cycle mumbreeze

Our trip to Hakone!

2010-10-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

As I wrote in the last entry, we went on a bike trip to Hakone and came back yesterday.

It was just an overnight trip, so we didn't need to bring a ton of stuff, but still we had a bit more luggage than usual. My new Ostrich pannier bags were put into good use.

Kao was quite excited about the trip as this was our first real vacation in a while. Now that Summer is over, the weather is much more comfortable and is just about perfect for a long rides on a bike.

It took us I think about two and a half hours to get to Odawara. We were quite hungry when we got there, so we ate lunch near the Odawara train station and looked around a bit. Odawara is quite a big city compared with Chigasaki or Oiso and it's a very Japanese city as there is the Odawara Castle, so it's somewhat tourist-y with lots of shops catering to visitors. After walking around the station area looking at mostly delicious looking foods and sweets, we rode over to the Odawara Castle. These iconic Japanese castles were all built within a period of half a century during the era just before the Edo period if I remember correctly. Not all of them still exist today and of ones that still do, many are ones that have been re-built after they were destroyed in earthquakes and fires. I believe the Odawara castle has been re-built. It stands wide and not as smart looking as some other castles, but when we went inside it was very roomy and it went up much higher than I expected.

Here's a view from the top of the the castle.

Another view with Hakone which is where we'll be heading.

From Odawara to Hakone Yumoto, it was surprisingly close. Here I am (I didn't even notice when Kao took this) looking at directions to get to our ryokan (inn).

It was exactly there that I made a wrong turn. If we had kept on going straight, it would have been just a gradual climb to our destination, but it looked like an easier route on the map to turn there. Unfortunately for us, that route turned out to be a series of pretty steep climbs followed by a very steep downhill to get to the ryokan, so we ended up doing more climbing than we needed.

But we made it and we were ready to rest and relax.

Our room at the ryokan. That's just by the window and there's a lot more to it. There was probably enough room to sleep 6-8 people.

The river just outside the window looked like this.

We took a bath (hot spring water) and then changed into Yukata (light kimono) and went for a stroll around the area.

It got dark pretty quickly and it was time to go back for dinner.

Lovely, isn't it?

Hungry?

Mmmmm! It was all so good after a day of bike riding (and sight seeing). There was even more than what's shown in these pictures, but we were too busy enjoying the food to take pictures of everything.

More dinner? No, this is breakfast actually.

We took full advantage of the rare opportunity to indulge not just in eating, but we also took another bath after dinner and then one more before breakfast. As you may know, the Japanese love taking baths, but onsen(hot springs) baths are special as the onsen water is rich in mineral with various health benefits. For example, a bath of regular water does warm the body and is good for blood circulation, but after this onsen bath we were very warm for many hours, much longer than usual. A stay at an onsen ryokan may not be super fancy, but for me, it's a perfect luxurious experience. You get to take as many hot springs baths as you like and then they bring you delicious food right to your room. After dinner, they even set the futon for you and you can just relax and fall asleep if you want. When you wake up, they clear the futon and bring you breakfast. What's not to like about that? Of course it costs a little more than a stay at a simple hotel, but when you consider all the extra things you get, it's not all that expensive. For us, it's not something we can afford too often, but it's really worth it on special occasions.

After checking out of the ryokan, we rode around the area for some more sight seeing.

There was this really old path of cobblestones which I think may have been a part of the foot path from Tokyo to Osaka.

Then we went and checked out a couple more places like the Tamadare waterfalls,

and the Zeniarai Benten shrine,

then headed back to Odawara.

We went to the fishing port in Odawara and went to the Fish market restaurant.

Lunchtime!

Yay!
It was indeed as delicious as it looked.

Yes, it was well worth the trip, thought Kao.

"smoking is bad for you!" said the Octopus.

After all that fun, it was time to ride again. And we rode somewhat more slowly for a good 3 hours. Took some shots of the Surly on the Chigasaki beach front almost near home for good measure. The bikes rode great. Thanks bikes. We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to the next adventure with you.

We're ready for our Fall bike trip

2010-10-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since the last post. I guess there haven't been that much to write about. I've been riding my bike around daily, but haven't been on any epic rides to write about. The weather here has been quite strange. We had a super hot Summer here and then in a matter of a few days, the temperature had dropped like 10 degrees(celcius) and it felt like we skipped fall altogether and gone straight to Winter. That didn't last too long fortunately and now it's neither too hot or too cold, just about perfect weather for bike riding.

We are actually going on a "long ride" by our standards tomorrow. We are going to Hakone and spend a night at a hot springs inn and ride back the next day. Hakone is the first real mountain on the coast from Tokyo to Osaka. We're actually going to Hakone Yumoto which is at the foot of Hakone, so we won't really be climbing up the mountain. It is a long ride compared to what we'd been riding, but there are plenty of people who would ride from Tokyo to Hakone and back all in a single day. We're not one of those people. We're just gonna enjoy a long ride at a leisurely pace and then enjoy a hot bath and some good food. You all know what I'm talking about if you'd ever been to an Onsen in Japan.

The picture at the top is Kao with her bike. We got some slightly fatter tires for it. Kao says that the bike with these 700 x 28 Panasonic Pasella tires are so much more stable and easier to ride.

I put the tires backwards as some of you may have noticed, but that's been corrected. I also got the Ostrich pannier bags for my bike as we'll need to carry more stuff than usual for an overnight stay. These ones aren't those nice canvas bags, but the ones made of nylon that's a lot more reasonably priced. They seem a little more flimsy than my Minnehaha bag, but we'll see how they'll work out.. I didn't get any pictures of them, but I'm sure we'll take a lot of pictures on this trip.

I'll leave you with this picture of a miraculous encounter I had with a fairy on the Fujisawa-Yamato cycling road.

Summer riding

2010-09-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

Well we've been on a number of rides since the last entry, but we haven't taken so many pictures on them to do a proper entry about any one ride. Instead, I will just post what pictures we have taken recently and comment on them.

Here is Kao at the Shichirigahama beach.
This was the destination of our ride one day when we did take pictures.

View Larger Map

We went from Fujisawa towards Kamakura and turned South where the Shonan monorail crosses. The map direction begins there. Then the road will go up to Kamakura-yama (Kamakura-hill) which is quite a steep hill to climb. It was the first time we were there so I was too preoccupied with finding the way to take pictures. After the climb, it was all downhill to the Shichirigahama area.

Here I'm riding through the nice path (with no cars) that leads to the ocean front.

You can see the ocean where the road starts to go downhill.

I've crossed the Enoden train tracks and is just a street away from the ocean front.

Kao was taking all the pictures until now, but then I took the picture of her which is at the top.

Shichirigahama isn't all that far from where we live and we just wanted a short casual ride, but the Kamakura-yama was more hilly than we expected.

Another day, we went to the Tsujido beach to take pictures of ourselves. Here's Kao on her bike.

It's been long overdue, but we'd been meaning to make a "We've moved" card for sometime and so we needed material for that.

If you look at this picture closely you might find it a bit strange. That's because it's actually made up of two separate shots. I photoshoped it to make it look like we are standing next to each other.

Here's me on my bike. Kao likes taking pictures of me, but I don't think I'm as photogenic as her.

And a couple of more shots by Kao of surfers riding bikes along the beach. This is a quite typical scenery along this beach. I would say that more than half of the people riding bikes in the area are usually carrying surfboards.

I spent my junior high and high school years in Southern California where surfing was very popular and I tried it as well, but I really was no good at it so I have no desire to try it again, but I think it's quite a romantic sport and I like being around it while riding along the beach.

Japan has had one of the hottest Summers in recent history, but it's finally beginning to cool down a bit. It's quite an adventure to ride the bike under the blazing sun, but it should become a bit easier now. We should be able to go on longer rides without having to worry about heat stroke or sunburn.

Mumbreeze goes to Oiso

2010-08-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we rode to Oiso. I've probably mentioned Oiso briefly here and I had ridden there a few times by myself, but this was the first time we rode there together. I wasn't sure if Kao would be able to ride all the way there or not, but we took it easy and it wasn't a problem. For the purpose of this entry, we'll start at the Tsujido station which is a major train station near our place. From the station we headed South towards the ocean and then took the Shonan Shindo (Shonan New Way) and went towards the ocean. The picture above is the bridge that crosses from the Shonan Shindo to the Hamasuka beach.

View Larger Map

From there, we rode along the beachfront for most of Chigasaki.

That's the "C" monument of Chigasaki Southern Beach.

From there we crossed the Sagami River into Hiratsuka and rode along cars on the Highway 134 all the way to Oiso.

This is the Oiso beach. It is supposedly Japan's first public beach. It's actually a tiny bit of Oiso waterfront, but the rest of the coast is hard to access because of the highway and the beach isn't sand.

This beach is definitely not as hip as around Enoshima as you can see these old style "Umi no Ie", but I really like the rural atmosphere of Oiso.

After the beach, we rode into town.

It's mostly quiet and residential.

We stopped at a Curry restaurant called Chairo (color brown) and had lunch. Curry and vegetable plate was very good. After that we rode the Taiheiyou Jitensha-do (Pacific Ocean Cycling Road) which runs along the coast, but right next to the Highway 1 which blocks most of the view of the beach and the ocean. I don't know why they didn't build it on the other side of the highway.

Oiso for the most part though is easy to ride though.

I snapped this picture while waiting at a signal. This may not look like much of a bike lane, but this is actually pretty good. Usually the white line is much closer to the sidewalk and so you have very little space to ride. A lot of the times, you end up riding in these gutter things which are much less smooth and has drains every 10 meters or so. Here. you have a bit more asphalt and the gutter is nice and smooth and it's fairly seamless in between. It may not be the perfect bike lane, but I felt a lot more comfortable there than on most streets with car traffic here. There is quite a bit of bike traffic, both sporting cyclists and locals riding around town, so cars seem to be used to them as well.

We rode back after that, riding along the beach when we got back to Chigasaki. Kao faired much better than I thought although she didn't drink enough water and was a bit dehydrated and had a headache after. I bug her to drink enough water, but I didn't check how much she was drinking. I'll have to get on her case even more next time.

Fujisawa Yamato Jitensha-do

2010-08-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

Last week, we took the local cycling road called "Fujisawa Yamato Jitensha-do" (Jitensha-do means cycling road) from Fujisawa where we live to Yamato which is about 15Km to the North. The cycling road runs along the Sakai River. We have been riding along the Hikichi River quite often as it is quite near where we live and it too has a cycling road, but it's in bits and pieces with lots of gravel in between. I hadn't heard about the Fujisawa Yamato route until I found it on a Japanese cycling blog. It seemed like quite a nice and long route, so we decided to give it a try.

Some parts of it was overgrown with plants and that made the path narrower, but for the most part, it was quite nice to ride. I didn't take the best photos as I was just enjoying the ride, but I think it's the best cycling road I've been on in Japan as of yet. It's maybe almost as good as the Springwater trail in Portland. It was quite refreshing as most places I'd been riding are very nice, but still most streets lack any kind of real consideration for bicycles.

Yes, I'm loving my Surly.

We met our friend in Yamato and had a nice talk with her in a family restaurant (Japanese equivalent of Denny's) where you can order a "drink bar" and drink all the drinks (non alcholic) for like a dollar.

Then we made our way back to Fujisawa, but made a little detour to the Iida Dairy Farm.

It's the self-claimed smallest dairy farm in Japan and they sell ice cream and cheese cakes there. We had a nice gelato and met with the cows who live right in the back.

We got a little rained on, but by the time we were near Fujisawa, it cleared up. It was a very good ride.

I wish I had taken better pictures, but if you check out this page, you can see what it's like. The text is in Japanese, but if you are curious about other rides in the area, the site has reviewed quite a number of them, so you might want to check them if you're thinking of riding in this area.

Meet my new bike!

2010-08-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yes! That's my new Surly Crosscheck.

I took the picture right after I got back from the bike shop, so the saddle is still lower than what I normally ride with.

That was yesterday afternoon. Since then, I took it for a little ride along the nearby Hikiji River and then today I went for a longer ride to Oiso. I can say with all sincerety that this is pretty much the bike I wanted. It is really solid and can be ridden over all kinds of stuff like gravel and sand without having to worry if I might slip or damage the bike. I took a bunch of pictures and I think this entry will be very much tech oriented, so if you're not into that, I'm sorry, but please let me indulge as I am still so happy to have this "new" bike.

This was along the Hikiji River yesterday with rice fields in the back. I've raised the saddle and put on the rear rack. You don't see too many people using rear racks here other than on mamacharis. Also, you might have noticed that this bike has a kick stand. That wasn't standard issue, but I knew that almost everytime I park the bike, it will come in handy, so I had it put on at the shop.

The tires are the Schwalbe Marathon 700 x 28. These are pretty wide tires for me, but there's a lot of bumps on the roads around here, so these are much better than skinny tires.

The rims are Salsa Delgado Cross. The shop guy picked these which was a surprise, but I know of Salsa as a maker of mountain bikes and components, so I think these will be plenty tough.

Avid Shorty cantilever brakes. One thing I wanted on my new bike were cantilever brakes. I wasn't unhappy with the performance of the sidepull brakes on my old bike, but I never liked the complexity of them. With cantilever brakes, they are simple and you can see exactly how they work and so they are easy to take care of as well.

As you can see, I've got quite a bit of stack under the stem. On my old bike, I had less, but it seemed with this frame, I needed this much to achieve the same position. I'm not sure if the top tube is low on purpose as this is a cross frame. If I was to build a custom frame, I would probably have the top tube a bit higher, but the bike rides just fine as it is, so, I'm OK with it.

The kickstand. Not sure the make, but this works great. You can adjust the length of the leg by turning the striped collar. There are almost no bike racks anywhere you go in Japan, so the bike needs to be able to stand by itself. Bike theft isn't as much of a problem here especially in this more rural city of Fujisawa, so you don't need to lock the bike to something else as you would in the US.

Anyway, this bike and I are definitely gonna go explore all over this area. I'm really looking forward to it and I will be reporting on our trips for sure. I haven't thought of a name for it yet, but if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Shōnan

2010-07-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

Shōnan is the name of the region we've moved to. It is not an official term, so there is mixed opinion about exactly how large an area the term describes. What's for sure is that where we live in the city of Fujisawa is in the dead center of what is considered Shōnan.

View Larger Map

In the map above all the coastline area included, the cities of Hiratsuka, Chigasaki, Fujisawa and Kamakura are all generally considered as part of Shōnan. Although it's not an official geographic term, it's widely used to describe the area. The term Shōnan might conjure up images of Sunny beaches and the ocean for most people. It's definitely a popular Summer destination for the inhabitants of the greater Tokyo area. I thought I would write about it since it's destined to be a term we will use very often from now on.

I will share with you some pictures of different parts of Shōnan that I have ridden to on my bike.

Most recently, yesterday morning in fact we rode to the nearby Enoshima where I took the picture above. Enoshima is a small island off of the coast. It is a very popular tourist destination and it's very scenic for sure.

Here's another picture from Enoshima. This is the very backside of the island and there is a cave you can see for a few hundred yen. (We were too cheap to pay to see it)

This is the beach front of Hiratsuka and in the distance you see the mountains of Hakone and Tanzawa. If the sky was clearer, you would see Mt. Fuji beyond there. This scenery pretty much continues from a little beyond near Enoshima to Hiratsuka.

This is Kugenuma beach just West of Enoshima. It is one of the most populated beaches in the Summer. I took this photo before the Summer vacation season began in earnest, but these temporary shacks are called "Umi no Ie" which roughly translates as "House by the sea" are places where beach goers can go to lounge around, eat, drink, take a shower, and keep valuables in lockers while dipping in the ocean. Kugenuma is littered with these Umi no Ie during Summer, so locals tend to stay clear and go to more quiter beaches in other areas.

This is the view of the ocean in Oiso. Oiso is the city West of Hiratsuka. I rode there a little over a week ago. That is so far the farthest I've ridden since I'd moved here. Going from Fujisawa, you cross the Sagami River from Chigasaki to Hiratsuka first and it starts to feel more rural and then when you get to Oiso, it feels even more rural. I saw a lot of sport cyclists in this area. I found that it was much easier and pleasant to ride there as well. I didn't ride by the ocean in Oiso, so I don't really know what the waterfront area is like, but I stopped to go toward the ocean here and snapped this picture. Unfortunately, I couldn't ride any further so, I couldn't get closer to the ocean, but the water looked really beautiful there. I will try and ride by the ocean next time.

Shōnan isn't just about the ocean. There is all kinds of cool neighborhoods and shops and there's a lot of historic sites as well. This particular picture is the old school shopping street in Kugenuma Kaigan. We bought some fresh Tofu there.

Anyway, there is so much to explore. My bike still isn't ready yet, but when I do get it, I will be venturing all over Shōnan and will share with you what I've seen.

The journey to a new bike

2010-07-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

So, as I wrote in the last entry, I am working on a new bike for myself. Above is what's left of the previous bike; handlebar, stem, levers, saddle, seatpost, crankset, bottom bracket, derailleurs and chain. I had meant to bring the wheels which is the next most important (and expensive) part of a bike after the frame, but I had no way of bringing them with me here. So, this is all I have left and I started thinking about building a new bike with that.

After some thinking, I started entertaining the idea that maybe getting a custom frame could is a real possibility. I had been looking at sites of various Japanese frame builders and came across this one which is the builder Nakajima, but they also sell Toei frames.

I had seen this Toei Commuter a couple of years ago while walking around Tokyo. It's a very nice bike and it seemed to have a good reputation among their owners. I thought it would be a good frame to consider as it is very reasonably priced for a custom frame at the starting price of 87000 yen ($995 US at writing of this entry) and the waiting is much shorter than it is in the US. I wrote an email to Nakajima while I was still in Portland to inquire about it and maybe get the process started early, so I could have the frame done sooner. Unfortunately, he never responded to my email.

After I arrived in Japan and I had mostly settled down in my new place, I started again to try and put the new bike together. On the Nakajima site, it said that the Toei frames are now taking about 7 months, so at that point, that seemed too long as I wanted to have it before this Summer was over. I started looking at the Nakajima bikes which didn't look as good to me before, but there were pictures of more recent ones like this one above looked OK, nice and simple. So, I called Nakajima and had a talk with him. This was really the first time for me to talk to a builder with the intention to possibly buying a frame. I was quite unsure of how to talk about it and I had a lot of questions, but he seemed really uninterested and almost seemed to want to talk me out of it which he succeeded after he told me the wait was 1 year.

I had looked into other builders as well, but none were as cheap as Nakajima or Toei, so I gave up on the idea.

Then I looked at the semi-custom frames by Panasonic like this one above. You can order this frame in 3 sizes (460, 510, or 550) and in any of 28 colors you like and it will be finished in 14 days! The only thing I couldn't tell was what the wheel size is. It kind of looks like they could be 26 inch, but even if that was the case, this seemed like a good possibility, so I went to a local Panasonic dealer to ask about it. I was quite ready to go ahead and order it, but I asked just in case if they had other steel frames that were similar. It was a good thing I asked because they indeed had something even more reasonable.

Yes, that's a Surly. All of you in North America are probably quite familiar with the Surly brand. They are quite a popular brand in Portland for sure. I'd never been super attracted to Surly's myself and I'd been thinking my next bike will be a Japanese brand, but this Surly frame was much cheaper than the Panasonic and with all the parts I still need to buy to complete the bike, I can use all the savings I can get. Many of you keen observers probably noticed that the bike is the Surly Crosscheck and not the popular Long Haul Trucker. While I have no intention of racing cyclocross, the LHT will be for the 26 inch wheels in my size, so I opted for the Crosscheck which are made for 700c wheels in my size. The only misgiving I have with this frame is that the bottom bracket is slightly higher than normal making the center of gravity higher, but I think I will get used to it and with this frame, I can be much more confident going over rough roads which there are plenty of around here.

Anyway now, the shop had ordered the frame for me and it is waiting for a few more parts to arrive before being built. They are building new wheels for me instead of getting pre-built ones as the kind of wheels I wanted weren't available and the parts for the wheels seem to be taking a long time. I called them today and they said it will be 1 or 2 weeks still. I was hoping to get it this week, but I have to be patient.

