Toms

Toms Alsbergs I’m 28 years old, and I come from Riga, Latvia.

I’d say fixed gear is a passion for me. I ride all year round and am truly happy for every day I don’t need to use my car. It’s always fun to try out something different apart from minidromes too, like Red Hook Criterium, Rad Race in Berlin or Hill Chasers in Edinburgh, plus the local velodrome events we organize ourselves.

Tru-Fix-Kru

Is my team, my crew and my second family (www.trufixkru.com). In 2011 when we (my fellow crew members and friends – Ingemars and Arturs) started riding, we soon discovered a strange urge to make everyone know that we are on the street, so we decided that we need a name and some recognition symbol for our crew. The rest happened in a snap. Arturs came up with a catchy word combination TRU FIX KRU, a friend of ours – tattoo artist Janis drew us a logo, we made our first stickers and spent our summer nights riding and tagging the city. Then the t-shirts came… We were stoked how popular they got and how recognized our brand has suddenly become, everyone wanted one…

Now it has developed into a business and velodrome union that encourages young people to get on their bikes (any bike, not only fixies), take part in this culture and enjoy it.

We do organize various velodrome events/competitions, the most popular of which being Red Bull Tru Fix event that for 2 years has taken place in Riga, but we plan to take it abroad as well. For this summer we’ll organize “Heavy Sprit” race and another “Heavy Criterium” race during the sports, music and creativity festival Playground. It’s going to be hot!

Fixed Gear in Riga

It’s good, the sun is shining and the velodrome season is on. We’ve grown in numbers exponentially. Since the time when we first started the numbers have increased 100 times and we continue to multiply rapidly! Now you can buy a fixed gear bike in every bike store and for a lot of people (mainly youth) fixie has become an important lifestyle element and that definitely forms a kind of street subculture. Needless to say – it makes me extremely happy!

Red Bull Minidrome Utrecht

The Minidrome race in Utrecht was very special for me, and it’s not a secret that I have a pretty huge experience in minidrome races (from 13 races I won 10). But this time was different, to Utrecht came all the best riders and minidrome’s champions from all around the world! There were lot of celebrity who I’m still respecting in this kind of races and Addison Zawada (several minidrome winners in US) was one of them. Two years ago I finally met and raced against him in New York, it was like a battle between US & Europe, that time I lost and became in 2nd place, he was damn fast! Here in Utrecht we met him in 1/8 final round, and this was time for my revenge, because I knew if I’ll lose him again then I should recognize he’s the No1. But it didn’t happen, this was my day and after this victory against Addison the stress was gone, all other race I rode without mistakes. Even before the final race I was so relaxed and confident, I was sure that after the 1/8 final race there nobody could stop me. And this feeling helped me a lot to get another victory in Utrecht!

Polo and Bike

Two years ago, when David the owner of Polo & Bike invited me to visit his hometown Gijón just to take part into the urban bike festival – CICLORAMA. I came there, met all the team and crew, and step by step David offered me to be a part of the team. Now I’m riding only Polo & Bike, I have supported for minidrome and criterium races as well. Since last year in autumn I’m leading the “Shop Brūklene” (it’s bike, lifestyle & coffee shop) in my town Riga and few months ago we became a distributor for POLO&BIKE brand. It’s a brilliant combination to be a rider for “Polo & Bike” and at the same time I can earn money with this brand.

Besides bikes

I like to keep it active. I surf, wakeboard, snowboard… I enjoy being out in countryside with my family, go to road trips, camping, festivals etc.

Future

Usually I’m not planning my future, better I choose to set my goal and I go for it. The goal for this year is take a part in Red Hook and minidrome races. For me it is important to develop Tru Fix Kru – deeply involve in organizing fixed-gear events and clothing production. One of the goals in close future is to support young & talented riders! Anyway… we have big plans for the future. Just stay tuned…

If you look back, what has changed in Fixed scene?!

Fixed scene is still growing up and that’s one of the reasons why it’s changing every day! In last few years all the criteruim races have changed this scene a lot… the level of the cycling skills has developed in crazy speed, in every next race you can see more and more pro riders with different cycling backgrounds… and few of them are big celebrities with huge cycling experience! These days are gone when there were only messengers and hipsters riding fixed gear, it’s getting more serious and it’s a positive thing for the future.

Any motto?

The only guy you can believe & trust is YOURSELF!

Thanks to…

The biggest THANK goes to my family, cause without them I’m nobody!

And of course big thanks to all my sponsors & supporters: Tru Fix Kru, Polo&Bike, Makia Clothing, VANS, OAKLEY, New Era, KNOG and Profile Racing.