I Lost My Dream Bike Sponsor… But I Found A Better One!

After 9 years, six continents, and over 100,000  kilometres of bike touring, my time with KOGA   Bikes is officially over. But I'm not done yet.  And so that's why I've come to Idworx Bikes,   who truly are the spiritual successor to KOGA.  I'll show you the bike in a bit, but first,   let's go into the factory and see what this  brand's all about. Hi, Alee. Come in. Hi,   Gerrit. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.  Come in. I've got to show you something.   Something special. Here's an old painting. It's  from 1988. That was when I was racing mountain   bikes in Canada for KOGA. Okay. So, I've been  sponsored by KOGA for nine years now. Yes. But,   uh, not anymore. No, now you're coming to  the next generation. KOGA was my parents,   Kowallik, my mother, Gaastra, my father, and  this was when we still owned it. We sold it   in '92. And I was racing in Vancouver  on a RidgeRunner steel frame. This   was always hanging at KOGA Factory, and  now it's hanging at Bike Basics Idworx.

And we're in the showroom now. Yes, it's our  showroom. Here you see Jana. Hi Jana. 24-hour   mountain bike racer and sales and marketing  for Idworx and Gaastra Bikes as well. Another   brand we have here. You see a selection of  our mainly touring and trekking bikes. And   these two are titanium. These ones are titanium.  Titanium racks as well. Yes. Yes. Wow. This had   a gold chain. We had that for a while for people  who bought their fourth Idworx bike. They got the   gold chain. So, you've got some really dedicated  customers. We do. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Idworx is   the name of the brand. That means simply 'it  works'. It functions. That's our philosophy.   That's how we designed the bikes. Yeah. Very  simple. And it looks like the trekking bikes   have internal gear hubs or gearboxes. Yes,  we work with Pinion and Rohloff mainly. We   have one bike with derailleurs, but mainly we  sell gearboxes. Yeah, just reliability. Yeah,   it goes with the whole concept. Okay. Yeah,  it's perfect. So, titanium. And the next one   along here looks like aluminium. Yeah, this  is aluminium. This is an adventure bike.   That's half a trekking bike, half a mountain  bike. So, it's very good for off-road touring.

Yeah, we design a lot of parts ourselves. Of  course, we do the frame and fork. We have a very   special trekking fork with a through axle boosted.  And we have direct contacts for the hub dynamo, so   you don't have to put a connector in it anymore.  You're not plugging the hub. No. Goes automatic   into the bike. You just slip the wheel in, and  it's fully connected. Yes. And it was important,   of course, the through axle as well. Makes it much  safer and also transfers the forces of the brake   caliper on one side. Disperses it over the whole  fork, much more solid. We have a long taper. It's   also for the big bikes, tall people like us. Yeah.  And you don't flex when you're braking, right? So,   a long taper. It doesn't exist. Normally,  you have to make a special mould for it.   Investment casting. No, it looks great. Has a nice  shape to it. And we have the same fork now in a   in a carbon fibre. Wow. So, that one's lighter.  It's lighter. It's about 400 g lighter, and it's   stronger because of stricter tests at the Zedler  Institute in Germany. Yeah, it's very good. And   that one's also a direct contact for the dynamo as  well? Yeah, carbon fibre and direct contact. And   then this looks like a bottom bracket. Yes, this  is for our Rohloff bikes. We have an eccentric   bottom bracket to adjust the chain or the belt  tension. And we have one with pressed-in bearings.   Okay. So, alignment's absolutely perfect. Yes.  It's very important towards the axle of the   crank. Yeah. These bearings are stainless steel  because often bearings rust, and then they wear   out quicker. We have 100% filling with grease as  opposed to 25%, which is standard. And we have  