Anyway, so after looking at more exotic possibilities, I will end up with a very ordinary Surly bike. I'd been riding Kao's Trek ever since I'd been here and it's pretty good, but not quite right, so I'm really looking forward to getting my own bike and dialing it in and riding it all around this area which is quite a haven for cycling in this part of Japan.

Starting again in a new place

2010-07-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Howdy.

Sorry for the long hiatus. Life had taken precedence over blogging for the last months.

I am all well and good. I may have mentioned it here before, but I have finally made the move back to my native country of Japan. We have found a place to live in the city of Fujisawa which is about an hour South East of Tokyo by train. It is just West of Kamakura which is the city that used to be the seat of the Shogunate long ago. They call this area Shonan and is quite a popular area for its beaches. We are quite happy to finally be living together and in our own place. (We were living in a family related place before.)

I had actually a couple more Portland posts in mind before I left, but then the move was so consuming, I had no time nor energy to write them. This move was probably the worst move of my life as I barely got out of the place in time to catch the plane. My friend Eric who came to give me a ride to the airport saw that my apartment was still a big mess when he arrived and if he hadn't been so kind to help me pack and clean, I wouldn't have made it. I was quite deluded about how much work was involved and how much stuff I could take with me. I had been hoping to be able to take the remnants of my bike (the bike sans the damaged frame), but there was no way for me to take the wheels as they were too big and I already had so much luggage.

I did manage to take the KT (Kao's bike) with me as you can see in this photo. It is doing well. I've made a few modifications to it to suit the environment here. I will do a post about that soon.

This area is really beautiful with the the beaches, but there are also many rivers and rice fields and lots of green. I thought I would be missing Portland a lot, but this place is so much better than my expectations that I haven't even thought about Portland that much. Our place is only a 15 minute bike ride from the ocean and 30 minutes to either Kamakura or Chigasaki. Chigasaki is a very bicycle friendly city and it is where the pro cyclist Fumiyuki Beppu (he rides for Lance Armstrong's Team Radioshack) is from.

We have been taking little bike trips all over the area and it's too much to write about it all, but I will now resume with regular updates, and I will write more detailed entries from now on.

We currently have 3 bikes among the two of us. One is Kao's KT, one is Kao's mamachari and the thrid one is my Dahon folding bike. We have been sharing KT and the mamachari between us for now, but I have been looking to build a new bike with the parts from the old one. It's taken a bit of time to consider many different possibilities and I've finally decided on something, but I never would have guessed my new bike will be that. It's still going to take a while to put it together, but I will write about that soon as well. I don't know if we might have lost what few readers we had during our inactivity, but if you are still with us, thank you. I think this blog will be much more interesting reading as we are starting a new life in a very beautiful new place.

The Verdict

2010-04-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

As I had written in the previous post, my road bike had sustained an injury in the way of cracks in the head tube.

On Saturday, I took the bike to a local bike shop, one that has quite a good reputation, to seek professional opinion about this damage. I did read up quite a bit online about cracked aluminum frames and it looked mostly hopeless, but still I didn't want to retire it without having it looked at by an expert. Maybe there is a chance they know an aluminum welder who can fix it?

Well, the verdict was that there was pretty much nothing they could do other than to sell me a new frame. They asked me if I was the original owner of the bike (I wasn't), so perhaps the manufacturer can replace it it or sell me a new one at cost if I had bought it as new. The final piece of advice was "not to ride it anymore".

I actually rode the bike there and back. The ride home was one of mixed feelings. The weather was super nice, perfect bike weather, so it felt very pleasant, but I was quite sad that this may be the last ever ride on this bike.

I spent the weekend mostly indoors. Ironically, the weather was what I'd been waiting for the last few weeks, so I would've definitely gone for a ride had the bike not been decommissioned. Instead of actually riding, I did so vicariously through watching the Paris Roubaix super early Sunday morning. After the weekend, I felt quite unhealthy from the lack of exercise and keeping irregular hours. On Monday night, I had the worst stomach ache I've had as far as I can remember. I don't think the lack of physical exercise was the only factor that caused it, but I had been feeling kind of unhealthy and in need of some physical activity. For me, because I work at home, I tend to lead a very sedentary life and riding around town for errands on the other bike isn't quite enough exercise for me. That other bike KT (Kao's Trek) is a road bike with Milano bars set up for upright position, so I could put drop bars on it again, but then I wouldn't have the town bike which is much better for short utilitarian rides.

It's such a waste to have this bike that I had dialed in and it was just the beginning of the season to go out for long rides. Well, I don't know about long rides, but at the least, I felt the need for it as it provided me with my only prefered way to exercise. So, I made a quick trip to the local hardware store and fixed the bike!

Well, it's a temporary fix for sure. I have no illusion that I will be able to keep on riding it this way for too long. But at least, I will have it to ride a couple of times a week. Maybe it will last until I move to Japan. The other change I made was to switch the pedals (yet again) to platform pedals, just so that in the event that the headtube cracked, I wouldn't be clicked into the pedals and be able to react quicker. The clamps are quite strong, so I think it will keep it from further damage. Anyway, I will keep an eye on the crack with each ride and if it seems to have gotten bigger, then I will stop riding it.

This is just something I'm doing on my own accord and I wouldn't recommend anyone to do the same if they had the same problem though.

The things I've learned from this are two things. One is that aluminum bikes may not be as reliable as I had thought. I had two aluminum bikes prior to this and I had no problem with them. One I sold to a friend and one I got stolen, but they seemed almost bomb proof (especially the mountain bike) and worked perfectly while they were in my possession. The other thing is that buying a used bike online without looking at it first is risky business. After having had my mountain bike stolen, I knew I wanted a faster bike I could ride longer distances with, but such bikes are quite expensive new, so I went to Ebay to scout used bikes there. I am no expert at Ebay, so I probably didn't look carefully enough at what I was bidding on. I bid on a few bikes and when I finally won the bidding for this bike, I was just so happy that I was able to buy a bike of this quality for probably third or quarter of what it would cost new. It wasn't quite perfect when I got it and when I had the bottom bracket replaced, the mechanic at the shop told me the bike looked like it's been crashed. That was a bit scary and the bike did make mysterious noises which seemed to come from the lower end of the frame, but I never suspected any damage around the head tube. I'm not sure if I just didn't notice it or if there was damage which was hidden under the paint until recently, but either way, I think it was not me that caused the crack. I think it was already damaged when I got it and just got aggravated more as I rode it.

Anyway, so I think I've learned my lesson and I will do neither of these things next time.

In fact, I'd been looking at what options there are in Japan. I saw one place that can build custom steel frames as low as 80000yen (about $860). That sounds pretty good to me. I would have to look into it more, but now I'm actually excited about getting a new frame.

I think just as we humans cannot take good health for granted, you can't take a bicycle's health for granted either. I think some may last longer than others (steel longer than aluminum), but while you have a good working bike, you should really enjoy it.

life is finite, most certainly for bicycles

2010-04-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just as I was growing more fond of my Special K...

I went for a short ride yesterday to enjoy the rare sunshine and as I sat down on a bench at the Eastbank Esplanade, I shot this video to capture the moving platform and the river.

Then I looked at my bike in the bright sunlight and noticed something quite disturbing.

(this picture was taken after I got home)

Can you see the cracks in the headtube?

First I thought it was just cracked paint, but with a closer look it looks quite a bit like the aluminum under the paint is cracked as well. I did some reading online to see what this entails for Special K and it didn't look very promising. It could be that the days are numbered for Special K. Repairing it may be difficult and may not be worth it as it could be costly and could happen again.

I will have to get a professional (at a good bike shop) look at it first before I decide on what to do next, but I started thinking about all the possibilities.

Maybe get a new frame? The first frame that comes to mind, Rivendell Sam Hillborne, is too expensive for me. The Soma Saga and Velo Orange Polyvalent are much more reasonable, but they will require different size wheels in my size, so more expense is needed. Getting a new frame won't mean just the frame. It will require other parts as what's on Special K may not be compatible with the new frame. Also, it's may be worth it to wait until I've moved back to Japan to get a new frame as getting a full bike there will definitely be more expensive than just the wheels and the parts. I think for now, if there's something that can be done to prolong its life (maybe clamping the tube around the crack?), I will do that, then I will have time to save up and look for a good frame instead of getting a quick fix that may not be the right choice. Anyway, I will go to a shop today and seek out advice. If they tell me, it's too dangerous to keep riding it, luckily I have another bike at my disposal. It may not be a bike to ride long distances with, but at least it will help me in my daily life.

Special K ver 3.0 (?)

2010-04-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

I think it was wishful thinking that we would have enjoyed more sunny Spring days lately. We had a few days of nice weather a couple of weeks ago, but it's been mostly coludy rainy days since. It's my third Spring here in Portland, but I guess I'm still not used to having so many cold rainy days in the Spring.

I thought I would have done some rides to places I haven't been to and written about them, but with the uninspiring weather, I haven't ridden as much as I would have liked.

Instead of writing about rides I haven't done, I thought I would write about modifications I made to my bike. So, this is going to be a bit tech oriented post. I sort of feel unsure about what this blog should be with posts that only may interest "avid cyclists" though. Recently, Copenhagenize blogged that "avid cyclists" are unnecessary for advocating cycling. I can understand that, but it doesn't mean that I can be less of an "avid cyclist" or be less interested in bicycles. I'm neither here nor there. I'm not a full on racer nor a cycle chic utility rider, but in between. It's not like this blog has so many readers and there's a clear mission, so for now I'll just write about things that interest me.

Anyway, so I have made a couple of modifications to Special K. Can you tell what they are in the picture above?

I replaced the stem and the pedals.

This is what the stem looked like before.

I felt a bit stretched out with this stem and recently, I've moved the saddle back a bit which made the reach even longer, so I wanted to get a shorter stem to get a more comfortable position. I looked around a bit for a new stem and my first thought was to get something more understated without the graphics. I looked at velo orange, but they didn't have any stems that could accommodate my bars. I also wanted to get a stem that could be adjusted to find the right position. There are stems that have pivots, but they were quite expensive and I wasn't sure about their reliability. Then I looked at Specialized stems because I knew they were adjustable with a inner sleeve. I am not loyal to the Specialized brand at all, but it seemed like the most adjustable and reasonably priced of all the ones I saw, so I decided to get it. I got the 90mm Comp-Set stem.

It has 10 possible angles or something like that, so you can fine tune your position as you see fit.

So, this is how it looks after I made the switch. It still has some graphics unfortunately, but it's slightly more subtle. I can definitely do without the "Innovate or Die" copy though. I don't know why the faceplate isn't black like the main body of the stem, but it does now cover the Specialized logo on the bar, so I would say the overall look is a slight improvement. Now if I could get rid of the red lines on the bars...

The other change is the pedals.

I (think I) first saw these Time Z pedals on Bike Hugger's modal bike (can't seem to find the link) and they looked like just what I wanted which were clipless pedals which could be ridden with regular shoes. It's been an ongoing search for me to find pedals that are perfect. My last pair which were the Crank Brothers Candy C pedals were great clipless pedals, but not at all good to ride with regular shoes. These Time Z pedals did look very promising as it has a wide platform and the binding mechanism didn't seem to protrude as much as other pedals did. The only way to find out was to get them and ride them. So, I did that.

I had high expectations for these and they are more accommodating than any other clipless pedals I've ridden with regular shoes, but still they are not like platform pedals. So, I think it was a slight improvement, but I'm not sure if it was worth the price.

I thought if I had regular shoes that are specific for these pedals, maybe they would fit better. I didn't want to buy new shoes just for this purpose, so I looked for used shoes at thrift stores and got these.

What I've done here is to cut off a couple of lugs of the sole to accommodate the protrusion of the pedals. This was also just a slight improvement, but it doesn't achieve anything near the feel of regular shoes on platform pedals. It's a very simple thing, how your feet feel on pedals, but I can't say that I'm satisfied with these.

For now though, I can't think of anything else I might try with these pedals and I can't justify buying another set of pedals, so I will just get used to these. I have been riding with this set up for short rides around town and I'm starting to get used to them although they still feel a bit funny.

So, that's what's happened with Special K. I'm not sure if this is interesting reading to anyone though. One thing I have been thinking is that though this bike isn't particularly special in any way, it's becoming more special for me personally with little modifications and some TLC. There's all kinds of beautiful bikes to be seen online (like at the recent NAHBS), but I think almost any bike can be special if you want it to be.

old man carrying aluminum cans by bike

2010-04-05T22:01:00.001-07:00

I caught up with the old man at the corner
I talked to him and he told me "this is not heavy" and laughed.

Scenery with the bicycle

2010-03-24T00:03:00.000-07:00

in Aoyama

bike with resturant advertisement.

parcel delivery bike.

Hanami & Mt. Tabor

2010-03-21T21:35:00.001-07:00

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom now (or at least a few days ago) here in Portland. Maybe they are just another flower tree for most Americans, but cherry trees may be the most obsessed about flower trees in Japan. I don't know how they got to be so popular, but maybe it has something to do with their fleeting beauty and the timing of the blossoming coincides with the end/beginning of the academic year when lots of people are experiencing major changes in their lives. There is also the tradition of "Hanami" (literally translated as flower watching in which people gather in mass outdoor around cherry trees and watch the cherry blossoms. At least that's what it's supposed to be, but for the most part, it turns into a drinking party. I can't remember the last time I was in Japan this time of the year, but I have done my own Hanami here and there. This year's hanami happened this past mid week. I had some errands to run downtown and on my way back, I rode through the Waterfront park knowing that I will probably see cherry blossoms. I actually fully expected to see it and packed a thermos of coffee and sweets in my pannier bag.

Cherry blossoms were in full bloom and I enjoyed my Hanami with coffee instead of sake.

Today (Sunday) I rode to Mt. Tabor Park. It's a park located in South East Portland. I'm not sure if it's tall enough to be called a mountain, but it is a hill and it's covered with tall trees. It's definitely one of my favorite places in Portland and I have ridden there many times, but this was my first ride there since last year. It's not quite far or high enough for a serious training ride, but it is a nice destination and at least for me at this time of the year, it's plenty.

View Larger Map

I am not one to dress in full cycling gear with no luggage even when I go for recreational rides. I like to dress in normal clothes and do normal things along the route. Today, there were 3 things I wanted to do during my ride; ride, buy grocery, and eat lunch. I think most people will do these things separately, but I'm too lazy to do separate outings, so I just do it all during my ride. The map above shows my route from Trader Joe's (where I shopped) to Mt Tabor Park.(the Bicycling layer couldn't be embedded. I hope they are working on that.) I got some lunch food there as well as some other food items. I kind of have mixed feelings about Trader Joe's. It's sort of fun to shop there and they seem to have pretty good quality stuff at reasonable prices, but a lot of their merchandise comes from very far places. I won't go into the whole "eat local" thing here, but the dried apricots I wanted to get was from Turkey, so I got prunes from California instead. (I like prunes too.)

Before the ride, I was looking at Google Map with the new "Bicycling" feature (isn't it so awesome?) and I found that there is a pedestrian/bike bridge over the freeway just South of Trader Joe's. I had no idea that was there and I would've ridden over the 39th Avenue overpass (where it's full of cars with no bike lane) if I didn't check out the map with the new feature, so thanks to Google, I had a much more "tranquilo" ride. There are so many ways you can go to the park from there. The Google directions will show you a much different, but way more complicated way, but I like my ride simple and without too many turns, so I think my way is much easier. My way takes you South to Belmont St and then East. You can also take Glisan or Burnside, but I found that, going that way, you will run into a series of short but very steep hills. On Belmont, it's not as steep, but it's a long and gradual climb all the way to the entrance of Mt Tabor Park. I'm actually not sure which part is harder, the climb to the park or the climb of Mt. Tabor. Anyway, it's best to take it easy or you will be cooked by the time you get to the park.

Once inside the park, you are surrounded with big tall trees and roads inside have less car traffic, so it's much more relaxing. I think when you are climbing under effort, it's definitely better to do it on roads with little or no car traffic. If you have cars going by you, I think it makes it more stressful as you need to concentrate to hold a straight line while you are already hard at work just trying to go forward. I think once I'm in better shape, I would "attack" the climb more, but today I just spun up to the top. I think the gradient there must not be as steep as the climb to Rocky Butte because there I couldn't even spin if I wanted to.

Time for lunch! Just a simple cheese sandwich, prunes and coffee.

I think most people that go on recreational or training rides go ride and then eat when they get home, but I like to bring food and have a little snack at my destination. It's like a little reward for having made it there or something. It started raining though as I was sitting there enjoying my coffee, so I got back on my bike and rode down half way where there is like a big picnic area with a roof and took shelter.

I took this picture there. I made a couple of modifications to this bike since I last showed this bike here. Can you guess what they are? I will write about that here soon.

Before I rode home, I decided to ride around the park. This is where they held the Mt. Tabor criterium which was part of the Mt. Hood Classic a couple of years ago. Last year, the race had finance issues and didn't include this stage, but I hope they will have it this year. I had a great time watching it 2 years ago. Here's a slideshow of pictures I took there.

So, there is this loop you can ride. For a good part of last year though, a part of it was under construction and you couldn't ride through, so I was curious if they had fixed it. I rode there and indeed they had finished whatever they were doing. I rode the loop once. There's always people riding there doing multiple loops, but I didn't want to overdo it this time. I think maybe once I'm in lighter clothing with less baggage (I think my pannier with the grocery weighed like 10 lbs), I might try doing laps. I can't imagine racing like 40 laps of it though. It's hard to imagine now that I was once fit enough to do similar kind of races albeit at the lower end of amateurs.

Anyway, it's a nice place to ride to. If it was a bit further from town and the climb more substantial, it would be even more a popular destination to ride to I think.

Spring! (time to get out after hibernation)

2010-03-09T21:15:00.000-08:00

The weather has been fluctuating quite a bit lately from cloudy rainy days to blue sky sunny days. This past weekend, we were lucky to have had the latter, so it seemed like Spring has arrived. A couple of days later, it's cloudy and rainy again, but I'm sure we'll be having Spring days more often from now on.

Nice weather makes you want to get out and do things you haven't done much during the Winter. I had been a bit of a hermit since I'd gotten back from Japan and haven't socialized much, but with the nice weather, it was time again to see friends I hadn't seen since last year.

On Sunday, I had a Sunday brunch with my friends APAK (Aaron and Ayumi).
You may recall from last year that they did a guest post about their trip to Seattle. They are a bit similar to us in that they are a married couple and make artwork. The top picture is one of their cards of a couple riding a tandem bike. (You can get a set of their cards from their Etsy shop)

This is another example of their art.

Anyway, so we went to a place called Jam in South East Portland.

Ayumi had the pancakes and Aaron had the bowl of stuff (don't remember exactly what was in it).

I had this. Poached eggs and hash browns. It was all very good.

After that, we rode our bikes a bit.

Ayumi has a nice old Peugeout mixte bike. Not sure the make of Aaron's bike as it has been painted over.

We went to Goodwill.

Aaron tried out this blue helmet. It matched what he was wearing, but he decided to hold out. They weren't that into riding bikes before, but I think they are starting to get into it now. And why not? Biking in Portland in nice Spring weather like this is so much better than sitting inside a metal box (car).

Flowers are in bloom too.

I think it's too early for Chery blossoms, so these must be peach or plum. There are so many of these trees in bloom all over Portland, and there's a faint, but nice smell as you ride by them.

I have been riding a bit too. This is the top of Rocky butte which I wrote about last time. I rode there 3 weekends in a row and I'd been refining my position each time. I'm still laboring my way up the climb, but I think I'm starting to find my climbing legs again. It was warm enough to take off my shoes for the first time as well. That small white mountain in the distance, I believe is Mt. Rainier in Washington.

Anyway, so it's a nice time of the year again here in Portland. We're still having cold rainy days as well, but from now till like end of Summer is really the best time of the year here in case you're thinking of visiting.

