed parts selection. Let’s dive into this wild project below!

Design : Formgivning

I recently listened to an interview with renowned architect Bjarke Ingles of Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG). He is known for innovative approaches to tackling significant complex issues of the built environment while blending art, technology, and pragmatism in design. In the interview, Ingles introduces his approach to architecture with the Danish word for design, formgivning, which literally means “form giving.” He said: “To design something is to give form to that which does not exist yet… to give form to a corner of the world you would like to find yourself living in the future.”

Architecture is the poetry of practicalities to “resolve what has to be resolved in the most beautiful way possible.” And if you think in this way, he continued, “Design is liberated from style and fashion and more about the fundamentals of a life we want to live.”

While so obvious on its surface, Ingles’ sentiments really resonated with me through the remainder of the two-hour interview and into the days after I listened to it. So much infill construction in cities around the world today is bland and purely driven by the bottom line, eschewing compatibility and scale. Function and economics over humanism. At least for ordinary architecture, we seem to have become complacent to dullness.

Of course, as someone who stares at bikes all day, most days, I made a connection between Ingles’ statements on architectural design and modern bicycles. And it really stuck out for me, as I had just photographed the truly stunning Shinken track bike built by Zach Small of Amigo Frameworks with paint design/finishing by Jonny Pucci and parts selection/build by Pucci and Lorenzo Romagnoli. Let’s take a look at this exceptionally assembled machine below and why I think it is representative of high-style Formgivning.

Amigo Frameworks

When I visited Zach in his Nashville shop nearly three years ago for a profile on Amigo, we wanted to round out the photoset with an example of him at work brazing or welding a part of a bike together. At the time, he had already completed a run of his in-house produced Bug Out adventure bikes (which I was there to pick up one of my own), and didn’t really have any pressing brazing work to complete.

He had been thinking of doing something with the last of three sets of 3Rensho Modeulo lugs acquired during years of traveling and collecting bikes and components, so he picked them off the shelf and began modifying them with brass. The activity made for some great images and also got Zach stoked about creating a bike out of them.

Lugwork

But there was a reason the lugs had been sitting on the shelf for so many years. Zach needed to be ready to use them in his own way. To make a bike that incorporated his experience and skills developed during years of metalwork and in the bike industry. To give form to a uniquely Amigo bike using iconic Gothic-style lugs with beautiful fillet transitions required him to think holistically about the design, including a unique stem and fork.

Overall, Zach wanted to make a track bike that congruently incorporated thin and chunky elements into a balanced final form: a flowing, thick-tubed frameset that looks lightning fast. Yet each decision – like using 22.2 mm chainstays or a 3D printed fork crown – would have its own design challenge. Since Amigo Frameworks has existed, Zach’s bikes have been primarily functional. Even though they uniquely approach their desired disciplines – see Bug Out and Earth Sucks – their riders use them hard in utilitarian pursuits.

Thus, Zach hasn’t given himself much leeway for artistic experimentation, until now. The Shinken track bike was an opportunity to make the type of beautiful creation that attracted him to framebuilding in the first place. To do something different and give form to the ideas floating around in his head.

Stem

Thinking about the stem in relation to the Modeulo lugs got his creative juices flowing. With the triple-point Gothic lugs as inspiration, Zach designed a classic-shaped stem but made it appear like an arrow had pierced the two connected sections with a gusset to build fillets that matched the lugs. A 3D-printed “A” for Amigo adorns the rear face.

Fork

The fork also needed to be unique yet referential. Recalling thick ovalized blades he had seen on early bikes and in old random CeeWay catalogs, Zach always thought they looked cool. However, they never seemed feasible or practical for his bikes, which always used standard straight tubing. Now, he was daydreaming and thought it would make sense to use straight Max Aero Full Profile blades on this build to make a strong statement.

Since the blades had been out of production for a while, Zach ended up sourcing a set from Australia along with dropouts and a crown. But the crown was far from the classic Samson crowns Zach had in mind and didn’t fit his parameters. So he designed his version to be 3D-printed to fit the straight blades, a 1” steerer, with a 40 mm rake, and, of course, a couple of Amigo As.

Dropouts

To use oversized chainstays, Zach designed his own rear dropouts as well. With the classic 3Rensho Super End track dropouts for inspiration, these also feature a little window with a socket on one end and a half-lug on the other. The socket element is 3D-printed and locks onto the laser-cut steel dropout with laser-cut steel faces brazed on top. For the fastback chainstay design, Zach consulted with Chris Bishop, who has been doing it for years and used a blind slug that was drilled out and tapped.

