Since the last entry (in Japan)

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

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".

Child Bikes

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.