As the name suggests, the Fuji’s Track’s natural home is the track. It’s the backbone of many a velodrome’s hire fleet and it has a great reputation as a more than capable workhorse for the budding trackie. How does all that velodrome cred translate to the streets?
Not badly at all. It looks the part for a start – the matt grey paint job gives the bike a very urban look, and though it marks fairly easily this is the sort of no-nonsense machine that wears its scars with pride.
Ride: snappy & immediate
This is a point and shoot track weapon that behaves the same on the streets. The short wheelbase and track angles mean any input gets an output.
Our Fuji’s all up weight (with a front brake) was a nudge over 20lb, not bad at all for this sort of money. Combine that lack of heft with the track-style geometry and you get a very responsive machine.
The handling is instant – ideal for nip and tuck urban riding especially on a fixed wheel which demands that you ride positively in all situations.
The high track bottom bracket lets you lean the bike further into corners than you might on a normal bike and it gives greater kerb hopping clearance too.
The downside of a higher bottom bracket is that, should you need to get a foot down, the ground is further away than you might think. You do get used to this, but it is something to be aware of when you are starting out.
Frame: weight saver
The clean and simple track-orientated chassis is welded from double butted chromoly with a triple butted fork. There are with drillings for brakes but no cable mounts. As all that butting suggests, it’s light too.
Equipment: track minimalism
Well it's got a saddle and bars… oh, and some pedals. We'd be tempted to swap the track bars, especially if you like to ride right at the bottom of the drops.
Being a proper track bike, it doesn’t come with brakes although there are drillings for mounting front and rear stoppers.
You’ll need at least a front for road use, and if you want to go singlespeed you will need to fit a freewheel. You should be able to find one of these for under a tenner and a rear brake won’t set you back much more.
Brake wear indicators are always worth having, but unless you do go down the singlespeed route the one on the Alex rim on the back of the Track is going to last a very long time indeed.
The wheels are nothing fancy, but they're hardly weighing the bike down either.