In the Family

Once the frameset was complete, Zach needed to find the right people to bring it to life. Regular readers of this site are most likely familiar with the work of Jonny Pucci and Lorenzo Romagnoli. Pucci, a protege of legendary San Diego painter Joe Bell, has made quite the splash with his paint and design work over the years. His roommate/accomplice Romagnoli is a connoisseur of classic road and track bikes who has a knack for thematically perfect builds.

Zach grew up in San Diego and was a regular in Bell’s shop, where he developed his passion for framebuilding under the tutelage of Rob Roberson and got to know Jonny and Lorenzo early on. So it only made sense to keep this bike in the family, so to speak, and let Jonny and Lorenzo complete the project.

PC: Jonny Pucci from his recent tour through Japan

Now, I’ll hand the mic over to Jonny for the full rundown on design inspiration, finishing technique, and build details.

The Shinken Track Bike

The name Shinken came about after the frame had been hanging up over our kitchen table for a long enough period to mull over a plan. Lorenzo suggested that with the webbed and long pointed lugs, and those wide and straight fork blades, it looks like a samurai sword. 3Rensho (which clearly had played some inspiration here) already has a bike model called the “Katana,” as does Suzuki, Motorola, etc. so that name was out for me.

PC: Jonny Pucci

Shinken (真剣, translates to “real sword”) is a Japanese sword that has a forged and sharpened blade. The term shinken is often used in contrast with bokken (wooden sword), shinai (bamboo sword), and iaitō (unsharpened metal sword).

Example Samurai armor and iconography

Battle Ready

With the name figured out, how should it look? I wanted this Shinken to look like something a samurai could have ridden into battle. I wanted this paint job to compliment the hours of work that our Amigo Zach had poured into it and at the same time, create something that could visually make sense alongside a samurai’s armor and matching daisho. Hours of sleuthing online through museum databases of samurai arms and armor pointed me in the direction I needed.

Bold color combinations and varying textures on helmets, breastplates, and scabbards gave me all the inspiration I needed. The juxtaposition of seemingly opposing elements blended to make practical tools of war into elegant pieces of art manufactured one at a time by individual craftsmen who took every opportunity to add details specific to each warrior’s identity.

Amigo Kamon

The Logos – Amigo “A’s” are raised out of the fork crown and stem back, so it felt like just putting another on the head tube was a wasted opportunity. The kamon, or family crest of a samurai, efficiently communicated what side you were on in battle, and I decided that this Amigo needed its own kamon.

Riffing off the cherry blossom crest, the A became a flower, which was repeated on the seat tube panel transition. The seat tube features four bold kanji which read (in essence) “True Victory is Victory over the Self,” which I found to be fitting as Zach set out to make this frame with no specific goal other than to make the track bike of his dreams. The katakana overlaid on the word “Shinken” on the downtube reads “friendly bicycles.”

Keirin Inspiration

As with the paint job, the build would have to be just as meticulously detailed. Over the better part of a year, Lorenzo and I worked out what parts would go on this bike. Obviously, it had to be all Japanese. With the bike’s bright green and gold primary colors, we decided most parts should be black for contrast.

The seat post and handlebars would be Nitto without question. While the Nitto ADB-X was an easy pick, I was unaware of the Nitto/Simworks seat post until a recent stop at Blue Lug Kamiuma in Tokyo, where I happily acquired their last one in stock. Resting atop the post is a luxurious suede Kashimax FiveGOLD track saddle.

SunTour has long been my favorite vintage parts manufacturer and the Superbe Pro track crank is my favorite shape of any crank. Lo got his hands on a polished version, and I insisted that it should be paired with none other than the boldest, most blade-like chainring in existence: the Sugino Zen. Rounding out the drive train, a black IZUMI track chain with gold pins wraps its way around a gold 15-toothed EuroAsia cog.

To match the ring, Lo unearthed a pair of Sugino Aero-Mighty track pedals complete with red leather toe straps featuring 3Rensho kanji. Rounding out the group, a gleaming Suntour Superbe Pro headset is the only other spot of silver, as we were able to find a customized pair of black Superbe Pro hubs and laced them up with black spokes on black nipples to the all-black and low-profile H PLUS SON TB14 rims. The BB is a Hatta R9400 NJS approved for Keirin racing.

We are stoked that this bike exists. These days, it’s increasingly challenging for craftspeople to have fun with their work while also trying to run a business. It’s much easier to make products fit a standard mold rather than take a risk to create something that stands out. Everyone involved with this project has sunk countless hours into making it an exceptional piece of artistic expression. And for that, we say chapeau!