very special seals. And on the drivetrain side,  we have (or the drive side) we have a big bearing.   Okay. Where the forces go in. Yeah. So we think  these bearings will last about 100,000 km. That's   incredible. Yeah. And if you wanted to replace it  after a while, we would refurbish it again. Get a   new one. Yeah. A new bearing kit. New bearing kit.  Yeah. Great. We also have chain rings out of knife   steel. Hardened steel. We have somebody in Holland  who had it on a penny bike. He sent it to me,   called Wim. He rode 64,600 km with this set  of chain rings. Wow. So that's longer than   most people get out of a belt drive. Yes. He  replaced the chain every 10 to 15,000 km. Yeah.   But chains are not so expensive. Yeah. So he  got a good bang for the buck. Yeah. That's   incredible. Yeah. Further along here, we have  some crank arms. Yes. This is a project we did;   we made a crank here in Germany. Standard cranks  are a Taiwanese product, very good. But this is   one step up. That's a very special stainless steel  axle, very high-grade steel. 7050 aluminium. And   the tolerances are much stricter, and it's much  more precise. So it keeps the tension on the   belt or on the chain much more consistent. Yeah.  Looks beautiful. And these are your rotors. Yeah,   we have a standard brake, a medium brake, and this  is our big brake. It's almost like a motorcycle  

brake. Yeah, it's huge. It's 3.2 mm thick, 203  mm, and it's floating, so you have a bit of room   for the disc itself to expand when it gets hot.  Yeah. And it's quite necessary if you have a   trekking bike with heavy luggage, a system weight  of 160 kg, for instance. And trekking riders often   break for long periods of time. Yeah. And they  heat up the system. So we have lots of extra   reserves. This is also something I have to show  you. This is our Wachtberg edition. Okay. It's   a bit inspired by Porsche. They have the Weissach  package, and it's a tuning from the factory. What   we do is we anodise the frame. Instead of powder  coating, we save about 300 g. So we make it very   corrosion-resistant. We make it lighter. We use  our carbon fibre fork, stronger and lighter. We   have a titanium seatpost, a bit more comfort and  lighter. Titanium rack. It's actually quite good   from Tubus. It doesn't corrode where you have  the bags hanging on it. And carbon fibre rims,   our own design as well. Wow. So you get to about  14.2 kilograms. That's incredible. Yeah. If you   think the competition is usually around 16  to 20, 22 kg even - so we're quite light.

This is our room with our 3D printers. We usually  have around three of them. We make quite a few   parts for production, like cable guides. These  ones go in between the frame and the cables.   And then on top comes an aluminium part. We  have them. And then, for two cables or three,   for four, for five, we have a special extra seal  for the headsets, or sometimes we have brackets   for fenders, and we print them on Ultimakers.  And for us, that's really good because we don't   make very many bicycles, so the numbers are very  small. And the problem is always the mould costs.   And if you print 3D, you don't need a mould.  And you can change things, modify them improve   t,hem and print them again. So for us it's very  helpful to make special parts in small quantities. Building some wheels. Yes, we have a small wheel  building area. We use the Holland Mechanics   machines, and Joe is just finishing a wheel. It's  all done by hand. We don't have a robot. We have   our tolerances. The green little square about 0.15  mm both ways. And he's tensioning it to that spec.

We're now in the production area. We'll have a  look at what's going on in here. There aren't   that many people at the moment. We have a  holiday here. We have an All Roller Lady.   Looks good in orange. Yeah. Probably goes to the  Netherlands. Yeah. It has a belt drive. Yeah. We   have also made a guard. Made a mould for it.  So we have a guard for the belt as well. Also,   your pants can get stuck in between. Right.  A small detail we made this year. And you're   building the frame up with one mechanic? One  mechanic built from the frame all the way, as my   parents started with KOGA. They had one mechanic  and built the whole bike. It was the same idea. We   even have carpets like KOGA used to have always.  Okay. In case something gets dropped, doesn't get   damaged. Yeah. And this is a trekking bike; it's  not an adventure bike. That's what we sell most.   They're slightly more comfortable geometry-wise.  And this is our biggest seller, the All Roller. Here we have four bikes that are ready to be  shipped out. These are all sold bikes built   to the customer's spec. You have a lot  of options you can pick. These are two   Wachtberg editions in black. One with a belt, the  other one as well. There's a titanium adventure   bike with a Pinion transmission with the  chain, and one like yours, a Rohler BT,   and the customer opted for the chain case. Very  Dutch-looking, but it works very well. It's   probably the best solution for a drivetrain. A  chain in a chain case, the chain will last 20,000  