First climb of the year

2010-02-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

In the European bike racing lingo, there are 4 types of riders that I know of. The Rouler is a rider who can keep fast pace over distance and excels at time trials. The sprinter can sprint and contest the win from a large group. The puncher has explosive acceleration and can break away from groups. The grimpeur is the climber who can climb hills fast. If I had to choose which type I am, I would say that I'm a grimpeur. Sweetpea Bicycles had an interesting blog post last week about climbing too. I didn't know that she was a climber too. When I say that I'm a climber, I don't mean that I can ride away from everyone on the hill, but that it's one area of cycling that I might be better than average. When you go up a hill, the thing called strength to weight ratio comes into play. I guess when you go against the pull of gravity, the heavier you are the more power you need to use to move forward, so if you are relatively lightweight you have an advantage when going uphill. I guess it's one of the things that attracted me to cycling initially. I used to be super skinny as a teenager and there aren't many sports that favor that build. There was cross country running which I did a bit, but I ended up having a knee problem. I didn't have any competitive goals in mind when I got into cycling, but I found that you didn't need to be big and muscular to go fast. After I got into college, I joined the collegiate team and started doing some collegiate and USCF (predecessor of USA Cycling) races. In racing and training with people, I found that I was more of a climber than anything else.

(top of Rocky Butte)

Anyway, so even now, I think of myself a bit that way. I am not as skinny and I don't have a training schedule to keep, but I like to think that with some regular riding, I can get myself into a decent climbing shape. With that in mind, I went for a ride this past Saturday. Not a super long ride, but one with a decent climb at the end. This was really the first substantial climb since before Winter. Through Winter, I mostly rode in close vicinity and with Portland being fairly flat (there are lots of false flats though), so I hadn't really been using my climbing legs for quite some time. I decided to ride to Rocky Butte in North East Portland. It's almost all straight from where I live and there is a steady climb to the top of the butte at the end.

View Larger Map

As is often the case when I ride there, there was constant headwind, so just getting to the bottom of the butte was quite a work out. As I started to climb the hill though, I can immediately tell that it wasn't going well. I put it into a very low gear and tried to just spin, but even that was not working too well. I can think of 2 reasons why this was. One is that my position on the bike is not quite right. The other is that I'm simply out of shape. I'm sure I was out of shape, but I think with a low gear, I could have spinned with much more ease. The weird thing is that before I had this road bike, I'd done the same climb on my mountain bike with relatively little training and had been able to ride with more ease. I think if I just keep riding regularly, I will be able to climb better like I was doing last Summer, but I'm wondering if it would be better to change the position. I think I will try moving the saddle back, but to do that I will need a shorter stem. I feel I'm already a bit stretched out, so moving the seat will make it even more without adjusting the handlebar position.

At the top of Rocky Butte, there is a sort of a for like structure of a park. And from there, there is a nice view of Mt. Hood in the distance.

It's a nice place to sit and rest after the climb although I hardly ever see fellow cyclists resting there. I guess most people riding there don't carry U-locks like I do to park their bikes. Most people there are families that drive up with cars with big cups of soft drinks in their hands. The ride back was so much easier with the tail wind.

The next day on Sunday, I rode past downtown and climbed a bit of Burnside. I wanted to climb a bit to see how I should adjust my position, but I didn't want to ride too far. The grade of Burnside is pretty steep and my muscles were hurting after the effort of the day before, so I turned back quickly, but I felt my body was already starting to adjust to climbing in the position. So, I think if I just keep riding I will just get used to it, but I think maybe it's a good time to adjust things before the body builds up to fit the position.

I might be sounding like I'm seriously thinking about training, but not really. I don't plan on doing any competitions or even century rides. I just like to ride and enjoy the experience. I think it's all relative anyway. Whether you are racing in the Alps in the Tour de France or just riding by yourself up a local hill, there is a will to pedal and the experience of your effort is all yours.

May your wheels be true

2010-02-20T22:03:00.000-08:00

(Duchamp's "Wheel")

The weather has been much better this week and I have been riding my bike further and more often. The other day, I was riding around North Portland on some bumpy roads and I heard the Special K (my bike) make some noise. The bike had been making mysterious noises ever since I'd gotten it, but now there was some new noises as well. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but it turned out to be the saddle. You may recall that I had gotten the Selle Anatomica saddle last year. It's the first leather saddle I've had and I'd never had saddles that made noise before so this was a bit of a surprise. Afterwards, I tightened the bolt on the saddle and then the noise was no more. While I was at it, I decided to give the bike a check up. I'm not really an expert mechanic or anything, but I find that giving your bike some TLC once in a while does seem to make it ride smoother.

What I usually do is, I take a damp cloth and wipe all the surface area of the bike other than the chain. Then I flip the bike over and take the wheels off (which may be harder to do with heavy city bikes) and wipe the parts that were hard to reach with the wheels in place. I also wipe the wheels as well. You can wipe the tires too and check the wear of the tread too. Then I put the wheels back on, wipe the chain with a dry rag and apply clean lube. Then I take an allen wrench and check all the allen bolts to make sure nothing is loose. All of that is pretty easy and does not require any expert knowledge, but the last thing I usually do which is truing the wheels does take a bit of know-how, so I thought I'd write about that. Again, I'm no expert, so some of you may know much more about this than me, but I thought maybe this could be helpful for those who's never done it.

Just in case you don't know, truing a wheel is what you do when a wheel gets out of alignment. Wheels do sometimes can get out of alignment and become untrue after hitting a pothole or if you crash your bike. Major damage may need expert help or replacement, but for minor misalignment, you can fix it fairly easily.

The proper way to true wheels is to use a truing stand and a spoke wrench. I used to own a truing stand and with it you can definitely true wheels better, but even without it, you can do it with just a spoke wrench using the same method.

a spoke wrench looks like this:

or this:

A spoke wrench is a wrench for the nipple (yes, that's what it's called) that connects the spoke to the rim.

With a truing stand (like one below), you have the two metal pieces (calipers) which look like they are pinching the rim. You can control their distance to the rim by turning the knob. With a true wheel, you can bring them very close without touching the rim, however if it's untrue, the wheel will touch as you turn the wheel. What you want to do then is pinpoint where the wheel is touching. If it's touching on the left side at one point, then you take the spoke wrench to a nipple for the spoke going to the other side (to the right) on the hub and turn it counter clockwise. What that will do is tighten the nipple and pull the rim to the right and thus making it straighter. You can also tighten the nipples on the other spokes around the area. Unless the nipple was really loose, it's best not to over tighten them. Maybe give them a quarter turn at a time. As you tighten one part of the wheel, it may affect the tension of other parts of the wheel, so you can turn it and see if you notice other areas of misalignment. Also, after you think you've got it perfectly true and put them back on and ride, your weight might affect the tension, so it's a good idea to check it again.

Since I don't have a truing stand on hand, I make due without one.
What I do is I flip the bike over and use the brakes instead of the calipers. You can't really move the brake shoes like you can with the truing stand calipers, so you just have to kind of eye it to see if a part of a wheel is coming closer to the shoes as you turn them. If you notice a misalignment, then you just tighten the nipples as you would on the truing stand.

You can't really get it perfectly true this way, but I think it's better than nothing as I tend to find loose spokes while doing this. If you don't do it, chances are the wheel will go out of alignment to the point of no return much sooner than if you regularly checked them. Also, even with damaged wheels, you may not be able to make them perfectly true, but you can get them true enough that they are usable, so you will prolong their usefulness.

Some bike shops also have truing stands that you can use. I think it's a good skill to learn and I kind of like doing it. It's kind of similar to oiling my work boots in a way. With proper care, wheels will keep turning and taking you places for a long time.

p.s. I found some how to videos on the YouTube. I won't link them here, but you can find them quickly by searching with keywords "truing bicycle wheel". Maybe more helpful than what I wrote here.

Sun bathing by bike

2010-02-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of sun bathing really. In the Summer, I don't like to be in direct sunlight too much and when I go on bike rides, I prefer roads with tree shades. However, direct sunlight during Winter in Portland can be a rarity at times and I am missing it much more. This week had been particularly dreary with gray skies and raining almost everyday. So, when I noticed sun beams shining through the window yesterday, I dropped everything and went out for a ride.

I'm fortunate that I work at home and I can just go for a ride on weekday afternoon if I wanted. I was in middle of work, but I thought if I waited too long the Sun might go away. So, out I went and just being out and basking in the sun really "brightened" my day. There were some errands I could run, but it wasn't pressing, it was enough just to be out and feel the sunshine. I'm not one to sit or lay out somewhere to sun bath, but riding my bike really slowly and just absorbing the sun rays was enough for me. There were some people running and biking at a fast pace, but for me I'd rather ride slow and enjoy the rare sunshine. As I had predicted, by the time I was on my way home, it was cloudy again and starting to sprinkle. I'm glad that I didn't hesitate to go out or I would have missed the sunshine as the window of opportunity was rather slim.

I forgot to bring my camera though. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture of the shining river which looked particularly beautiful. Instead, the picture above is one I took last Spring at one of many Portland public parks. It's a different setting, but I think it conveys a similar feeling of the warmth of the sun.

It looks like we have a few more cloudy and rainy days before finally having some consecutive sunny days. I've been noticing some new plants and leaves are stating to sprout here and there, so the coming sunny days might really be the beginning of Spring here.

Big plan, little plans

2010-02-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

It seems to be getting warmer bit by bit around here. I have started doing rides that are slightly longer than just riding around town. Nothing heavy duty, but still I can feel my body is quite out of shape. I don't have any pictures though as these rides have been around already familiar places. I think weather permitting, I will start doing more substantial rides within a week or two.

Normally on this blog, we usually write about things we experience first hand, but today I thought I'd write about couple of things I noticed online.

The first is the Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030. I think that's the official name. I don't know how much coverage this has been getting outside of Portland, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it's a plan for the city of Portland to build some 680 miles of bikeways in the next 20 years that they are trying to pass. It was initially to be voted on this past week, but the vote has been postponed until next week. Mayor Adams who is supportive of the plan is confident that it will pass. I haven't followed it that closely myself other than reading articles over at Bike Portland, but while it seems a lot of people who are supportive of the plan, there's also people who are against it. To me, it's a no brainer. I have no problems with a plan that calls for building more and better infrastructure for bikes in Portland. I can only think of good things that could result from this. I think the issue for people who are against it is mainly the cost which will be some $613 million over the 20 years. That is a lot of money, but I think it's very low sum when you compare it with budgets for other modes of transportation. Anyway, I think while Portland may seem like a bicycle haven from the outside, the reality is that people who ride bikes are still a minority. One thing though that I don't quite understand is the scope of the plan. Why 20 years? Why not 10 or 5? 20 years seems like an awfully long time. I think they must have a good reason, but I don't get it. Anyway, I hope that it will pass next week. I think other Portlanders might have been more actively involved with this like going to a rally at the city hall, but my time here in Portland is limited and I will probably not be here to see the plan actually taking effect. My interest in the plan is more that it will set a precedence and maybe start a new trend for other cities to follow. Cities all over US desperately need a plan like this.

The other thing that sparked my interest this past week was this nice post over at Lovely Bicycle. It's about being able to afford things you love (bicycles!) by prioritizing what you really need in life. I'm quite similar in a way that I don't own a TV or a car and I rarely go out to eat at restaurants, etc. I spent years from when I was in high school to college being quite obsessed with sport cycling, but when I got into art school and moved to the other side of the country, I decided to give it up and concentrate on my studies. It wasn't long before I started missing the road bike I sold, but it wasn't until last year that I finally decided to get myself a road bike again. It was really the theft of my mountain bike that prompted me to buy the road bike, but until then I couldn't seem to justify the spending. I got a used bike and not a new bike. It's not my ultimate dream bike, but I'm glad to have it and glad that I didn't go all out on a dream bike then. After having had this bike, I think I know better what my dream bike would be. I had been thinking of having a road bike for so many years while living in NYC where I had my mountain bike and I often went for a ride in the city (riding around Central Park and stuff) and it took a move to Portland and losing the mountain bike to get it, but I think it would've happened sooner or later. I think what I'm getting at is that you can have what you want. Sometimes it takes circumstances for it to happen or you can manage your life and make it happen. I think people who say that they wish they could afford a nice bike in casual conversation probably don't really want one badly enough.

I was thinking before I started writing that these 2 things: the Portland bike plan and planning life to get what you want, sort of related to each other. Maybe they do, maybe not so much. Well, I think in both cases, careful thinking and planning can lead to good things whether it's a more healthy & pleasant environment or having something you truly wanted.

Pictures by Kao

2010-02-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

Me and Kao both have accounts at flickr. Mine is quite a mess with everything from daily snaps to artworks. Though I have taken classes in photography, I must admit that I am a poor photographer. Kao on the other hand is a much better photographer and so, I have often thought this blog can benefit more with her photography than mine. I've used her pictures in the past in my posts, but it was a bit of a hassle as I had to ask her to give me the html code each time. We noticed recently that now flickr has a "share this" feature for each picture, and with that I can grab the code myself without having to bother Kao about it.

Anyway, I thought I'd do a post with some of her recent pictures.

This is me on my Dahon riding along Tsurumi river.

Me again riding a mamachari on the path around Kitaura lake near Kao's parents house in Ibaraki prefecture.

A tin bike toy Kao found in a window in Nezu (old Tokyo neighborhood).

Me sitting and flipping through a bike magazine at the old Cycle Square Kitasando.

We stopped by F.I.G Bike after our visit to the Cycle Square. It not only has road bikes and fixies like so many other biks shops, but more utilitarian bikes and a whole section of causal bike clothing by brands like the Rin Project. The staff was very vocal about the merits of regular looking clothing that you can bike in.

Nice card on the wall!

Close-up of the entrance. The two bikes on the right, I think are a Globe and maybe a Velorbis. Not sure.

Also some of you readers who are fellow bloggers are also welcome to use our photos from our flickr pages; Mine and Kao's. You don't need to tell us beforehand, but drop us a line afterward if you can. I doubt that any of you will do so, but please don't use it in a negative way like being negative about bikes.

We may not have a lot of exciting things to write about in the near future as we have to deal with real life things and also it's not warm enough yet to really ride a lot, but we'll try and update regularly anyway.

Since the last entry (in Japan)

2010-01-21T23:09:00.000-08:00

Wow, as I started to write this, I checked to see when the last update was and it was like 3 weeks ago before the new year, in fact.

I am back in Portland now. Our house hunting in Japan so far hasn't met success. So now Kao will have to continue on that task without me and that might take a while, so I might still be in Portland for a bit longer.

We had a great new year's at Kao's parents' in Ibaraki.

We rode the mamachari to the nearby Kitaura Lake.

With a thermos full of hot tea!

On new year's day, we didn't ride the bikes, but we went to watch the first sunrise come up over the Pacific Ocean. It was super cold, but there were lots of people who had the same idea.

Kao at the same beach during the day.

Back in Kawaski, I saw these two bikes and hula hoops. So colorful and pretty!

We also visited the Cycle Square Kitasando which Kao wrote about here and Gary Fisher raved about on his visit. It was a temporary project by the Bicycling Popularization Association of Japan as a space which aimed to "popularize" bicycling. I had read and heard about it, but I wanted to check it out before it closed. (it closed on January 17th) They often had events like panel discussions and rides, but for the most part it's a cafe with expensive road bikes on display and all the latest bike magazines. There is corner where you can bring your bike in and use tools there and there is a "concierge" who you can go talk to about anything that is bicycle related. This is also the place where they held seminars about the Bicycle Citizenship Manifest. I still don't quite agree with that and also I found that the way Cycle Square Kitasando could have done things differently to appeal to a wider portion of the public.

When you first enter, there are these vintage bikes on display. (I think that's a vintage Pashley on the front) But the rest of the bikes on display in the space are all road bikes. I like looking at road bikes as much as anyone, but I think if they were aiming to get non-enthusiasts to become interested in riding bikes, they should really have had more variety of bikes. They had video monitors throughout the space and they were all showing videos of road racing too. I think road bikes and racing is definitely appealing, but there is so much more different kind of bicycling which they simply ignored. One thing that this space achieved though is that they got tons of media exposure. I think the Bicycling Popularization Association of Japan is mostly funded by Keirin and so this whole thing seemed very official, well organized, but a bit boring. That's a totally different approach from the grassroots stuff that happen here in Portland.

The food was pretty good although the portions were too small and over priced!

Lastly, this photo of a poster has been getting some attention on my flickr. It's a poster which tells you how (or how not) to bring your bike on the train.

You are supposed to disassemble your bike and put it in a bag or case so as not to get in the way of fellow train passengers. I think there are some trains in rural areas that allow bikes on board without disassembly, but for the most part these rules apply throughout Japan. It may be a while before multi-modal communting with bikes on trains become regular normal activity.

More kids bikes

2009-12-29T04:23:00.000-08:00

I did a post about kids bikes a while ago. There was a Miffy bike in that post and recently, I saw another Miffy bike, so I thought I 'd do another post with that and some other kids bikes I've seen since.

This one is even smaller than the previous one and it looks like it's been ridden much longer.

In the same parking space, there was a bike with a basket with some acorns. I think I remember collecting acorns when I was little too.

We spotted this Panasonic bike outside our building.

It's got very detailed graphics as you can see.

This one was parked in front of the local supermarket.

Its name is "Hard Candy". Design is coordinated throughout even with the original basket that says "Hard Candy".

Revisiting Tsurumi River

2009-12-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

The last 4 posts about the Tokyo Cycle Mode have focused on the product side of the bicycle quite a bit. I do like looking at bikes and accessories, but I think that's just one part of the experience of riding a bike. Other things like the environment you ride in and the weather might actually contribute more to the overall experience. Of course, how the bike feels is very important, but it doesn't matter so much if that bike is a high tech race bike or a mamachari. Any bike that's in decent working condition can be a joy to ride depending on the occasion. I guess what I'm trying to say is that at Cycle Mumbreeze, we are not that obsessive about the gear. For us, just enjoying riding the bicycle is more important. Even riding a mamachari barely faster than walking along the river is an enjoyable experience.

Last weekend, we rode to the nearby Tsurumi River. Tsurumi river runs parallel on the West side of the more famous Tama River. Beyond Tsurumi River is Tsurumi, the Eastern ward of Yokohama, where I grew up as a child before my family moved to the US when I was 13. So, Tsurumi River is the first river I probably came in contact with. The name Tsurumi translates as something like "Crane watching". I've always wondered if there was a time when you could go to the river and see cranes there. But, Tsurumi River as far as I can recall had never been known for its beauty or cleanliness. I think especially when I was growing up, it was in poor shape from industrial sewage. It has been a while since I'd been there because from where we reside now, it's much easier to get to the Tama River. To go directly to the Tsurumi River seemed complicated, so we decided to first go to the Yagami River which is a small river that runs into Tsurumi River.

View Larger Map

The above map sort of shows the route that we took although I couldn't get the route to be exactly the way we went. We rode mostly directly along the river.

The top photo is where the Yagami River meets Tsurumi River.

Kao looking at Tsurumi River.

It was a nice Sunny day and there were plenty of people out walking, running and riding bikes.

We ran into this family in the above photo. They were going rather quickly. Kao wanted to get a photo, but couldn't catch up with them, so I followed them instead and took this picture. You may not be able to tell, but there is a man running in front of the woman on the bike. The woman is carrying her child on her back which is quite unusual to see with so many options for carrying a child on a bike being available in Japan. It seemed the man who was probably the husband of the woman was training and the mother and child was following him closely behind.

There were many parts of the river front that were under construction.

"Tsurumi river basin area is in the shape of a baku(tapir)" this post says.

We crossed and went underneath a few railroads. This one might be right under the Shinkansen (bullet train).

We went to the Otsunabashi near the Tsunashima station and then headed back. Overall, the Tsurumi river didn't seem to be quite as well maintained or fashionable as the Tama river, but it seemed cleaner than I remembered from my childhood days and the local people there seemed to be enjoying the area.

Anyway, it was nice to revisit a place from my childhood and not be disappointed.

CYCLE MODE 2009 [ more pictures ]

2009-12-21T17:29:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pictures Kao took at Cycle Mode.

