Koh was born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan. After a volleyball knee injury in middle school, he all but gave up on sports. But, a local bicycle shop (AKIZUKI CYCLE) had a cycling club with competitive road racers, so one day Koh joined one of their practices and found that cycling was a sport he could do without hurting his knee. The first road race he participated in was when he was 15. He took first place and began pursuing the sport more seriously. Catching the eye of the local bicycling assocation, board member Mr. Nakashima took Koh under his wing and got him registered to participate in inter-high school racing. Koh was the only member of his high school team, representing his school and racing in almost every category: Road Race, Point Race, Individual Pursuit, Sprint, 1 km Time Trial, etc. He found that he was horrible at long distance categories, but excellent at the short distance categories. He became the high school regional champion in the 1km Time Trial, then the Kyushu island champion in the 400m Scratch, and finally 4th in all of Japan in the 1km Time Trial. Koh graduated high school and almost followed the top high school cyclists to KEIRIN school, but encouraged by his mother, decided to go to university instead. He enrolled in Chuo University (CHUO DAIGAKU) in Tokyo and joined their cycling team in 1985. His sophomore, junior, and senior year, Koh was the all Japan college champion in either the Sprint or 1 km Time Trial categories. He was also selected to represent Japan at Universiade in Moscow, Russia, where he placed 3rd in the world in the Sprint and 6th in the world for the 1 km Time Trial.
After graduating from university with a degree in Psychology, Koh entered KEIRIN school (KEIRIN GAKKOU) in Shizuoka, Japan. There he trained for one year and served as his class president. Upon graduating from KEIRIN school, Koh became a professional KEIRIN bicycle racer and debuted in 1990. Within 3 years, he had moved up to the highest racing category, S1. He was designated to represent Japan as a member of Japan’s National Cycling Team at the World Cup in Copenhagen, Denmark and placed 4th in the world in the Sprint category. In all, Koh raced for 17 years professionally on the KEIRIN circuit, peaking in 2001 with three consecutive first place finishes at the AOMORI KINEN Race, beating out then champion Toshimasa Yoshioka who came in 2nd. In his professional career, Koh raced in 1354 races, and had 20 championships and 230 firstplace finishes. Koh retired in 2007 and moved to Houston with his family soon after.
SAMURAI CYCLE WORKS, LLC
Koh is the chief framebuilder at Samurai Cycle Works and uses his last name as his brand. He brings to his craft a background in track cycling and a vast knowledge for custom bike frames. In his professional career, he has ordered some 60+ steel frame NJS custom frames by framebuilders such as Samson, Nagasawa, Shimazaki, 3Rensho, Bridgestone,Vivalo,and Nambei. Koh remains close to these master frame builders and adopts many of their advanced techniques when designing and creating his Annoura frames.