km. You hardly have to lubricate it. So that's  for bang for the buck. It's the biggest, most   successful option you can pick, but it looks a  little bit different. So, doesn't look very sexy. Okay, so this is it. We have the Idworx Rohler  BLT. Correct. Amazing Rohler because of Rohloff.   Okay. With a Rohloff hub. And BLT from my  Canadian times. There was a trail on Cypress   Mountain. It was called BLT. Boulders, logs,  and trees. Got it. And they have lots of tyre   clearance. Wide tyres fit well. Fairly long chain  stays. Yeah. So it keeps your front wheel down.   And also, you'll have lots of clearance between  the pannier bags and your heel. Yeah. To stabilise   it, to stiffen the long carrier rack parts, we  have a brace to make it stiff. Again, the carrier   rack you have is titanium. Amazing. Bit lighter.  Aluminium frame? Aluminum frame. Yeah. Triple   butted. Special paint job? Special paint job,  special colour, and you have the ISR, the Idworx   Stress Reducer. It's an angle limiter. Can only go  this far, so you can keep all the cables, and the   brake hose is much shorter. Yeah, you can't damage  the frame when you fall. I'm seeing a carbon fork   here? Carbon fork. Carbon rims? Carbon rims. So,  I've never used a carbon fork or carbon rims on a   touring bike! I'm very excited to test. These rims  are the strongest rims we have. They're light,   wide, and they're 30 mm. Okay. Good width. And  they're indestructible. And we've gone for a more  

gravel tyre on this. Yes. The Schwalbe G-One RX.  Fast rolling? Yeah. Fast rolling. 60 mm. So good   size. And this is the new SON Ladelux. Yes. You  were one of the first people with this light on   a new Idworx bike. We had to change the electric  cables and the loom that we have on our bikes.   And you can charge up your iPhone now. Yeah. A  USB-C. You have high and low beams. So it's quite   good. It will be an option on our 2027 bikes.  Okay. The gear system at the back here. Rohloff?   Yes. Yeah. So I've been using the Rohloff hubs for  about 20 years. I don't have to explain anything   to you about it. Yeah. You don't. 14-speed, 526%  gear range, super efficient, quite lightweight,   and just trouble-free. Low maintenance. And  what's interesting is we have our own disc   rotor for it. Instead of 1.8 mm, we go to 2 mm,  so slightly more meat. And it's a design that   matches the Shimano front rotor. And it's made  for Rohloff, so it gives you a little bit more   reserves. This is a chain? Yes. I haven't used  a chain in... it must be 17 years now! Yeah. So,   we've switched to a waxed chain? It's waxed from  KMC. Yep. It's a chain we've developed with them   over the years. The pins and the rollers are much  harder. And we have special chain rings out of   hardened knife steel, as I said earlier. You have  a 35T at the front. 35 to 17T, so it will give  

you a nice, easy gear for very steep stuff.  Yeah, I think I'll be crawling up the hills.   Yeah. In combination with our long-life eccentric  bottom bracket with the special bearings. And you   have the crank made in Germany. Yeah. And then  I've added my own accessories to this one. So,   Redshift ShockStop Pro Endurance seat post.  Wow. What a word. It's got a parallel linkage,   and it's a mix of a coil spring and an elastomer  spring. So, it's not too bouncy. It's got a really   good ride feel. Up front, I've picked a Vecnum  Freeqence stem. So, we're dealing with about   30 mm of suspension travel at the handlebars. And  one of my favourite accessories, the aero bars. I   think I spend about 50% of the time riding in that  position. I got a custom frame bag built for it,   which has a really good fit in the frame.  Direct mount right through the bottom here   for the nice clean lines. And I love that it's a  roll top, so I can pack things away very easily.

All right. So that's pretty much everything I need  to know about the bike, and I guess I just have   to ride it across a continent or two? Yes. Well,  I wish you a lot of luck. Yeah. And we're really   looking forward to learning from your experience.  We can always learn new things that we can apply   to our bicycles. So, we're looking very much  forward to it. I wish you a very good trip. Thank   you. And stay healthy and well! Cheers. Cheers.  Now, you're probably wondering what's next for me   on this brand-new bike. Well, I've just arrived at  the Arctic Circle and will now be cycling all the   way down to South Africa. I'm very excited about  this new chapter, and I'll see you guys soon.