Armstrong / Contador display

Colorful Fuji Bikes

Rapha display with an Independent Fabrication bike

I will probably never ever ride the Cervelo P4

Fumiyuki Beppu display

This Specialized bike weighs less than 6kg!

CYCLE MODE 2009 [ colorful and cute ]

2009-12-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

After test riding the two bikes, I was mostly looking at colorful bikes and goods.

cute colors!

Puma bike, how does it ride? It looks a bit like an animal.

Covers both nose and neck. Colorful mask?

Cute, but a car for a bike lock? strange!

Very triangle. foldable.

CYCLE MODE 2009　[ test-ride ]

2009-12-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Kinya looks very glad because the bicycle which he rides is "cervelo".
but he finished a test ride and did not look so happy.The reason is written in his post.

It was the first time that I participated in such an event.
You can tell from the photo that it's very crowded. There was a line for each brand and the waiting time was long, but it was very windy and raining, so it was probably still less crowded than usual.

The test ride start!

He noticed the saddle was too low at this moment...

And then he tested a Bianchi. It's very light!

He's testing the Dura-Ace electronic shifting.

He's testing the cycle computer.

Cycle Mode

2009-12-12T00:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to this event called Cycle Mode which is sort of like Interbike, but is also open to the general public. It was held in the convention center called Makuhari Messe in the city of Makuhari which is about half way between central Tokyo and the Narita airport in the Chiba prefecture. It was a weekday and a very rainy day, so it wasn't too crowded. They also offered free entrance for women on this day. I was in line to buy me a ticket when a man approached me and offered a free ticket. I was suspicious at first, but it turned out he had free entry already and had extra tickets. So, it was our luck that both of us got in for free.

The thing I wanted to do there the most was to test ride bikes, especially the high end road bikes. I've been looking at them in magazines, on the internet and in bike shops, but I haven't really ridden the more recent road bikes mostly made of carbon fiber. I'm not really in the market to buy one, but I thought I would like to ride them and see what they are about.

It was a huge show, so there was so much to see. We looked at so much stuff and took lots of pictures, so I will try and recount our day the best I can.

Right after the entrance awaited the booths of Eddy Merckx and De Rosa bikes. I've always liked De Rosa for their style and being one of the few Italian bike makers to still offer steel frames. They were definitely one of the bikes I wanted to test ride, but unfortunately the registration for test riding had already closed until 2 hours later.

We walked by the Pinarello booth which had a long line of people waiting to test ride, so we decided to come back to it and then we went to the Bianchi booth. Bianchi is one of the few bike brands that Kao knew of and wanted to test ride and the registration line was still open, so we got in line. It turned out that they closed the line right after us, so we just managed to get in. We waited a while (maybe little less than half hour) and then we signed up to test ride and they told us a time which was about an hour and a half later(!) to come back. So, even after waiting in line, we had more than an hour before we could test ride a bike. I thought I was going to test ride bikes one after another, but it looked like it wasn't going to be that easy.

So, we decided to walk around and just look at stuff and see if there was a bike we could test ride without too much wait. We spotted this cool classic Pashley in a booth nearby.

There was cycling class for children too.

Then we came to the Cervelo booth.

Cervelo is really the cutting edge of race bikes. Like this P4 time trial bike above. I thought their bikes are things that belong in the elite road racing world, so I didn't even think I could ride one, but it turned out that their bikes were available to ride and the line didn't seem that long. We waited about 5 minutes to sign up and it was available half an hour later.

Kao opted to test ride a Masi entry level road bike which was available immediately.

Kao on the test course.

Kao's impression was that it wasn't actually all that different from her old steel road bike other than that the components worked much better.

This is the Cervelo RS that I rode. Kao took pictures of me riding it, so she will probably put them in a post soon. I was pretty thrilled to ride it so that I didn't really check the seat height before I took off, but as soon as I started, I immediately knew that the saddle was way too low. Being on the course for the first time with other people was also distracting. There was too much traffic to really pedal with any effort until the long straightaway at the end of the short loop. Officially, you're supposed to ride just one lap, but it seemed most people were riding multiple laps. I didn't really get enough of a feel with just a lap, so I kept going. The backside of the loop goes out of the building for a bit. It's shielded from rain with a roof, but there were little pools of water on the course. Enough water got onto the tires and onto the course inside the building and there was a sharp turn right after we go back into the building where the water on the building floor made it super slippery. I felt my rear wheel slip even though I wasn't going all that fast. I didn't fall, but I saw a guy fall right in front of me. Kao said she saw 3 poeple crash just during the time I was riding. I did try and ride with a bit of effort on the front straightaway, but it was way too short to really get a good feel. I ended up doing 3 laps. The bike was light and responsive and the carbon frame felt solid, but really the course seemed inadequate to really gauge the ride. The Cervelo RS is a climber's bike, so I would've liked to have gone up a short hill with it.

After that, it was time to go for our Bianchi test ride. Kao rode this Bianchi carbon road bike. She had never ridden a carbon bike and said it was much more impressive than the Masi aluminum bike. For my Bianchi test ride, I made sure to have the saddle raised this time. I also rode a carbon road bike. The saddle height was much better, but the handle bar/brakes set up seemed a bit awkward. I couldn't tell too much of a difference between the Bianchi with the Cervelo on this short course though. I felt the wheel slip a couple more times again and after the ride, I didn't feel too much more like doing more test rides. I also thought maybe riding other carbon road bikes might feel about the same with these conditions. As a fan of road racing, I like looking at the bikes that the pros ride, but I think having ridden these bikes, I'm slightly more over the mystique of high end road bikes. I thought these bikes were way too expensive for me to consider before, but I think now I would much prefer a custom steel bike even if I could afford a carbon race bike.

After that we just wandered around the big event space.
One thing that really brought out the bike-nerd in me was the Dura-Ace di2 shifting system at the Shimano booth. The picture above is not the bike I rode, but the bike next to it was equipped with the di2. The di2 is Shimano's electric shifting system. Instead of pulling on the shifters, you only need to press buttons and then motors inside the derailleurs will shift the gears for you. It was pretty neat although you can only get so much out of shifting gears on a stationery bike.

I think the most impressive display I saw was this Fuji display of track bikes.

I think these are actual track bikes and not street single speeds. I am not a huge fan of the whole fixie culture, but I like looking at track bikes used in real competition.

We found what I think was the most interesting booth after that. It was a booth made up of a whole bunch of makers of clothing and accessories. Yakkay helmet was one of them. I tried one out and it seems to look OK as far as I can tell in this photo.

There was also a maker of leather accessories called Maware. We actually spotted Mr. Fisher in this booth as we walked in, but he was just leaving so I didn't get to meet him, but later I found he also took pictures of these accessories and put them up on Twitter.

There were like 4 or 5 clothing makers that made clothing that were like regular clothes except they were made for riding the bike. I didn't get pictures of the clothing this time, but we got a lot of brochures and shop cards, so I think I want to look them up and do a separate post about them. Maybe we'll visit some shops as well.

Anyway, it was a fun event. We saw a lot of other stuff which I didn't write about like seeing Japanese pseudo celebrities speak at the talk show stage and various booths of bikes and gear and it would be impossible to recount everything, but you can check out more of the pictures I took in the slide show above or check out the flickr set here. I am not sure I will attend it again next year, but it was really fun and I think it's worth checking out if you're into bikes and you've never been to such an event.

Alive and well

2009-12-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hi all. It's been a while since the last post. We were down with the dreaded flu for a while, but also we haven't had so much to write about. I was thinking about this. In Japan, riding the bike is very popular. In front of every train station or super market, you would see a sea of bikes parked there. Yet most biking remains very local and almost too casual. It's just a way to get to the supermarket a little faster. People don't think about enjoying the activity and riding to further places. One reason for this I think is that especially in the Tokyo metropolitan area, using public transportation like the train and the bus is so easy and convenient. It may be the most well run in the world. You can get to almost anywhere within the metropolitan area with the train or the bus or combination of both. It's so easy and effortless compared to other options (driving in Tokyo requires huge amounts of patience), so that most people don't think about riding a bike further than the nearest train station. We're also a bit guilty of this as we've been taking the train a lot to get places out our neighborhood.

Anyway, so we don't have too much to report, but we have taken pictures here and there, so I will post some of them here.

Kao trying her acrobatic moves riding home from Kawasaki.

rental bikes we spotted at the Misaki port. If these were available at the station, we would've rented them, but they were at our destination rather than the starting point, so we didn't rent them. They look pretty nice for rental bikes though.

Kao riding along the Tama river.

Little boy riding by himself along the Tama river.

Today, we're going to an event called Cycle Mode which I think is kind of like Interbike but one for the general public. If it's just booths of bike stuff, I might skip it, but you can actually test ride the bikes there, so I'll have an opportunity to ride a lot of bikes I'd never ridden before. We'll be sure to take a lot of pictures, so that will be something to report afterwards. I think Mr. Gary Fisher is there. Maybe if we're lucky, we'll run into him.

I'm sticking with you again

2009-11-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

I previously did a post called "I'm sticking with you..." Since then I have taken many more "sticking" pictures, so here are some of them below♪ :)

Tamagawa

Tamagawa

Kamata

Kamata

Kamata

Kamata

Tamagawa

Tamagawa

Tamagawa

Chigasaki

Chigasaki

Chigasaki

2009-11-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

We went to the town of Chigasaki yesterday. Chigasaki is a city located on the Southern shore of the Kanagawa prefecture about an hour by train from central Tokyo.

View Larger Map

Some of you might know that Chigasaki is the hometown of professional cyclist Fumiyuki Beppu, but we didn't go there to try to spot him. We went there because we had been thinking of moving there and wanted to get a feel of the city and check out the real estate situation.

Chigasaki is also said to be a very bicycle friendly town, so we wanted to check that out as well.

After we got to the Chigasaki station, we asked about bicycle rental at the station tourist information booth. We got a map showing various shops near the station that rents bicycles. We went to the nearest one on the Southern side of the station and it turned out to be just a regular food take out shop rather than a bike shop. Apparently, the city places rental bikes at regular shops to be rented in more convenient locations. These bikes weren't fancy or well maintained, but they were good enough to get around with. They were just 300 yen (about $3) for the day.

After visiting a real estate office, we headed East towards the Tsujido area to check out a friends' photo exhibit at Lama Coffee. Our friends Tabioto were showing photographs they took on their extended stay in India this year. Their amazing photography is something that can only be captured during immersed traveling like they do and gives insight into the world which isn't seen by casual travelers. Their extensive blogging is always fun to read. It's written in Japanese, but just the photography alone is great to look at.

They are not necessarily bicycle enthusiasts like us, but this amazing photo captures a bicycle taxi in action.

after that we headed towards the ocean.

and the beach had a nice multi-use path along side of it.

We also checked out the Eboshi Iwa. It's a piece of rock sticking out of the ocean 1.5 km off the beach in the shape of Eboshi, an old headgear worn by nobles in the Heian period about 1000 years ago.

I was hoping I could see it more up close, but this is as big as I could take a picture of with my camera.

From the same spot I was able to see Enoshima to my left and the Izu Peninsula to my right even though it was cloudy.

Here's a little video I shot of Kao riding in front of me on the beach path.

The impression I got of Chigasaki was that there were plenty of people riding bikes, but the infrastructure wasn't quite there yet. You had the choice of either riding on the sidewalk or in the street with cars. Most streets have low enough speed limits, so that it wasn't so bad riding the mamachari in the street, but I think they can do a lot more before they start claiming bike friendliness.

I wasn't there long enough to see all parts of Chigasaki and I think we will be going back there more as we hunt for a place to live. As for biking, the location of Chigasaki is very attractive as there are so many places I can ride to from there. We didn't really take so many pictures of Chigasaki this time, but I'm sure we will be going there again, so we'll take more next time we're there.

Child Bikes

2009-11-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

After I wrote about child seats, I also started noticing all the children bikes wherever I went. There's quite a variety of them. This one above is adorned with Dick Bruna's world famous Miffy character.

This is an even smaller bike and can be pushed and turned by an adult with the handle from behind. I think real little kids in the US mostly ride tricycles or big wheels, but these bikes have the support wheels in the back which can be removed and make it into a two wheeled bicycle.

This is a Winnie the Pooh bike. It has no support wheels. I assume it probably had them in the beginning, but were removed as the child grew enough to try riding without them.

This is a slighly larger bike and it's obviously a boy's bike with its sporty hi-tech look. It's a pretty basic bike, but the "cockpit" looks very hi-tech. As far as I can tell the right indicator in the "Shimano CI-DECK" tells what gear you're in, but I'm not sure what the left one is for. It would be cool to have something like this on adult bikes with mechanical indicators instead of digital cycle computers.

The look of bikes for bigger kids seem much more subtle and seem to become more like the mamachari. No more characters or flashy graphics, just more colorful than the adult mamachari. What drew me to these two bikes though is their very unique frame design. The bottom bike with its wavy top tubes is very cool. I think it's a very playful design which I think could be applied to adult mixte bikes as well.

These are only bikes I ran into within a time frame of about 2 days while walking around the neighborhood, so I'm not sure if it represents the full variety of child bikes in Japan, but I thought they are very fun looking and more ride-able than than their counterparts in the US.

Magazine: Jitensha Seikatsu

2009-11-04T02:18:00.000-08:00

Japan is the land of magazines. There are magazines of all types for any kind of niche you can imagine. And there are quite a number of bicycle related magazines. There are the usual sport cycling magazines, but I've noticed in the last few years the number of magazines about bicycle life style for the more casual riders have been steadily growing. I love going to the book stores and thumbing through all these magazines. Yesterday, I picked up this magazine "Jitensha Seikatsu" which roughly translates as "Bicycle Life" or "Bicycle Living".

This issue's main feature is "Fall Winter Bicycle Ride Best Coordinating" which is basically a fashion feature.

Other than the helmet and the shoes, it's pretty much normal looking clothing. His bike is real nice looking too. Never heard of it before, but it's called Bruno.

I couldn't tell at first, but here she's wearing a Yakkay helmet. Her bike is a Louis Garneau who only seems to sell only clothing in North America, but in Japan they are a successful bike brand.

I think the clothing choices are just fine, but what I notice more by looking at these pictures are the bikes. They are all riding sport bikes and none are like the Dutch upright bikes with high handle bars. I think for a magazine that's geared towards more casual riders, they could have included more casual bikes. Of course, Japan has its version of the upright high hand position bike which is the mamachari. I think they are pretty nice bikes, but they are so common that they are unfortunately not considered fashionable at all.

They did have really nice looking bikes in another section though.

These are vintage bikes. The black one is from 1954 and the red one is from the mid 70's. The black one features a clear plastic chain case. I really love these vintage bikes and I would love to get one.

The magazine included many other articles majority of which seemed to be reports of touring around various places. Japan is a country where there is so much variation on culture from region to region, so there is no shortage of things to be experienced while touring, so it makes pretty good reading.

You can get a pretty good idea about how people are riding bikes in Japan from these magazines, at least the enthusiasts. The non-enthusiasts riding the mamachari all over Japan are not really considered here, but it would be cool if these two groups could become closer. I think knowledge that any kind of bikes even the mamachari could serve more of the role of transportation and you don't need special gear to do so, can make bicycling much more popular and not just something that is for the athletic elite.

Child seats

2009-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

I'd never paid too much attention to child seats since we don't have children ourselves, but JJ's comment yesterday prompted me to take a closer look.

In the parking lot behind our building, there seemed to be mostly 2 types of seats.
One is the metal caged seat that sits on the rear rack.

This one is in its basic state.

This one has cushions and a head rest.

This brown one has a slightly different cage design.

This has patterned fabric and a Hello Kitty bell for the child.

The other popular one is the handlebar integrated basket/seat.

This one has a handle bar lockout dial on the back.

This one even has a wind shield!

This bike has both seats. Until recently, it was actually illegal to carry more than 1 child on a bike, but the law changed so that specifically designed bikes are permitted to carry 2 children. I don't think this is one of them, but I don't think the law is enforced too much, at least not in this part of Kawasaki.

They really seem to change the look of the bike. If I was designing a bike with these seats, I think I would want to paint them to match the bike. Maybe painting it all blue like the Pereira Oregon Manifest bike would be cool.

The seat in the top picture was one in its intended use. That's yet another design as well.

It's cool to see that so many people use the bicycle for all kinds of everyday transportation needs.

Casual riding in Kawasaki

2009-10-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

So, I made it to Japan safely, to the city of Kawasaki to be specific. Kawasaki is the city directly West of the capitol of Tokyo. Last night, I was quite jet lagged and tired, so that I didn't even open my computer before I fell asleep. Today I managed to open the computer and partially catch up on stuff though I'm still jet lagged and quite sleepy as I write this. What follows might be a bit incoherent, but I am going to try and write a post before sleepiness gets the better of me.

The place where Kao is currently living is sort of a dense apartment high rise. Kind of like those public housing buildings in NYC, but is private. Bicycle parking for residents is limited and requires a minimal fee which has to be paid annually and bikes without proper registration stickers will be rounded up like the bikes in the picture above and will be disposed of if they are not claimed by the owner.

This is part of the parking space for Kao's building.

and this is Kao's mamachari bike in its designated parking spot. Not very secure by American standards, but just the O-lock on the rear wheel is security enough.

The fee for a single bike per household is very cheap, but a second spot is much more expensive. Luckily I have a folding bike which can be stored indoor without taking much space while I'm gone.

(my Dahon folded up)

(Dahon unfolded)

It's not a bike with the best riding characteristics, but it's just fine for riding slowly weaving through pedestrian and car traffic. Riding around in small city strrets here can be quite chaotic where you are fighting space with cars and also sometimes you ride on sidewalks to avoid obstacles (like parked motorcycles) on the street.

Today was a super nice day, so we decided to go ride to Tamagawa (Tama River) which is the river that runs between Tokyo and Kawasaki.

This is a very popular cycling route that runs along river and there were lots of people out riding bikes, walking or running. It is a lovely path that runs on the top of the riverbank overlooking the river. My only complaint is that the path is rather narrow, so that you kind of have to slow down when you pass someone.

It is a fun place to ride though if you're not in a hurry which we weren't. It's nice to take a break on the river bed and watch people go by. It's a good spot for people watching as people there seem quite different than people in crowded city streets.

This was a very short outing today, but I'm sure we'll go on longer rides while I'm here.

To Japan!

2009-10-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

It's nearing the end of the year again and as I have been spending most of my recent ends of the year in Japan, I am going over there to my home country once again.

It's kind of a long story with us being married, but living in different countries the major part of the year. When I moved to Portland, our plan was for Kao to move here and live together, but we have not been able to get her a visa or residency, so only temporary stays were possible. We have decided instead that it would be best for me to move back to Japan. Even though I am fully Japanese, I have spent more than half my life in the US and only short stays in Japan as an adult, so moving back entirely will certainly be a challenge. I am not making the move just yet, but we will be looking for a new place to live while I'm there and if we're successful, I will make the move after I've come back to Portland.

Anyway, I am looking forward to being back in Japan for the first time since we've started this blog, so I will certainly be on the lookout for good blog material with keen eyes.

In the last post, I wrote about my new saddle and I would've liked to have given a full review before I left, but I haven't been able to go on any rides of any substantial distance, so I am not quite ready for that. However, I have been riding it daily around town for short rides and I can tell you that it feels better with each ride. I made a position adjustment after that post and brought the saddle more forward which seemed strange at first, but surprising more comfortable. Making that tiny adjustment made it seem like the handlebars were positioned differently even though they weren't. Road bike positioning is so finicky. But, I am feeling more and more comfortable with each ride. Too bad I won't be taking the bike with me to Japan. I'll have a little Dahon folding bike which isn't a bad bike for what it is, but it's definitely not a bike for speed or distance.

Next time I post, I will be in Japan. I will be there until the new year.
Thanks for reading.

more "Special" with An-Atomica

2009-10-24T23:33:00.001-07:00

I have been calling my bike "Special K" on this blog as it is a Specialized bike and the K is for my name Kinya. But, I have to admit that it isn't really all that special. It's a gray mediocre aluminum frame road bike. I am not unhappy with it, but there are plenty of other more special bikes to be seen on the blogosphere. If I had the money to spend, I might get a custom bike or something more "special", but for the time being, I have this bike and I am going to make the most of it.

