Japan's track cycling team has a new, exclusive and incredibly pricey weapon in its arsenal at the Paris Olympics: bicycles that cost more than some luxury cars.
When Japanese riders hit the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome outside Paris from Monday, they hope to have an edge provided by their 19.85 million yen ($135,000) steeds.
When thousandths of a second can be the difference between being an Olympic medalist or an also-ran, bicycle technology becomes all the more important.
"The higher the level of competition (where speed is at a premium), the more performance the bicycle can deliver," Koichi Nakano, athlete development supervisor for the Japan Cycling Federation and former 10-time world champion in the track sprint, said.
After using Bridgestone bicycles at the Tokyo Olympics, the Japan team decided to pursue a new approach by involving a company that had never built a bicycle before.
The decision also came after the International Cycling Federation decided that all track bicycles used in competition must also be retailed to the public, even if they are custom-built.
Enter TCM, or Toray Carbon Magic, a company better known for building racing car components as well as parts for drones, medical equipment and also other sporting equipment like bobsleighs.
TCM tasked its craftsmen with hand-building the carbon TCM-2 bicycle for Japan's track team, and for anyone else not scared off by the number of digits on the price tag.
The company focused on ensuring aerodynamics were a top priority, putting the bicycle, with a dummy in place of a rider, in a wind tunnel to measure drag and ensure every surface is optimized.
With no previous experience building bicycles, the company was unafraid to take risks. Perhaps the biggest was the decision to put the drivetrain -- the chain, chainring and rear sprocket -- on the left side of the frame rather than the traditional right.
"It's a discipline that runs counterclockwise around the track. We calculated that it is easier for air to flow diagonally from the left and this position was optimal," explained TCM President Akiyoshi Oku.
The company's out-of-the-box thinking has been approved by the riders, including Mina Sato, a two-time keirin silver medalist at the world championships.
"It goes faster than I expected and it helps us maintain speed," said Sato, who is gunning for gold in the sprint and keirin in Paris.
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