I have made a small modification to Special K which might make it a tiny bit more special than before.

It has a new saddle.

Brooks saddles seem to be the popular choice of saddles these days, but this is a Selle An-Atomica saddle and not a Brooks. I had been considering a new saddle for some time because for short rides the Specialized saddle that came with the bike is just fine, but on longer rides, it becomes more and more uncomfortable and takes away from what would otherwise be very enjoyable experience.

(the Specialized saddle, a bit scratched up)

So, I have been looking for a new saddle. The first saddle I thought of was Selle San Marco Rolls, which was the best saddle I had when I raced. I looked it up online to see how much it's going for these days and I was shocked. It's now become a "classic", but to me it seemed unreasonably expensive. I remember the first after market saddle I ever bought which was a Selle Italia Turbo and it cost only about $25. The Rolls was a bit more, but much cheaper than what it costs today. So, I couldn't bring myself to buy a Rolls for so much more than what I paid for before. Meanwhile I'd been reading raving reviews of the Selle An-Atomica over at Eco Velo. It was a different kind of saddle than what I've been used to, but it sounded just like something I was looking for. It has a big slit in the middle, but otherwise it's leather and very good looking. I also like the fact that, like good leather boots, it can last a longtime if you take care of it and it's even repairable if needed.

So, I decided to go for it and ordered one and it came yesterday. It's quite an expenditure for me, so I'm really hoping I will like it.

I put it on and rode it around town a little bit today. I made the mistake of not measuring everything I needed before I took off the old saddle, so I couldn't replicate the exact position I had before. So, I wasn't exactly comfortable on it today, but it's a lot more adjustable than most saddles with a tension bolt in the front. I need to play around with it and also it'll have to be broken in, but I really hope that it turns out to be a good investment.

This is how the bike looks with my Minnehaha Utility Pannier bag which I ride with most of the time. It has a thin leather belt strip in the center. It's a different color of leather than the saddle though. I think getting leather bar tape or tape of that color would probably make the bike look even better, but I'm going to hold off on that until the bar tape I have now is worn out or torn.

I will keep making adjustments to the saddle to dial it in and I hope I will soon write a raving review of it here.

I would like to note, I have not received any compensation or items from Selle An-Atomica nor any company for that matter. I wouldn't mind if companies gave me things that I think I can make good use of, but I don't think this blog really has enough readership yet for that to happen. Of course, if I did receive gifts, I would say so and give my honest opinion about the product.

Ride to Sauvie Island

2009-10-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

I rode to Sauvie Island this past Sunday.

Sauvie Island is the island located North of Portland where the Columbia and Willamette rivers meet. I had been thinking of riding there ever since I heard about people riding there when the Flaming Lips were in town to shoot a music video. I didn't go on that ride, but it had been in the back of my mind as a destination for a ride.

I hadn't been going on long rides as much lately and I felt like I needed a nice long ride both for the mind and the body. I got a late start though and it was around 3pm when I left. That's a pretty late start to go on a long ride this time of the year and also I wasn't so sure about my fitness, so I was prepared to cut the ride short if I felt like it was getting late or if I felt I was over extending myself.

View Larger Map

I've embedded the route map for those of you who want to ride there. It's a pretty simple route really. I was a bit anxious about the beginning part on Willamette Blvd probably as that was the part that came at the end of Bridge Pedal when I was super tired and also it's where I often encounter other people riding and I get drawn into riding faster. I didn't want to ride too fast and tire myself out before I even made it across the river. The weather was cool, but not cold and it was just right for riding, but I only saw a handful of other people riding, so I didn't get drawn into any kind of competitiveness. I think it's sort of hard wired in my brain from my competitive days to try to ride at a fast pace. I often find myself wanting a gear between 2 gears I have available; the higher gear requires more power and the lower gear feels too light. In such situation, I usually tend to ride the higher gear and push the pace, but often it's difficult to keep the effort and I wear myself out in the process. This kind of riding is good if I'm trying to ride myself into shape, but at this time of the year, I just want to ride easy and enjoy it. So, I kind of had to tell myself that it's OK to ride the low gear and not go fast. Anyway, so I rode easy and was able to make it across the St. Johns Bridge without wearing myself out.

After St. Johns Bridge was new territory for me. I wasn't sure about the traffic situation there, but knowing that the Flaming Lips crew rode there was reassuring. It wasn't exactly cycling heaven with enough cars whizzing by and the bike lanes being mostly quite minimal, but it wasn't too bad. It was a good bit of mostly uninterrupted riding and I eventually made it to the bridge to Sauvie Island.

I rode onto Sauvie Island, but I didn't really know anything about the place, so I didn't know what to expect. It did have a more relaxed atmosphere than the highway I just rode on and it seemed like people who drove there came mostly for recreation. There were a number of signs for pumpkins on sale. I didn't know where to go, so after a bit, I decided to stop and rest on a riverbank. It wasn't a pristine grass riverbank, but full of wild weeds. I kind of like plants growing wildly rather than plants tended to by humans. I sat there and took in what turned out to be pretty nice scenery and took a few pictures.

However, my moment of solitude was suddenly interrupted by a power boat pulling a water skier doing tricks and blasting hip-hop. It was so unexpected and I thought about how much energy and technology is involved in this form of recreation. I have experienced water skiing one Summer at a Summer camp and I recalled the experience and the sensation of it. It's quite a thrilling and fun sport as I recall it, but I can't imagine acquiring all the necessary equipment to do it. After the lovely encounter, I got back on the road and rode further into the island. I saw a sign for a park and I followed it, but it was more of a yard. I rested there anyway and ate the apple I brought and then I rode home.

I don't know if I'll ride there again, but if I did, I would like to explore the island much more. It's quite a large piece of land with a very large lake, so I'm sure it has a lot more to offer than what I saw.

Seattle Trip! (guest post by APAK)

2009-10-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Cyclebreezers!

We are Aaron + Ayumi aka. APAK! We make art together and live in lovely, green, and bike friendly Portland, Oregon, our friend Kinya asked if we’d like to guest blog about our train/bike trip and art show in Seattle, hope you enjoy it. It was really easy to take our bikes on the train and only cost $5 extra to reserve a spot for each of our bikes. It took a little less than 3 hours to get there by Amtrak and was a peaceful scenic ride.

We arrived in downtown Seattle. It would normally be only about a 20 minute ride from the station to the gallery but it was our first time in Seattle so we took a few wrong turns and went up and down some humongous hills before we got there an hour later, but it was fun to get lost and explore a little. We got to ride by the impressive Central Library by Rem Koolhaas...

The gallery is near Pike Place fish market where we ate fish sandwiches and clam chowder for lunch...

and delicious russian pastries at “Piroshky Piroshky” for dessert...

Our show was at a cute little toy shop called Schmancy. We did some paintings and felted woolen dolls.

The next day we rode the “Burke-Gilman Trail” from the University District to Golden Gardens beach in Ballard on Puget Sound. Our friend and rad artist Kinoko showed us the way. It took about an hour or so and was a scenic lovely ride.

Lots of people were out enjoying the sun and sand but not many swimmers because Puget Sound is really frickin cold....

We found a dead jelly fish washed ashore...

We really wanted to eat some of this seaweed but decided not to...

We had lots of fun biking around Seattle and it was quite easy to get around thanks to the bike lanes and map. It was the first time we’ve explored a new city by bike and now it’s our favorite way to get around while intimately experiencing a new place for the first time. We hope to bike around other cities in the future.

Thanks Aaron & Ayumi for the lovely post! I didn't know that taking a bike on Amtrak was so easy and cheap. I think I would do the same if I go to Seattle. Be sure to check out Apak's site and their Etsy shop.

Custom bike makers of Japan

2009-10-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

After seeing the bikes at the Oregon Manifest Constructor's Design Challenge last week, my mind has been on custom built bikes quite a bit and I started looking online to see what the current state of custom frame building in Japan is like.

I found that there is an annual event called the Handmade Bicycle Fair which takes place at the Bicycle Culture Center. (read about Kao's visit there)

I looked at this page in Japanese text and followed links to check out the participating frame builders. There are about 20 different participants and it would take too long to talk about each one, so I'll write about ones that seemed the most interesting.

Level

I don't know too much about Level, but I think they are well established with providing frames for Keirin (Japanese pro track cycling) racers. I think they are also popular with the fixie riders. I noticed a Level fixie on Candy Cranks flickr pics from their trip to Tokyo.

Hirose

Hirose seems to have the widest range of bikes of all the makers with everything from children's bikes, mixte town bike to tandem touring models. Their site seems to have the most pictures as well although, they nor any of the builders are using flickr like their US counterparts, so it's hard to see the details of the bikes. Their town bikes are pretty nice and remind me of A.N.T. bikes a bit.

Cherubim

Cherubim is one frame builder I'd heard of before and also maybe the most popular Japanese builder in the US as well. Cherubim exhibited at the 2009 North American Handmade Bicycle Show and won 2 awards for the best track bike and President Walker's choice.This time trial bike that Cherubim showed there may actually not be competition worthy, but it is one of the most radical looking bikes I've ever seen.

Ravanello

Ravanello didn't show at the Handmade Bicycle Fair, but I had often come across their name in Japanese bike magazines. They seem to be more oriented with road racing rather than track racing like most other builders in Japan. They look very reminiscent of European road bikes.

Overall, I get the impression that, the custom frame building isn't quite as popular as it is here in Portland and the US. It's probably not a hip alternative line of work, but rather work that they have been been doing regardless of popularity. Their websites weren't quite informative enough for me to really get a good idea of their bikes and there were other builders who didn't have a website to begin with. What I noticed though is that the prices of frames seemed a lot cheaper than what frames go for here. Even with the current dollar yen exchange rate (yen has gotten more expensive), it still might be a bargain. And maybe there is much less of a wait as well. I read on one builder's site that a frame will be finished in 4 weeks! I had thought both the price and the wait for getting a custom frame made was too much especially here in Portland, but I'm starting to think that maybe there is a custom bike in my future. I will definitely look more into it next time I'm in Japan (end of this month). One thing to keep in mind for people who might be seriously interested in getting a frame made by one of these builders is that, I think they are used to making bikes for the Japanese, so if your physique is drastically different from that of the average Japanese person, these builders may not be quite right for you.

It seems there are more and more people riding bikes in Japan and a lot of them are buying expensive mass manufactured bikes, but I don't think most people know about custom frame building or think of it as an option when they are considering a new bike. It would be cool to see it become more popular as I think there aren't many things quite as special as a custom built bike especially for you. I've never owned one myself, so I can only imagine though. As you may know, the Japanese are quite good at making things, so if custom frame building becomes more popular in Japan, I can imagine they will take the craft and take it to the next level.

Ride to Vancouver and the CRC

2009-10-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't ride to Vancouver, Canada. It wouldn't be impossible, but that would take many days and quite a lot of pedaling. The Vancouver I went to is Vancouver, Washington which lies just North of Portland across the Columbia River. I'd been meaning to ride there for quite a long time ever since I saw a BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance) listing of a ride from Portland to Vancouver. That ride was canceled because not enough people signed up, but the idea of riding there had been in the back of my mind ever since.

Fall has definitely arrived to Portland and so I felt it's time to take a different approach to riding. The long rides I'd been doing all Summer had been somewhat effort oriented. While I always like going to places I haven't yet been to, I tend to challenge myself with the effort involved. But now that it's cooler and I'm wearing jeans and longsleeves, riding hard and sweating under the clothes doesn't seem so appealing. So, I thought I will ride nice and slow and do more sight seeing while I'm at it. Riding to Vancouver seemed like a good idea as it is fairly close distance wise, but from what I'd gathered the way there is fairly complicated, so I wouldn't be able to ride uninterrupted. Perfect.

I looked up and found this I-5 Bridge map (pdf) online. It definitely looks a bit complicated spanning 2 pages. I studied the map and made print outs just in case.

I got underway and rode casually. I had ridden part of the way before when I rode on the Columbia Slough Trail, but this time I kept going North rather than turning onto the trail. I came to a stop sign, turned right and then proceeded to make my first wrong turn onto what turned out to be a freeway on-ramp. I realised my mistake quickly and turned around. What I thought was a street on the map turned out to be a sort of a parking lot adjacent to a park (Delta Park). After going through this lot, I got lost again and had to backtrack to find this not very visible path that lead to the bike lane on the first bridge across the river.

This was right after the river, but as you can see it's just a continuation of the freeway and not so much a bridge. That's the I-5 (Interstate freeway) on the left. Not the most pleasant place with fast moving cars nearby, but the bike lane was plenty wide. This bridge took me to Hayden Island which is a small island on the Columbia River with big box stores that cater only to cars. The bike path ended and I had to go through the island to get to the bike path of the Interstate Bridge (That seems to be the name of the bridge as far as I can tell) I got lost a couple more times here, but the map print outs I'd brought saved me each time.

Here's the path leading to the bridge. As you can see, it's pretty old and a bit narrow.

and this is what the path on the bridge looks like. This is actually a picture of the other side I took on my way back, but it's quite narrow and has the beams of the bridge taking up a lot of space. You can look at the picture at the top to get the idea of the path with my bike as size reference. The bridge is pretty old and shakes quite a bit under the load of the fast interstate car traffic. I felt the path was a bit too narrow for comfort especially as I wear glasses and I think I perceive objects as being closer than they actually are. Luckily I didn't encounter a single person on a bike or on foot the entire way across the bridge, so I was able to ride across without a problem. The path is definitely not wide enough to accommodate a commuting bike traffic though.

Anyhow, I did make it to Vancouver, to another state. I was a bit pleased I was able to ride my bike to a different state. Going to California or Idaho would be a serious undertaking, but luckily Washington is just across the river. I didn't have any plans after I got to Vancouver, so I followed the direction of the sign that pointed to downtown. I quickly came to a park and then what looked like a farmers market. I missed my neighborhood's farmers market in coming here, so I decided to take a look. There were a lot of apples and fruits, but not much fresh vegetables. I'm not sure that was because of the time of the year or if fresh vegetables was harder to sell than fruits that could be stored longer. I bought some apples and a cup of very watery coffee.

After that, I rode back in the direction of the river.

There was a park and a trail there and from there I could see the entire Interstate Bridge. It seems to have a sort of an undulating profile.

Then I rode East on the riverfront trail where there was a beach below. There were some geese there. Canadian geese, I think.

and further East there were some river front cafes or restaurant.

It wasn't quite thriving, but it looked like a nice spot to drink coffee or have brunch. It makes sense to me to have business there and I think it would be nice if Portland did the same on their side of the river shore.

After that, I made my way back to Portland. I didn't get lost like I did before, but still the route was confusing. It would be great if the PBOT (Portland Bureau of Transportation) could work on that. Just putting up a few direction signs for starters would help.

The CRC in the title of this post refers to "Columbia River Crossing". It's the name given to the huge project that aims to improve the transportation infrastructure around this I-5 crossing of the river. It is quite a controversial project here in Portland and Vancouver. It started out as something that could accommodate not only cars, but pedestrians, bicycles and even light rail trains. I don't know every detail of the project, but it seems the latest proposed plan of the project has become a lot more car-centric (12 lanes for cars!) and much less accommodating for everything else. The BTA who had a representative on the project board pulled out as they no longer thought them being there made a difference and they decided to seek other means to deal with this issue. I've also heard that they've already spent a huge sum of tax payers money with just planning. So, you can see why the locals might be quite upset. I've seen a "Stop the CRC!" campaign booth a bunch of times at various bike related events. I think a member of the Sprockettes wears a "Stop the CRC!" arm band at their shows.

From what I saw riding the route, I think there are somethings that could be improved; more clear bike route for sure, but I think the Interstate Bridge is getting quite old and needs major makeover or built anew. A 12 lane bridge is totally unnecessary though in my opinion. I think this proposal came up because the bridges as they are now cause huge traffic congestion, but I think a huge public project such as this needs to think of its use well into the future and I think we will be driving much less than we do today 10-20 years from now. I won't go into the whole issue of Peak Oil and what will happen as the global oil production starts to decline, but I think we should be a little more conscious of how we spend our wealth and resources while we still have them.

I tried to envision the sort of infrastructure I would make if it was up to me. I think I would make super highways for bikes in between cities and along the route, there could be shops and services that cater to the bike riding people. They could offer discount for anyone who rides a bicycle thus encouraging people to ride bikes there. In the US, cities and suburbs have been built around automotive transportation and Japan has built cities and towns around the train system, but it would be cool to see town planning based on bicycles and pedestrians. I think that's been done in the Netherlands, but it would be cool to see how US or other countries do that.

Oregon Manifest Constructor's Design Challenge

2009-10-02T23:19:00.000-07:00

I went to the opening of Oregon Manifest Constructor's Design Challenge on Friday.

That's a nice thought and I would like to see the bicycle become as popular as they are in Copenhagen, but I think Portland has quite a unique bike culture as evident in this event and I think Portland will become something quite different than Copenhagen. I'm not sure if there's a greater concentration of custom frame builders anywhere in the world right now. I think for me as well as for a lot of people, the custom built bicycle is the ultimate bicycle to have. I don't see that I will ever be able to afford one unless my income somehow miraculously starts to increase, but it's nice to just look at all the pretty bikes for free. This Constructor's Design Challenge as I understand it is a challenge for the frame builders to design and build the ultimate modern transportation bike to create an innovative, purpose-built rig for the everyday rider. So, I expected to see innovations I haven't seen before.

Well, it was quite packed with people and I wasn't able to closely examine each and every bike, but my first impression is that there were a whole lot of beautifully built bikes, but most of them didn't seem to offer anything new. There were lots of bikes with disc brakes, hub dynamos and custom racks, but those are all things that have been done before. A few bikes though stood out from the rest.

Pereira Cycles

This Pereira bike definitely seemed to stand out the most. Not just because of its bright paint job, but it has a couple of unique features. One is the integrated U-lock. I often thought it would be so cool if the U-lock could be an integrated part of the bike, but I couldn't quite visualize how this could be done. From what I gathered, the lock works perfectly with Portland's staple bike racks and when you ride, you can store the lock arm into the pocket within the bag on the front rack. I think it would be even better if it didn't need to be taken off to ride, but I think it's very worthy that he made this. I think for the purpose of this challenge, it is more important to try something innovative even if it isn't perfect. The other feature is the custom Lemolo bag which was made especially for this bike. I don't know the details of the bag, but I haven't seen any bag like this before, so I'm quite curious what it looks like on the inside.

donkelope bikes

I've never heard of donkelope bikes before, but this bike caught my eye as it has a Hammer Schmidt crank set. I'm not too familiar with them, but I think they are mostly used on trial mountain bikes and its advantage is that it has a very small chain ring compared to normal cranks, so you will have more clearance for obstacles. I'm not quite sure why it's on this bike, but I guess by the look of the bike, it's meant for heavy duty riding and you will be able to go over obstacles more easily.

Ahearn Cycles

This bike doesn't have any break through innovations, but the custom rear rack basket and the front light guard are quite unique and they really add to the overall look.

Inglis Retrotec

Lastly, this Inglis Retrotec doesn't have any innovative features as far as I could tell, but I thought I'd mention it because these Retrotec bikes are a personal favorite of mine. Something about the smooth curve of the top tube to the seat stays is so visually pleasing. This particular bike is pretty big, so if I were to get one, it would be a lot smaller though. (Dreaming is free, right?)

That's about all I was able to gather at this event.
The opening was pretty crowded as well as not very well lit in some places, so I wasn't able to really look at all the bikes carefully. I think I will try and go see it again when it's less crowded and see if there were things I missed. I'm sure there's quite a lot I didn't notice.

here's my flickr set if you want to see more pictures.

Bike Portland has a better looking and much more thorough set here.

and Pereira Cycles has a set of its own bike here.

Will Pereira win the challenge? Stay tuned.

p.s. I think if I was somehow involved in this challenge, I would try and add turn signals on a bike. That's something totally separate from the skills of a frame builder, but I think it's doable and would be great to have on a bike for city riding along car traffic.

50's Sapporo cycle chic

2009-09-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

My mother and I went to Sapporo last week.　Sapporo is our birth place. Mother attended at the class reunion of her junior high school and high school. She showed me the photo albums and a classbook of those days.

These are the photographs when mother and friends made a cycling trip to the Odori-park (main street park) in Sapporo. Mother remembers the event very clearly. She borrowed a sweater from her mother(My grandmother) and wore it. She said "I borrowed my mother's green striped sweater because I wanted to look fashionable, but I didn't have anything of my own to wear."

A cute pose!

They eat lunch box and rice balls?

Sapporo Autumn Fest is being held now in the Odori-park. I ate ramen there!

I was not able to ride a bicycle on this trip because there was no time. but I know that it is splendid to ride a bicycle in Sapporo and Hokkaido. I will ride a bicycle with my husband by all means next time I'm in Sapporo.

2009 Sappro

ride to Tryon Creek

2009-09-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

I had a nice ride over the weekend with my friend Aaron Piland. He's one half of APAK, a husband and wife art unit much like ourselves. (They have been doing that much longer than us) He's been living in Portland longer as well, but have not been into riding the bike so much until recently. He says that I inspired him to ride the bike more. I think there's plenty of inspirations to ride the bike here, but if that's what he says, I'm glad to have been the catalyst.

We met at the Sellwood Riverfront Park and headed to Tryon Creek State Park. We crossed the Sellwood Bridge to the West side of the Willamette River. The last time, I crossed the Sellwood Bridge was during Bridge Pedal, but the road there is not exactly bike friendly, so I have been reluctant to go that way. Aaron told me that there is a way through a cemetery to the Tryon State Park.

Aaron at Riverview Cemetery

If you follow Bike Portland, you might have come across this post last week about dangerous speed bumps in a cemetery. The cemetery we went through is that cemetery. We were well prepared thanks to Bike Portland, so we didn't encounter any danger. It's quite a climb through the cemetery. Aaron's bike has no gears or to be exact no derailleurs, so he had quite a difficult time climbing (and sometimes walking the bike). He wants to get a derailleur for his bike, but he hasn't been able to find a cheap one. I guess he's not yet used to the prices of bike parts. When you think of it as transportation vehicle, it doesn't seem so expensive. Anyway, I hope he will find a happy bike set-up soon.

After we got through the cemetery, we made our way to Tryon Creek.

View Larger Map

There was a nice bike path through the woods as we got close.
We parked our bikes and went for a bit of a hike in the park. This is not a park with a huge lawn, but more like woods with trails through it.

Lots of big trees and plants

We walked a bit and then found a spot by a creek to sit down for a break. We both brought some snacks, fruits and hot drinks (me coffee, Aaron tea). We sat there and ate while talking about everything from Hopi legends to polar shifts. It's always interesting talking to Aaron. He knows a lot about Buckminster Fuller, that's for sure.

We then walked to the Western end of the park where there is a community farm.

There were goats, chickens and sheep there as well as vegetables,

some fun looking buildings,

and a swing!

Such a nice park and only an hour's bike ride from home (closer if you live in South Portland). Going back, through the cemetery, it was like a maze and we had to be a little more careful as we were going down hill and watch out for those new speed bumps. It wasn't an epic ride or anything, but it's good to combine riding the bike with some walking in the woods. It's an especially nice time of the year to do that.

Be sure to check out APAK. They have an Etsy shop like us with super nice and affordable artwork as well.

Bicycle Citizenship Manifest?

2009-09-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

Last week, I came across about 3 different online petitions/pledges in the space of about two days.

The Google Trike (Photo: Google)

First was the Google Maps 'bike there' Feature Request which is pretty self explanatory, but in case you're not too familiar with Google Maps, it has a feature called 'Get Directions' in which you can enter your starting point and destination and the choose among 'By car', 'By public transit' or 'Walking' and then Google Maps will draw a line to show you the way you can take. The petition asks Google to map out bike lanes and enable users to find safe routes by bike to get to where they need to go. I think this would definitely be a welcome feature for a lot of us whose main transportation is the bicycle. I think this will take some time to realize, but I suspect Google is already working on it as they have been recording the streetview shots with their special Google Trike. It was apparently in Portland recently to ride the bike paths here. So, I think that will be happening sometime in the near future. I signed the petition anyway, as I thought a little encouragement couldn't hurt. The petition really says some good things. Take a look and sign it if you agree.

The second one was the
Cyclists Against Reckless Drivers Petition. This was also a petition which seeks to make the world safer for cyclists. I totally agree with it, but I have not signed it as I'm not sure if I have the necessary status to do so. I am a permanent resident, but not a US citizen and since this petition seeks to change law in a specific region, I don't know if this is something I can sign and be accounted for.

The third one which I came across while reading Tokyo's Cycle Square Concierge Blog was the "Bicycle Citizenship Manifest" (in my rough translation). It's written in Japanese, so I will translate it into English below. I must say that even though this 'manifest' was written with good intentions, I can't say that I agree with everything it says. It seems to be written with a different mentality than that of my own.

Please note that this is a very very rough translation by me and not an official translation by the author of the manifest. I am bilingual in English and Japanese, but I am not a trained translator.

Bicycle Citizenship Manifest

[Foreword]
We envision a society in which the bicycle, which helps to improve our health and the environment and will become an important means of transportation in the 21st century, to become a beloved means to enjoy our lives. To make this into reality, we seek "citizenship" of the bicycle by following the manifest and heretofore act as a group to demand for improvement in bicycle infrastructure.

[Manifest]
1. We will ride as part of traffic and will adhere to left side traffic. (traffic is on the left side in Japan)
2. We will always yield to pedestrians and ride in the street along with automobiles.
3. We will follow traffic rules, stop at signals and always stop at the stop sign and check for safety.
4. We will wear helmets, use lights at night time and will enroll in insurance in case of accidents.
5. We will supervise our bikes correctly and will never abandon them.
6. We will demand safety in our bikes and maintain them properly.
7. We demand car drivers to recognize us as legitimate part of traffic.
8. We seek roads to be maintained for us to be able to ride safe and pleasantly and removal of illegally parked cars which undermine our safety.
9. We seek convenient and theft proof bicycle parking and facilities for showering and changing clothes.
10. We will work had for "citizenship" of the bicycle.

Where to begin... I think it does say many good things, but I think for the most part, this is purely for the very dedicated and hardcore cyclists and not something for the majority of people who may not be cycling enthusiasts, but uses the bike to get around. I think of myself as being far more of a bicycle enthusiast than most, but still I can't say that I agree with everything in this manifest. I am not sure what will become of this, but I think this may be just a part of a bigger plan to use this as leverage for improved infrastructure.

I'm all for better bike infrastructure. I think that's all that Japan really needs actually. There's no need a set of strict rules just to ride the bike. For most people, it's just another way to get around. In Japan, it seems like there's a huge gap between the hardcore cyclists and folks riding around on mamachari. It's almost as if these elite cyclists don't even recognize the mamachari riders as fellow bicyclists. There's a huge gap in mentality as well, but I think if the infrastructure is improved and it becomes safer and easier to ride, the mamachari riders will begin to travel much further than their immediate locality.

I really wonder if this is the way to go about it. It's kind of like a statement by honor roll students, but it's not really realistic if we are seeking a better environment for everyone to ride bikes in.

Kyoto by bike

2009-09-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

The last post about the Shimanami Kaido was written with info and images I'd gathered online, but I remembered that earlier this year before we begun this blog, we took a trip to Kyoto and rode around on rental bikes quite a bit. We did write about our trip on our Japanese blog fairly extensively, but I thought maybe we should share that experience here as well.

Kyoto as you may or may not know is the old capitol of Japan where the emperor had resided for most of Japan's history, so it is old and has a lot historical architecture and old culture. I had visited there briefly during elementary school, but I think I was way too young to really appreciate all that Kyoto had to offer back then. So, it was really cool to spend one full week there as an adult and explore the city.

We explored Kyoto with various modes of transportation including the train, bus, bicycle and by foot and the bicycle was by far the most efficient and pleasant way to see Kyoto.

We rented our bikes from Kyoto Cycling Tour Project. Their bikes are their original brand called "Gin Rin" (Silver Wheels) and I found them to be pretty nice, definitely far better than your average rental bike. It has a very solid frame and comes with nice fat tires, front basket and 3 speeds which suffices for most city riding.

Kyoto is very bike friendly and is easy to ride on most streets and you can get to most destinations from the center of the city within 30 minutes or so. It was pretty cold as it was January when we were there, but I found it much nicer to travel by bike rather than taking the train or the bus which are disorientating.

The Kamogawa (or Kamo River) runs through the city from North to South and it's a very scenic place to ride your bike. We rode on it quite often on our way to various sights we were going and it has a nice relaxing atmosphere to it.

I'm not sure what more to say about without going into specific routes we took which would be very complicated, but if you are planning on visiting Kyoto which I recommend at least once in your life, renting bikes to see the sights will add so much to your experience.

Here's my Flickr set of our Kyoto trip. (including non-bicycle related pictures)

Touring in Japan - Shimanami Kaido

2009-09-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about starting a new blog is that you have an excuse to get in contact with other bloggers. Of course, you can do that even if you don't have a blog, but if you have a blog, the person you contact can see what you are about and so you are on a more equal footing.

When we started this blog, I emailed a bunch of blogs we've been fans of just to say hi and that we've added their links to our blog. One of the blogs I contacted was Candy Cranks. Candy Cranks is a blog written by women from all over the world. I'm not all that into the fixies thing which Candy Cranks often write about, but there is something about them that's different. I think it's that they have so many different perspectives and their love of the bike come across as very genuine. So when I emailed them, I got a very nice and quick reply from Meg in Sydney who I assume is the brains behind Candy Cranks. She was very complimentary about our paper mache bikes (she did a nice post for us!) and also told us about her plan to tour in Japan on a tandem with her partner and asked us if we knew of some good routes there. I replied that I haven't really toured much (or at all) in Japan, but we'll look for information and get back to her, maybe even do a post about the findings on our blog.

Well, that was a couple of months ago, and we still hadn't done the research and the post. I knew her trip was coming up soon and then I saw this article of her trip there so far over at Candy Cranks. I'm glad to see that they are having a great time. How cool is their custom tandem bike(aka WASP)!

I left a comment there and suggested a route called the Shimanami Kaido. It's a route which runs from the Island of Shikoku to the main island of Honshu which goes over the numerous small islands in between. I have of course never been there, but it's definitely a place I would love to ride one of these days. I don't know if they will see my comment in time or if they will ride there anyway, but I thought I would write about the Shimanami Kaido route for this post.

Here's what city of Onomichi says about the Shimanami Kaido:

The Shimanami Kaido (“kaido” - literally means “sea road”) is an expressway which links the main islands of Honshu and Shikoku through a series of bridges and islands. It spans the 60km distance between Onomichi City, in Hiroshima prefecture, and Imabari City, in Ehime prefecture. (Please note that the total cycling distance is 70km, including bridge access ramps.)

Thousands of people flock here annually to enjoy a fun bicycle ride in a great environment. Some cyclists complete the full trek in a matter of hours, and some take a more relaxed pace and spend the night in one of the accommodations along the way. And while a few people actually make the return trip by bicycle, many opt to make the trip back by bus or ferry.

Without having the experience of being there ourselves, the best I can do is look online for information. Here's a blog post from Francois' Japan Blog about his experience biking the route.

Just for perspective, you can see in this map below where the route is located within Japan.

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City of Onomichi which is at the Northern end of the route is located roughly 60km East of the city of Hiroshima and it's quite far from other major cities such as Osaka, Kyoto and especially Tokyo.

Anyway, congratulations to Meg and Tarn for taking on such an adventure; traveling internationally with a tandem bike and touring/camping in a strange country! When I move back there and we both have our "good" bikes, we will definitely venture out into the Japanese countryside. Thanks for inspiring us!

Columbia River Bike Trail

2009-09-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went on a ride on the bike trail by the Columbia River. I've looked to see if there's a name for the trail, but I couldn't find it, so I'm just gonna refer to it as the Columbia River Bike Trail.

(does this qualify as a Panda portrait?)

It is a perfectly nice scenic bike trail much like the Springwater Trail which runs through South East Portland, but for various reasons, it doesn't seem to be quite as popular. I think the main reason is that it is relatively far from the residential area of Portland. The trail is about 6 miles from where I live and 2 miles from the nearest residential area.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you some pictures and some thoughts I had about the ride.

View Larger Map

We'll begin at the Peninsula Park in North Portland which is about a mile from my place and it has a nice rose garden. From there, I took Ainsworth St. Eastward all the way to 33rd Ave. where I turned left. About Ainsworth, it's a very nice street with relatively little traffic and it takes you through town quickly without having to stop too often, but it doesn't have bike lanes and has on-street parking instead. It would be so much better if they got rid of the on-street parking and installed bike lanes. There's plenty of places for car parking on side streets there. I'm getting side tracked, but I think it's good to maybe write these kinds of things. After you turn onto 33rd Ave, you go Northward and cross over Lombard St. where it can seem a bit scary on a bike, but mostly it just seems like it and not so much in reality. After that, you continue up North on 33rd Ave. until right before NE Marine Drive, there is a separate bike path to which you can turn left to get to.

From there, you ride parallel with Marine Dr. Eastward for about a half mile and then cross Marine Dr. and ride on the path next to Columbia River. This is a pretty nice area with some parts of the shore being sandy beaches. It's a nice place for some Summertime river fun.

The grasses along the path were all brown during the Summer, but now it's turning more green and there's some flowers as well. This area is just North of the Portland International Airport (PDX) and as your ride, you will see the airport terminal get larger.

(PDX terminal to the right)

The path continues all the way until past the I-205 freeway and then you have to ride on Marine Dr. 's bike lane for a while until the path starts again on the Southern side of the street.

This portion of the path is between the highway and some buildings, so it's not quite as scenic. You also have to cross some streets a couple of times and stop if there's traffic. A lot of people (or the majority of the few cyclists) seemed to stay on the highway bike lane as it was easier. The bike path then crossed to the Northern side of the highway again and I found this area to be the most scenic part of the whole ride.

Maybe you can't tell the difference from before with this picture, but I think it seemed nicer maybe because it was more cut off from the highway and it seems like it's mostly just the path and the river. The path didn't go on too long before it came to an end though.

Apparently the shore beyond this point was Private Property.

I think that was maybe because of this.

Houses on the river!

seems like a fun place to live. What looks like garages, I would guess contain boats.

Found a strange sign there (if you look closely at the picture).

Is that a nuke shelter submerged in the river!?

If I'd been a young teenager, I might've tried to sneak in and see what that was.

Anyway, this seemed like a good place to turn back, so I took a break there at the riverbank and had a little treat.

I rode back the exact way I came.

The thing about this trail is that much of it is very exposed to the wind, so you may have to pedal harder at times than in other places, but you will also have the benefit of the tail wind at times. It's a little cut off from the residential areas with the 2 miles in between being kind of a bland highway with warehouses and office parks. Most of the cyclists I saw on the trail were more of the sporty kind too.

I think if the way there was more interesting and if the bike path continued uninterrupted, it could see more use by other kinds of bike folks as well. You also have the 2 freeways nearby which crosses to the state of Washington. I heard it's possible to cross the I-5 by bike, but that it can be difficult if you don't know what you're doing. It would be cool to be able to bike to Washington easily as it is actually pretty close. I think developing this area to be more bike friendly and have easy bike access into Washington would be a very worthwhile thing.

The mental aspect

2009-09-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

I think it varies greatly from person to person, but I think in doing whatever you do in life, it takes some motivation and mental readiness for it. A lot of people seem perfectly capable of commuting in a fully packed train or gridlocked freeway traffic to a mind numbing job day in and day out. I'm not one of those people.

I think this also applies to bicycling. After having done the ride to the Columbia River Gorge, the previous weekend, I wasn't quite mentally up to doing it or an equivalent ride again this past weekend. (I did do a shorter more leisurely ride) That's the nice thing about not being a committed athlete. I don't have to keep some training schedule to keep a certain level of form. I can ride whenever and however long I feel like.

During the ride, on the way back from the Gorge when I stopped roadside to buy some fresh corn, I had a brief conversation with the elder gentleman selling the corn. He asked me where I had come from and how far I'd ridden. I told him I came from Portland and had just gone to the Multnomah Falls and he seemed impressed by that and told me about friends of his who tried to do a similar ride once, but stopped halfway and called him to come pick them up. The ride is pretty challenging, but I think they would have been capable of it. I think it was just that they weren't quite ready mentally for the physical exertion it required. For me, it would be the absolute last option to call a friend for a car ride if for some reason, I felt I couldn't ride my bike any longer. It would take quite a lot for that to happen like the bike frame breaking in half which is highly unlikely. Even if the Max light rail (which I rode on to bypass the sprawling outskirts of Portland) had stopped operating for some reason, I probably would have ridden back rather than calling for a ride. I would probably find a Denny's or something like that and eat & rest a bit and then ride home.

I think it's sometimes difficult to do things we're not accustomed to doing. For example, an American visiting Japan for the first time might have difficulty at finishing a bowl of ramen (not instant ramen, but a big bowl of steaming hot ramen from a ramen shop) while a Japanese traveling to the US may have a hard time finishing a big pastrami sandwich. I think in both cases, they can't finish it not because they are full, but more because they are just not used to eating the seemingly strange food. I think the same can be said for cycling long distances. If you haven't ridden your bike over distances longer than just casually riding around town, you may not be mentally ready for the effort it requires, but I think you can get used to it pretty quickly as your body does too. Then you can challenge yourself to go even longer.

Not sure where I'm going with this, but I think you can surprise yourself with how far you can ride if you try. It's definitely a different experience than passively sitting inside a car and stepping on the gas pedal.

abandoned bicycles

2009-09-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

Expansion...

me!!!

Japanese work bikes

2009-08-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting post over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic recently called "Top 10 List of Gorgeous Bicycles for Stylish Ladies". It was great to see such an assortment of gorgeous bikes. The bikes were mostly European except for one bike from the US and one from Japan. The bike from Japan, Arrow Barkley is a stylish and minimalist bike, but I wasn't really sure it was the best Japan offered.

My personal preference of a stylish Japanese bike is the Japanese work bike.
As it is really made for actual work, it's not thought to be something stylish to ride around town on, but I like their old school looks and ruggedness. I'm not sure if these bikes meet the criteria of being "Gorgeous Bicycles for Stylish Ladies", but I thought I'd show a few of them as I'm not sure people outside Japan know about these kinds of bikes.

Bridgestone Jupiter

Bridgestone is world famous for their car tires, but they make bicycles as well. Their bicycle division in Japan is over a half century old (since 1949) and they had a US division directed by Grant Peterson (who now runs Rivendell Bicycle Works) from mid 80's to mid 90's. The Bridgestone Jupiter is typical of Japanese bikes which is made for carrying heavy loads. The rear rack and stand is different than those of European bikes. The rear rack is not made for pannier bags, but is made to carry things on top of it which is why it's so wide. You will see working people carrying all kinds of things on a bike like this in Japan from Sake, fish, tofu, etc. The stand which is attached near the rear spindle is bulky, but will stand the bike upright perfectly, so there is no worry about the bike falling over with a heavy load.

Panasonic Regular

Panasonic, the electronics giant makes bicycles as well although compared to Bridgestone, I'm not sure if they are as serious as a bicycle manufacturer. The
Panasonic Regular is very much similar to the Bridgestone Jupiter, but I think the Jupiter looks a bit classier than the Regular.

These two bikes are ones that are currently still available, but I really like older bikes of this type like this one I spotted in front of Inoda Coffee in Kyoto last Winter.

This bike has the good old rod brakes instead of the cable cantilever types. While the cable brakes may be superior in performance, rod brakes look really awesome on these bikes, I think.

Bridgestone News-kuru

This is another bike by Bridgestone which is made specifically for newspaper delivery. As you can see, it has a very large front basket to put newspaper for easy access. Usually a delivery person will carry newspaper both front and on the back. It also has a lever on the handle bar to lock out the front wheel, so that it won't fall over with the weight of a loaded basket when you get off the bike.

Panasonic Business ViVi

This is the Panasonic ViVi which is not really as nice looking as the others and I wouldn't really want to ride it myself, but I thought I would mention it because it's an electrically assisted bike which are becoming increasingly popular in Japan especially as working bikes. I'm not against electric bikes, but it would be nice if they can make them as nice looking as the others. They can start by replacing that chain case.

As I am now in the US and can't just go out and spot old work bikes in the street, but the next time I'm there, I will look for them and document them.

I've been thinking when I move back to Japan and if I could get a second bike, I would love to get a used work bike and fix it up nicely. They are made for work and people don't treat them like they might treat an expensive road bike, but if I get one, I will definitely take great care of it.

ride to the Multnomah Falls

2009-08-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry this isn't a post by Kao. I'm sure most of you enjoy Kao's posts a lot more than mine as Kao's posts are short and sweet, but mine (probably) tend to be long and boring. Kao has been busy with other things, but I'm sure she will write here again soon.

On this past Sunday, I went on what was by far the most scenic ride as far as I can remember. I have gone to some very scenic places on occasion, but I can't remember a time when I have done so riding my bike. This is due mostly (so I thought) to the fact that I don't live near enough to such places to be able to ride my bike there and when I travel, I don't take my bike with me, so I usually end up getting there by car or train.

(view of Columbia River from Rooster Rock Rd.)

So, I was more than pleasantly surprised when I went on this ride to the Multnomah Falls that a view like this above picture was waiting for me along the way.

This was something I had been wanting to do ever since I noticed the "ride to Colmbia River Gorge" listing in the Pedalpalooza calendar of events. At the time, I contemplated taking part in it, but thought it was maybe a bit beyond my abilities at that time as I hadn't ridden anywhere as far as they were going, but it had been in the back of my mind all Summer. I thought now as we are nearing the end of August and I have been riding longer distances lately, so I thought I was ready and this was a good time to go for it.

The major obstacle in getting to the Historic Columbia River Highway is that there is about 10 miles (it feels much longer) of sprawl outside of central Portland before you get there. I did >an entire ride in this sprawl before and I didn't wish to do it again anytime soon, so I took the Max (light rail train) from Rose Quarter to Cleveland Avenue to bypass most of that sprawl.

View Larger Map

I'll go through my ride in detail just in case anyone reading this might want to try it. I looked for some information online the night before and I found some here, but some of the names of places didn't seem to match up when I looked it up on Google maps and it seemed the beginning part of it could be simpler if I took a different route.

From the Cleveland Ave. Max station, I rode North on Cleveland Ave. to Stark Street. Once you get to Stark Street, all you need is to follow it to the Sandy River Bridge, cross it and turn right onto the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Highway.

View Larger Map

I'm not sure if the route suggested by Portland office of Transportation is more bike friendly as I didn't ride it, but I think my way is way simpler to remember and it didn't seem to bad (on a Sunday at least).

Once you're on the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Highway, all you need to do is follow directions which are very clearly displayed, so there is little chance of getting lost. This is no Sunday stroll though. There is plenty of climbing as you can see in this elevation profile below.

The first climb up through the town of Corbett and up to Crown Point is mostly gradual, so it's not so difficult, but it's plenty long(about 6 or 7 miles). When you've made it to Crown Point, this is the view you will see.

Well, the view from the previous view point at Rooster Rock Rd. is maybe more breath taking. If you look closely, the building you see on the cliff on the right, that is where Crown Point is.

After Crown Point comes somewhat a steep downhill. It was steep and twisty enough that it slowed cars down and I was going downhill at about the same speed as them. It was easy enough to go down the hill, but the thought of having to come back up it later was a bit scary. After the descent, it's sort of rolling terrain mostly downward to the Multnomah Falls. I think the Pedalpalooza ride went a bit further (maybe to the Bonneville Dam?) and I felt I could ride further, but I decided to stop there as I knew I had to go back where I'd just rode and climbing up this side of Crown Point will be much tougher. I was ready for a break and some sightseeing seemed like fun.

So, this is the Multnomah Falls. Pretty impressive, isn't it? I had no idea what the Multnomah Falls was about. I thought it was maybe a man-made thing in the river, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this. I guess it's technically two falls made up of the upper and lower falls. You can hike up to the bridge you see in the picture above and see the fall up and close. I didn't do so, but I took this picture of Special K with the fall as my souvenir.

I walked around the area a bit, but other than the falls, all I found was a gift shop and a parking lot on the other side of the road. I wanted to find a relaxing spot to sit down, and the plastic patio furniture next to the gift shop didn't exactly seem quite enticing, so I got back on my bike and rode back about a quarter of a mile to the Wahkeena Falls which had a picnic area adjacent to it. I went straight to the picnic area and found a picnic table. It wasn't too crowded, so I didn't feel bad about taking a whole table to myself.

Lunch time! with a sandwich, plum, some sweets, peanuts and coffee.
In my "racing" days, I would've never carried this much food with me as it would weigh me down, but these days, I don't care about the weight so much as being able to enjoy food after some riding. And it always tastes so good after a "bit" of exercise. I even read the book I brought with me "The Long Emergency" for a bit after lunch. It's a book about what will happen in the upcoming future when the world's supply of oil start to run out. The author James Howard Kunstler predicts that we will not be able to carry on as we do today driving cars everywhere, transporting goods globally, etc. As I read this book, I look around and see people carrying large amount of food they couldn't eat all of, back to their cars and I think this kind of scenery which is perfectly normal today may become a thing of the past if and when the Long Emergency comes.

After the break, I went to the other side of the road and checked out the Wahkeena Falls.

It's not a huge fall over a cliff like the Multnomah, but this was a very charming fall in the woods. (ed. I've noticed here that if I had gone further up a bit, I would've seen a bigger water fall)

After that last bit of sightseeing, it was time to ride back and up over the Crown Point.

As you can see the road is well covered with trees and a lot of it has old stone fences with moss growing over it. It's definitely a very pleasant place to ride a bike. The only thing is that there is quite a bit of climbing. I don't know how it is for others, but I sort of enjoy it. You can get into a comfortable gear and get into a good rhythm if the gradient is steady, but this climb was longer than anything I'd ridden for some time, so by the end of it, I was having a hard time keeping going. I eventually made it over Crown Point and after that was mostly downhill although it didn't seem all that easy. This was an area with lots of farms and I spotted a man selling corn on the side of the road. He was selling corn 5 for $1. It was such a bargain and I missed the Sunday farmers market for this ride, so I got 5 corn on the cob which was about all I could fit into my pannier bag.

It seemed still quite a ways from there back down and to the Max station in Gresham. And the Max ride was much more crowded and not quite relaxing. After the 40 minute ride on the Max, I had like a 7 minute ride home from there, but my legs felt totally wooden and it was hard to pedal. I'm glad I didn't go further than the Multnomah Falls, as I would've been even more tired if I did that. The ride was supposed to be 18 miles each way which adds up to 36 miles there and back, but it really felt like a lot more. It's hard to believe I used to ride 30 miles on a daily basis back in college. I left a little before 11am and got home after 5pm, so I was out there for like 6 hours. If I subtract the Max trips and the lunch break, it's still about 4 hours and I think that's about as much biking as I can or want to do in a single day for now. It was a great ride though with the most beautiful scenery I've biked through since I've moved here to Portland. It maybe a bit challenging, but you don't necessarily have to ride all of it like me. You can drive up the highway and just ride a part of it. I am not a car enthusiast and I think people should drive much less in general, but it's a beautiful place to ride and if you are not confident about being able to ride the whole distance, I think it's worth it to drive to a point and ride it.

I definitely recommend checking out the ride if you come to Portland and want to
venture out of the city a bit or if you live in Portland, but haven't ridden there yet.

The escape and return to the Tour de Fat

2009-08-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

I went to the Tour de Fat event here in Portland this past Saturday. I'm sure most people know what that's about, but just in case you don't, it's sort of a pro-bike event put on by the New Belgium Brewing Company with a bike parade, performances and of course beer.

I got there a bit too late to see the parade, but it was still relatively early. I went inside the event area and there were people dressed up as they were just in a bike parade and there was some stuff going on the stage and it seemed like people were having fun, but it was hard to tell what was going on.

It was a bit early to drink beer and I couldn't get into the performance stuff that was going on, but there was this area where you could ride a bunch of "funny" bikes. Bikes that have been modified in funny ways and seemed to ride very differently than how we expect bicycles to ride.

I didn't ride one myself, but it was fun just watching people get a kick out of them.

The vibe was mostly peaceful and if I was there with others, it would have been fun to kick back and drink beer. There was a lot of bike enthusiasts and bikes, but then other than the Sprockettes who were supposed to perform later on that day, the performances didn't seem to have much to do with bikes. I sort of felt like there was something missing (like the actual bike riding). So, I decided to go and ride my bike. Well, I sort of planned that before and looked up the map for a good destination.

View Larger Map

So, I decided to go to the Kelly Butte Park which was a park I hadn't been to and wasn't too far. I didn't feel like riding too far, but wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been to. I'd been going to all the parks around Portland as I like parks and usually they offer a quiet and pleasant place to take a break. Though some of them turned out to be more like an undeveloped nature reserves and not really made for humans to rest at. Kelly Butte Park turned out to be sort of in-between.

As I turned off the Divsion St. onto 103rd Ave, the road turned upwards so much that I was in my lowest gear and needed to zigzag my way up. I came to a gate which completely closed off car traffic. I had to get off and carry my bike over the gate to go further. I rode the steep hill a few hundred feet more and came to an open space which sort of looked like a lawn, but was full of wild flowers.

I laid in the middle of it for a while as the short steep hill really took it out of me. There was not one person there besides me and it was a nice change from the event.

I noticed that there was a trail leading into the trees an decided to go an see what's there.

There were lots of trees covered in some algae(?) like stuff and flowers I hadn't seen before. I decided to play "nature photographer" and took some pictures.

The place had a strange atmosphere to it, like if it was darker and colder, it could be a woods where witches lived.

I walked further to see if there was an opening with a view down below, but I couldn'd find it. So, it is a park where people must come sometimes, but not so much that they made special amenities for humans. I kind of felt like it's sort of a secret spot most people don't know about.

On my ride back, I got hungry and wondered what to do about it. Going home and fixing something was the obvious option, but much to my surprise, I found myself riding back to the Tour de Fat event.

I got there and it was still going on as before. I headed for the food and beer tents and got food and a pint of a New Belgium Stout. The beer was really delicious, but a bit expensive at $5. I think if you're promoting your product to possible new customers, the price should be a little friendlier. Either that or part of that $5 should go to bike advocacy. They had tip jars for the BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance), but I didn't feel quite generous enough to donate after I paid $5 for a beer.

I didn't mean to sound so negative about the event. Like I said, if I was there with others, I probably would have had a pretty good time. I think it's a fine event for people who it appeals to. If you like dressing up for a parade, watch vaudeville like performances and drink beer, this is the event for you. I like the beer drinking part definitely, but aside from the parade and the modified bikes, it didn't seem to have much to do with bikes. Maybe that's a good thing as it appeals to a wider audience and maybe show them how fun bike riding people are. I didn't see it happen, but there was a portion of the event which was called like "I WANT TO TRADE MY CAR FOR A BIKE!". I don't know how that turned out, but that would have been interesting to see. Everything about this event seems sort of "extroverted". If you want to dress up for the parade or give up your car in front of an audience, I guess this is appealing. I like riding my bike quite a bit, but I don't like dressing up and if I was making a big lifestyle change decision like giving up my car, I'm not sure that I would want to do it in front of a bunch of strangers. That's just me though. Oh, and one more thing which I thought was cool was, after I ate and drank, I went to throw out the dish and the cup I used and the staff person who was supervising the trash bins said to put all my trash in the compost bin. Apparently, everything I got within the premises were compostable. That's pretty cool.

Anyway, all in all a cool event.

Bridge Pedal 2009

2009-08-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hope you all had a great weekend. On Sunday, I rode my first (& maybe last?) Bridge Pedal.

For those of you who are not familiar with the event, it's an annual event here in which you ride over the numerous bridges that crosses the Willamette River that runs through the center of Portland. Some of those bridges are either totally inaccessible like freeways or have very limited access (with only a narrow sidewalk to ride on), so this event is the once a year opportunity where you can ride freely over all of the bridges without having to worry about car traffic.

It started very early with sign-in from 6:30am an then starting at 7:00am. I'm usually still asleep so early on Sunday morning, so I didn't get quite enough sleep. There were 3 different distances from 14 to 38 miles and I took part in the 11 Bridge 38 mile ride. The starting point was already on the freeway. I rode up to the start and was probably in the first few hundred riders. When I looked back after a bit, it was cyclists as far as I can see. There were some 6000 people doing the ride and 20,000 people all combined for the event. It was by far the biggest cycling event I've ever taken part in.

We started at 7:00am and immediately went up and down on the freeway. It was very strange indeed to be riding on the freeway. The scale of the road is much bigger than what I'm used to and the pavement felt a bit rough in places too. Our side of the freeway was open just for us, but the opposite direction had the usual car traffic. I wonder what the drivers must have thought upon seeing us there. Most people on our ride seemed very athletic oriented and the pace was pretty fast and I was beginning to get passed by others. After we went over the river a few times over different bridges, we crossed the Sellwood Bridge which was the Southern most bridge in this ride and then we made our way up North. It was after we crossed the Hawthorne and Ross Island bridges that something seemed strange like I was riding the same route twice. There were cyclists on the same street but separated in the middle. I rode on the right side already, but this time I was on the left side. I asked a volunteer person about it and he told me that this was the red group (8 bridges ride) route and my group was on the other side. I should have known better than to listen to him, but I went the way that he said and I ended up doing the same loop again and came to the same exact place again.

(taking a break on Fremont Bridge, I-405)

It may have been a blessing in disguise though as people around me by then weren't as gung-ho as the front runners and I seemed to be going faster than most of them. It wasn't my initial intention to ride so fast, but riding in a large group does make you ride faster and it does feel good to be able to pass others. I was happy to find that I'm still faster than average going up hills too. After a few more crossings over the Willamette, there was a long flat stretch to the North and I seem to be uncharacteristically riding faster on the flat than those around me and so I might have ridden harder than I should have. We came to a climb up to the St. Johns Bridge which I didn't expect and I couldn't go up it like I did on the other climbs. I crossed the bridge and then I stopped at the rest stop in St. Johns soon after. I had a banana and an energy bar and it tasted soooo good! From there, I was more or less in survival mode and just managed to get to the finish.

I was dead tired and I couldn't believe when I looked at my watch, it was only 10:00am. It seemed a lot longer than just 3 hours. The ride was 38 miles, but with the extra loop and the ride home, I probably did like 45 miles altogether.

Anyway, it was an intense, but a fun ride. Maybe I didn't ride it as smart as I could, but it gave me a good idea of my fitness level and I feel like I can take on some longer rides now. I took some photos here and there, mostly during the first half of the ride. you can check them out in the slide show below or on flickr.

I'm really not a good photographer though and I was mostly preoccupied with riding to take time for good photography. There were plenty of places though that would have been great to take pictures at. You can check out KTesh's Bridge Pedal set on Flickr for more great pictures of the ride.

At the beginning, I wrote this may be my last Bridge Pedal. I just want to clarify that I didn't say that because I do not want to do it again. I would do it again if I'm here still, but I'll most likely to have moved back to Japan by then, so I may not have the chance to do it again. I'm happy to have done it and if I get a chance, I will do it again. Hopefully Kao can do it with me if that happens.

bicycles in the box of matches

2009-08-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

This is my keepsake of the my late grandmother.
Her hobby was collecting match boxes for her scrapbooks.
I have selected match boxes with bicycles.

"Refreshing and pedals lightly!" Tsunoda Bicycles

"This is comfortable ride! and strong"

This is China taste! I do not understand what box it is!

It will soon be Bon Festival in Japan. I will remeber my grand parents and think of my ancestors.

Bridge Pedal and Pedal Issues

2009-08-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

I will be taking part in the Bridge Pedal ride tomorrow (actually less than 12 hours from now) here in Portland. It's an annual event where you can ride over the bridges (even ones that are normally inaccessible by bike) that run across the Willamette River that runs through the center of Portland. There are 4 different rides with distances varying from 5 to 38 miles. I am taking part in the 38 mile 11 Bridge Ride. This ride will take me over some bridges and even on freeways and parts of Portland I'd been wanting to ride, but haven't because they seemed hard to get to. It'll also be my first mass ride (not counting the Sunday Parkways) ever since I rode my last road race in college. It's not a race or timed event though, so I don't think I will ride "full throttle". Rather I will enjoy riding my bike where normally it's not allowed and enjoy what is supposedly some of the best views in Portland.

My leg (left leg in particular) has been feeling quite sore on every ride lately though. I'd been wondering how to alleviate the pain. I think the problem is the bio-mechanics, meaning how my body is positioned must not be quite right. I considered riding in platform pedals with regular shoes tomorrow.

(platform pedal on KT)

These pedals (Crank Brothers Candy C) that are on Special K are great. They are so easy to get in and out of.

(Candy C pedal on Special K)

But, the cleat on the shoe can only be adjusted so far and when I click my left shoe into the pedal, I feel like my foot should be further forward than it can go. The adjustability might be more of an issue with the shoe, but it's lead me to consider having a different set up.

Riding with platform pedals will solve the problem as I will be able to move my foot freely on the pedal, but just as a last ditch effort, I decided to try changing the saddle position. If I can't move my foot, then I can move my body in relation to my foot instead, so I raised and moved back the saddle a little bit. I had an errand to the store, so I rode there with the new position and it seemed to have worked out. I guess the thing about clipless pedals is that they lock your feet into place, so it makes position of other things (mainly the saddle) more crucial. I was only riding very casually and I didn't ride with much effort, so I don't know for sure though. Normally, if you are a serious rider, you wouldn't change your riding position a day before an event as that really changes your bio-mechanics, but then I'm not that serious of a rider. I'm not going to race this event with the other participants or anything.

Anyway, I hope I'll be able to ride without pain tomorrow. I will definitely report afterwards hopefully with some photos of the ride.

On a different subject, I wrote about cycling shoes last time, but I found these shoes that seem pretty nice. They are made by the messenger bag company Chrome and I assume, they are not compatible with clipless pedals, but they seem like the perfect shoes for platform pedals.

the kind of bike shoes I like

2009-08-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

More and more, I've come to think that making and buying things on a large scale isn't such a good thing. Rather it's better to make and buy something because we really want to and not just because it's a job or it's what's available at the store.

Be that as it may, I'm going to contradict what I just said and do a post which may be somewhat consumerist in its nature.

These above are my bike shoes. I wear them when I ride the Special K (Kinya's Specialized). When I ride the KT (Kao's Trek), I wear whatever shoes I feel like at the time. Special K is equipped with clipless pedals which I thought would be ridable with normal shoes, but that didn't turn out to be the case, so I need to wear shoes that can click into these pedals. I lucked out in getting these shoes as I found them at the Goodwill thrift shop and they fit me perfectly and as far as cycling shoes go, these are not as sporty and don't look too weird wearing them with regular clothes. There are quite a bit of people in Portland that wear full-on cycling shoes wherever they go, but I much rather wear shoes that seem like regular shoes. These are also very walkable as well.

So, I'm mostly happy with these shoes and I don't need to buy a new pair, but lately, I've been entertaining the idea of buying new pedals for a couple of reasons. One, my legs have been getting very sore on longer rides lately and different pedals could alleviate that problem. Two, I still would like to get pedals that could also be ridden with regular shoes just for short rides. I have KT for that purpose now, but when Kao comes back to ride it, I like to have that option. After looking at a bunch of pedals online, I think I found the pedal that might be perfect. And after that the consumer within me seem to want more, so even though I don't need a new pair of shoes, I looked to see what's out there. What I would look for in cycling shoes would be 1) wearability with regular clothes, 2) ease of walking, 3) comfort on/off the bike. I thought I would share what I found.

Mavic Alpine

These are made by Mavic who is better known as a manufacturer of wheels, but they have gotten into the clothing and shoes business more recently. I like these. They look a bit like low-cut hiking shoes and I think they would go with almost anything other than the most dressy attire.

Lake MX90

These are made by Lake who specialize in cycling shoes. The are OK, but maybe not great. The red accent is a bit sporty. Might go well with a slightly sporty casual look though.

Keen Springwater

I believe Keen is a Portland company and I would like to support a local brand, but again these are a bit sporty. I do see quite a lot of people wearing Keen sandals that are clipless compatible though. If I was looking for sandals, I might consider them.

Shimano MT60 Gore-Tex

These are made by Shimano who I belive is now the world's largest manufacturer of bike components. They have been making shoes for quite a longtime (like 20 years?) as well. These look even more like hiking shoes and they are made with Gore-Tex, so these miht be a good option for cold and wet weather. Slightly sporty, but I like that it uses suede.

Shimano SH-MT21

These are also by Shimano and are probably the younger cousins of my shoes (Shimano SH-MO20). Very simple and casual with brown suede. I think if they used the same color of suede and thread throughout, these could almost look like Clarks.

Marresi 700

And lastly, as an honorable mention, the good looking Marresi 700. These Italian leather shoes look quite handsome. However, I think these are more pure cycling shoes than the others and I don't think they would be too comfortable for walking.

Anyway, so that's that. Of all these, I think I like the Mavic and the Shimano SH-MT21 the best, though I would like to see more shoes designed with the intention of wearing them with regular clothes. I think I will wear my Shimano shoes until they either wear out or I decide to quit clipless pedals altogether though. I think as more and more people ride bikes, need for more variery of equipment will rise as well. I think there are probably others like me who want to go on long rides, but don't want to look like a wannabe racer, so I hope the shoe manufacturer will recognize that.

TOUR DE TSUMARI 2009

2009-07-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

I went to "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009" last weekend.
It made a deep impression on me.
http://www.echigo-tsumari.jp/2009en/

I extract the part of the summary from an official site.

The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (ETAT) is an art festival held once every three years in the landscape of Echigo-Tsumari, a region distressed with the problems of depopulation and aging. ETAT began ten years ago by uncovering the many aspects of value inherent in the region through the medium of art in an attempt to lay down a path for the revitalization of the region through raising its attractiveness and ability to transmit to the world.
The approximately 350 artworks, deployed in communities, rice fields, vacant houses and closed schools, are the fruit born from the collaboration and exchanges between rural locality and city, artist and satoyama, and young and old. With the hundreds of artworks recalling the labors of our ancestors who interacted with the Earth through agriculture, allow your senses to be liberated by the radiant smiles of the elderly men and women of Echigo-Tsumari and deeply imbibe the wonder of life in a new journey.

Nature and local people mix with art.
I wish the art festival of such a style is held all over the world. and I want to cooperate so that a art festival continues.

Here are some photos of the scenery I took while attending the festival.

A mountain village of Echigo-Tsumaari is deep green and is beautiful.

There is a cycling event called "TOUR DE TSUMARI" in this art festival. "TOUR DE TSUMARI" is not a race. "TOUR DE TSUMARI" ride in the mountain village of Echigo-Tsumari by bicycle for enjoying scenery and art. It seems to be a rule to wear a yellow jersey and helmet. and this cycling tour becomes the art work of Yoshiaki Ito.

It is hard for me to ride a bicycle with the appearance of racing, but I think it is a happy cycling tour. Unfortunately I cannot participate in "TOUR DE TSUMARI", but I would like to ride a bicycle sometime in this mountain village.

http://homepage.mac.com/itopen/tdt09/top.html
http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/tour-de-tsumari/

It's hot, go ride a bike

2009-07-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

It's been really hot here in Portland the last few days.

(Summer riding in Kashima, Japan)

I've only lived here a little over two years, but the outside temperature during the day felt hotter than I have ever experienced here in Portland. Inside my apartment, it's still relatively cool thanks to the trees sheltering the building from the sun, but if days like this continue, the temperature inside will likely start to rise. I'm not worried though. In all the years I lived in New York City, I never owned an air conditioner. My apartment in NYC was on the first floor and in the shady side of the building, but still at times, it was like living in a sauna. I just didn't think running an AC, using up loads of electricity and putting out hot air outside was cool. I'm stubborn that way. If I survived Summers in NYC w/out an AC, a few hot days in Portland won't be much of a problem for me.

The unusual hot weather does worry me a little though. Climate change?

Today, I went out on my bike in the heat to the local super market. I couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like there were more cars out than usual and much less bikes. Maybe it seems like the obvious choice to go by an cool air-conditioned car instead of a bike on a day like today, but if we are to believe there is direct relation between CO2 emissions by automobile and global warming (and there is strong evidence for it), doesn't it make more sense to not drive especially on such a hot day? I wouldn't suggest to ride a bike in this weather if you have a relatively long distance trip to make, but just going to the store is definitely doable by bike.

I think in general, in extreme weather, it's better to lay low and conserve energy. I think the Europeans have got it right with their siestas and long vacations. Summer isn't the season for "happy motoring", it's the season to take it easy and to go ride our bikes.

Portland, maybe not as bike friendly as you might think

2009-07-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Copenhagenize had an interesting post which confirmed what I've suspected for sometime.

www.pedbikeimages.org / Laura Sandt

The post was about the most bike friendly cities in the world. There have been similar articles like this one where Portland comes very near the top of the list, but from my personal experience (living here in Portland and having visited cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam), I thought that while Portland does have a very vibrant bike culture, the bicycle is still not as popular as a mode of transportation as it is in many cities in Europe and other places (Tokyo and Osaka).

Portland didn't even make the list!

I don't own a car, so I ride my bike almost 100% of the time when I go out, but what I see is mostly cars. I might see 10 people (or less) on bikes to a hundred cars. And when I go over a freeway overpass, I often see traffic congestion with literally a hundred or more cars in my sight. I always wonder if people stuck in the traffic jam see me on the bike and think anything of it. Would they think "Oh, it would be so nice to be riding a bicycle instead of being stuck in this car"? I don't know, but I would say that while Portland may be one of the most bike friendly cities in North America, it really doesn't come close to other more bike friendly cities of the world. I think if the list was about the average distance traveled by bicycle, Portland may be one of the top, but as I don't think we have any realistic means of gathering such data, we won't know for sure. I think Portland is a great city though for many other reasons. I've lived in a few other cities in the US including NYC and Davis, California, but I think Portland is definitely the best place I've lived in the US so far.

P.S. I used the photo above from PBIC Image Library. Thanks to Dottie/Let's Go Ride a Bike for writing and letting us know about them. I always like to have picture(s) with my posts, but it's great to have access to a library of images as I don't always have pictures that seems appropriate for them.

Saturday loop & Sunday Parkways

2009-07-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Kao's last post was about an event and a place in Tokyo to promote cycling. From what she told me, it seems that there is quite a bit of funding behind them. I am not really sure what they want to achieve and if they are effective at all. It is quite different from events here in Portland which are more grass roots based and organized by people who actually ride bikes. These ones in Tokyo are supported by the bike industry and Keirin which is the legal bike race gambling. It's hard to see what they want to achieve other than just to show off bikes in a fashionable way. People do ride bikes in Tokyo and it is do-able, bit it's hardly an ideal environment for it. It seems to me that the real issue with cycling in Tokyo isn't the bicycles, but the infrastructure. That's definitely a hard area to tackle, but if they want to promote cycling there, I think that's the most important thing.

I went out on another long ride on Saturday.

I was becoming weary of riding on car heavy roads (though they have bike lanes and are mostly safe), so I went on the Spring water Corridor Trail which is part of the 40 mile loop which circles Portland. The loop isn't complete yet and it's still missing some connections here and there, but on the Southern part of the loop, it's all connected. It is comprised of mostly of multi-use paths with bits of regular streets in between. The multi-use path does have some pedestrians and joggers near the center of the city, but once you are out of the center, there are hardly any pedestrians and not too many cyclists, so it's an ideal place to ride without having to worry about cars or pedestrians.

(40 Mile Loop)

On Saturday, I decided to take the trail to a place called Beggars Tick wildlife refuge. It was further than I had gone before on the trail, so I wasn't quite sure of the way. Surely enough, I got lost after the trail came to an intersection and I didn't see that the trail continued on the on the other side of the intersection. I went on the bike lane on a normal road and the road started to go upwards. The more I tried to find my way, the more I seem to have to go on steep climbs. I eventually got to my destination after quite a long detour. The Beggars Tick wildlife refuge looked very green and nice on the satellite map, but it was a wildlife refuge and not so much a human refuge. I wanted to sit and rest for a bit, but I couldn't find any spot to do so, so I decided to ride back to find a spot to rest. I hardly ever drink soft drinks as I think they are bad for nutrition and the environment, but I craved a cold soda really badly. My leg muscles were starting to ache as well. I probably rode at least another half hour to get to the Oaks Park which is an amusement park, but more like a glorified county fair. There is no entry fee and you can walk in with your bike. I walked in and got a small Dr. Pepper. Man, did that taste good! I sat at a picnic table by the Willamette River for a while and recovered while listening to people playing bingo in the background.

I didn't notice before, but the beach along river was quite nice. If I wasn't so tired, I would've gone down there and dipped my feet in the water.

On Sunday, I wasn't looking to ride too much, but I knew that they were having the Sunday Parkways again, so I decided to go check it out on my way back from the Farmers Market. I was just gonna see how the event was going, but I started riding on the course with all the people on bikes and I ended up going most of the way. I read people's impression of it on some blogs and there was one where the person thought that riding along inexperienced riders seemed more dangerous than riding normally on regular streets, but for me it was just a lot of fun to ride on the streets without any cars. If you were trying to ride fast and pass everyone, it would be dangerous, but if you rode casually with the flow, it seemed really safe. Besides, the whole point of the event I think is to get the inexperienced riders out on their bikes in a safe environment. It wasn't quite the "bike culture" event like the Pedalpalooza events, but I think this kind of event really does encourage people who usually don't ride bikes to try it out and discover (or re-discover) the joy of bicycling.

TOKYO bike events!

2009-07-18T03:07:00.000-07:00

I went to "biketope 2009" today.

It is in front of United Nations University. Aoyama, Tokyo.
Unique design bicycles from Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and Japan, You can test ride the bikes.

This event is held Until 20th.
http://www.designnippon.com/

　　

Next, I went to the "Cycle Square" . It is new open bicycle cafe yesterday on Kitasando(Sendagaya).
http://www.cyclesquare.com/

Coverage of the television came to the cafe!!!

I like this cafe!　It was very comfortable space. A lot of bicycles are exhibited. They answer consultation about the bicycle. You can use Internet. it's free. and they have a rental bicycle. for four hours, 1,000 yen.

This cafe is open until January 17 of the next year. It is a time-limited cafe.

Re-cycling

2009-07-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

Kao's last post was about a picture book called "Pika Pika" which tells the story of the journey of an abandoned bicycle. It is put out by an organization called JOICFP who donate reconditioned bicycles to grassroots health volunteers in developing countries. I don't know if their activity is well known in Japan or not, as we only found out about them after we were talking about abandoned bicycles recently and looked to see what is being done with them.

Today, I thought I would write about some other organizations that I know of which make good use of used bicycles.

(Community Cycling Center sticker on KT)

The first organization that I became aware of is called Baisikeli. I found out about them through Copenhagenize. They run a rental bike store in Copenhagen, but they also recondition used bicycles and send them to Africa.

There are a couple of organizations here in Portland that make good use of used bicycles. The Community Cycling Center fixes donated used bikes and sell them. They also run a lot of community oriented programs like teaching children safe cycling. KT (Kao's Trek) is actually from the Community Cycling Center. The Recyclery also sells used bikes. They don't have community programs, but they have quite a lot of bikes and parts. You won't find any top notch racing components there, but if you need some parts for a regular bike to ride around town with, it's a great place to look for parts. I've gotten some parts really cheap there. The nice thing about the Community Cycling Center and the recyclery is that you can take old bikes and parts there. If you have bikes and parts you are not using, but you don't want to simply throw them away, you could give them to Goodwill or some place similar, but if you give them to the Community Cycling Center or the Recyclery, you know they are more likely to be put to good use.

I think the JOICFP's abandoned bicycle program is a good thing, but I think maybe there might be a bit of a discouragement (not from JOICFP, but just in general) to fix and sell used bikes in Japan as that would interfere with business of shops that sell new bikes. That is the case not only of bicycles, but other things as well. Selling used goods has become a big business with big chains such as Book-Off and they are way more profit driven than the thrift shops of the US. It's kind of an unfortunate situation as things that will not fit this business model are more likely to be discarded. On the othe hand, I think things are changing with grass roots activities like community flea markets, so I hope that used bicycles could be sold or re-used more easily in the future. I mentioned in a recent post about how the author James Howard Kunstler thinks we won't have access to a lot of resources in the future and so to be throwing out perfectly usable bicycles and parts into the landfill, I think is not only bad for the environment, but just plain wasteful. New and shiny mamachari bikes can be bought very cheaply, but I think we really ought to start looking at the bigger picture.

"PIKA-PIKA" abandoned bicycles story

2009-07-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

Last week, I bought a picture book. it is Japanese abandoned bicycles story. I am greatly moved.

I extract it as follows from a page of JOICFP.

Pika Pika

The picture book Pika Pika, available in both Japanese and English, portrays each step in the process by which JOICFP and MCCOBA donate reconditioned bicycles to grassroots health volunteers in developing countries. Pika Pika, an abandoned bicycle and the main character of the story, pulls at the heartstrings of several sympathetic characters who cooperate to refurbish him and eventually send him to Africa. His role is to help a midwife in a village, where he finds his niche in life and eventually becomes a hero for his efforts.

Pika Pika is the result of the passion and curiosity of Seiichi Tabata, its acclaimed author. When hearing of the program, Tabata was deeply moved and wished to experience first-hand the effects of the program--to the point where he first proposed to travel together to Africa with the bicycles in their cargo crate! He accompanied JOICFP on a visit to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, where he gathered impressions and the detailed data upon which this powerful story is based.

Although Pika Pika is a picture book, its appeal extends to a wide audience as it addresses many important issues, such as recycling, volunteer activity, and the will and courage to live.We would like to introduce Pika Pika to people and organizations across the world, including local governments, libraries, educators, and PTAs. One copy of the English version is 2,310 Japanese yen , and if purchased directly through JOICFP, a portion of this is directly applied to the JOICFP/MCCOBA reconditioned bicycle fund.

I write about abandoned bicycles, because I want to write down the abandoned bicycles in Japan present conditions. but, writing long articles in English is so difficult for me... how disappointing!

Just riding a bit further

2009-07-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Kao's last post features pictures she took while visiting the Bicycle Culture Center in Tokyo. They had an exhibition of old bikes, like the Celerifere which is technically, not even a bicycle, but more like its predecessor. I really like that these bikes seem like pure manifestations of their designers ideas. The last picture features the Dursley Pedersen which is claimed to be the most comfortable bicycle in the world. I've never seen one in person, but they are supposedly still being made. I'd love to ride it sometime. Maybe Clever Cycles could import them!?

On Saturday, I went on another long ride. This time a little more in the South East direction, to the Powell Butte Nature Park. That is the satellite picture of the park above. As you can see, it's not a very woodsy place. If I'd seen this before I left, I might have thought twice about going there, but I didn't and so I went. On the way was mostly more of the same sprawling development, but there were some patches of the road which felt more back country like.

I eventually made it there after getting lost a couple of times. I had to climb a super steep road at the end and this was the view I saw. It seemed that most people go there by car and then they walk or bike (on mountain bikes) on the trails within the park. I was quite tired already from the ride and the steep climb, so I didn't bother going on the trails.

I could've done without the cars, but the view was pretty nice.

I took a break with some snacks and coffee. A thermos of coffee does weigh the bike down, but it's worth it for a moment like this.

Then I rode down the hill I climbed and made my way home. I'm a lot more timid about going down steep hills than I used to be. I always wonder if people with fixed gear bikes could ride down these kinds of descents. It's scary enough with brakes and freewheel, I can't imagine going down them with fixed gear.

I stopped on the way home to buy some groceries. I would've never done such a thing in my racing days. Back then, I tried to carry as little stuff as possible. Stopping during a ride to do something completely unrelated would have been unthinkable. But now, I don't think I need to differentiate between these different activities. Going on a long ride is just going on a longer ride than usual, so things I do normally like buying food makes perfect sense.

Bicycle Culture Center

2009-07-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Celerifere

Draisienne

MacMillan Velocipede

Michaux Velocipede

Ordinary

Dersley Pederson

Bicycle Culture Center

Cycling and Sprawl

2009-07-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

Kao's last post was about the bike shop which is called "Cycle Life Style". It is a shop within a discount department store, but this bike department has a separate structure of its own and they do service as well.

They have these bikes under the same brand of "Cycle Life Style". They seem like pretty nice bikes with derailleurs and everything, but Kao said that these are only around $200. Not having ridden them I don't know about their quality, but I think similar bikes could easily cost twice in the US.

On my July 4th ride, I was hoping I would ride through some nice scenery like some country roads with lots of trees, but what I got instead was not all too inspiring. It was sort of like sprawl. It wasn't anything like the sprawl you see in California or New Jersey, but it did feel more sprawl like compared to central Portland.

I also noticed that there was almost no one on bikes. It was July 4th, but there were cars and people waiting to ride the light rail train. I started thinking why that was. Maybe it's too much for most people to ride 30 minutes to an hour at a good steady pace just to get into the city. The houses themselves look like nice places to live, but there is just nothing else there. So, I think if I lived there and didn't ride a bike, I would probably drive into town quite often just to fill a void that I can't quite explain.

I spent my teenage years in a Southern California town called Irvine. I haven't been back there for more than 10 years and I don't know what it is like now, but back then it was what you might called Suburbia. It was a safe and clean environment, but I always felt like there was something missing. I couldn't really put my finger on it until I read James Howard Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere". The book really articulated it into words what it was that made me feel uncomfortable in a seemingly wholesome environment. I won't try and summarize the book here as I am sure I won't do it justice, but Jim Kunstler is in favor of Traditional Neighborhood Development where the residents have access to most everyday needs within walking distance. He does like bicycles and likes riding them, but in his view, he is not sure whether we will be able to keep on riding them in the future. He has what many people think of as a pessimistic view of the future (he calls himself a realist) where resources will be in very limited supply and we may not be able to continue manufacturing bicycles and its parts the way we do today. That is unfortunate as I am a big fan of his writing and I think if he could incorporate bicycles as transportation into his world view, I think we would really have the perfect guideline for the future.

I have been reading quite a bit of pretty scary news about climate change. The primary reason that I ride my bike has nothing to do with the environment, but it baffles me that so many people everywhere keep driving their cars like there is no problem. Of course it's not just cars and there are many different factors contributing to the climate crisis, but driving cars definitely does not help the situation.

Sprawl takes shape on the outskirts of cities with fairly large houses on large plots of land. I assume people choose to live there because it's more affordable and they can live in a more spacious environment. The houses and the big yards themselves are quite nice (except for the 2 car garage and the driveway) , but not having any place to just walk to and enjoy is a big drawback. I am not sure everybody living there needs so much space and I think if they were able to do so, they would move closer to the center of the city. If Portland really wanted to become North America's premier bike friendly city, they could take after Groningen, Netherlands and make the center of the city car free. That would make a lot of space available for new development. There are a number of condo buildings going up in my part of Portland, but I think only the real wealthy would be able to live there. Instead if there were more affordable and well designed housing within the city, a lot of people could move into the city and be able to ditch their cars as they will be able to walk or ride a bike for most everyday activities.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts (and wishful thinking) I had after riding and seeing the sprawling outskirts of Portland. I don't know if I was successful in conveying what I wanted to say, but I welcome any comments if you have any thoughts on what I've written.