Bicycles

When I first got here, I bought a bicycle. Seriously, within the first week, I think it was. It was a $50 POS bike, but it hauled me around for three months before I upgraded to a new $260 bike that my dad sent me money for (on top of the piles of cash he normally sends to keep my mooching butt afloat!). I lent my old bike to a friend who left a few days later and it was stolen some time after he returned it, around the beginning of August. No biggie, though, 'cause I still have my new bike. Right?

Well, when I went to Tokyo, my new bike was stolen. After not quite two months of owning it. So much for Japanese crime rates, I guess. At right is an artists rendition of me upon discovering my bike stolen. Sure it, it sucks, but it's the best I could get for two pieces of gum and some pocket lint.

The weird thing is that they were both locked up, and I still have both keys for both bikes' locks.

Anyway, I went to the police last week and reported that my bike had been stolen, but in a bizarre twist of paper shuffling, I told them my new bike had the numbers from my old bike, and when I discovered the new bike's registration the next day, I went down to the police station and sorted the matter out, which only took about an hour. The police now have the right number for my now-stolen, two-month old, $260 bike.

That was all last week. A week and seven trips to the police station later, I have a case number, which I can use to take advantage of the insurance policy that I got on my new bike. It only covers half the cost, but that's $130 more than nothing, and I'm sure going to take it. I'll probably end up spending another $20 or so to get a bike that isn't a mamacheri (mama's bike) and that is the right size.

Non-Helmet Society, and Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned this before, but it's definitely something that bears it.

You do not wear a helmet when riding a bicycle in Japan. I'm not saying "It's even dorkier here than in the States." I'm saying you just don't. When I got here, I looked for one, but I could only find them in kids' sizes. I've looked in a number of different cycle shops, and I have not a seen a single adult-sized bicycle helmet.

Now, I know they exist somewhere. While hiking, we saw two sets of three mountain bikers who were all wearing helmets. And on two other occasions, I've seen men riding bicycles in heavy traffic with helmets, but they were the kind of guys who wear the tight cycling pants and the bright yellow spandex T-shirts. All children up to the age of about six or seven wear them, but they suddenly disappear around that time.

In some ways, I can understand the sentiment; a helmet is a big thing to lug around, even if it's light, and adds to the massive pile of crap I might otherwise be accoutered with at the moment. In addition, fashion here is much more important than I've noticed before. This could either be an expansion in my awareness of it, or an actual change, but it's hard to tell either way.
Don't worry, I still pick my clothes based on how many pockets they have and blindly mix and match colors.

Now, with all of that said, some kinds of helmets do exist here, and you see anybody on a motorcycle or scooter wearing one. Now, whether them wearing it is any help to them or not, I'll never know, since half the time the things aren't even strapped on. I have to assume enforcement of some helmet law (which I also must assume exists) is pretty strict here, which would also explain the munchkins.

I know it won't help in terms of stopping concussive impact, but I do my best to wear my hat and cycling gloves every time I go out.
It sounds stupid - because it is, I know - but I figure a new hat or pair of gloves beats reconstructive scalp surgery or permanent scarring, and will also help to keep little bits of road from getting embedded in the bits of me that jut out. Like my head. And hands.
I dunno, it makes me feel better about not wearing a helmet, though.

To temper that, I should point out that been involved in four different collisions since I got here, but none of them have been serious, and one should hardly count. Here we go:

1. With a random mother and her kid strapped in a rear rack seat. I was dodging people near the Shijo-Kamagawa bridge and she was, as well, and we dodged into each other. Fortunately, the baskets on the front of most bikes are made of a pretty pliable (and very rust-prone!) kind of metal, probably iron, and make great crumple zones. And they usually deform just a little, but it sure helps and isn't hard to fix.
   A quick "Are you okay?" from both of us and we were off.
   
2. With a guy who decided it would be a good time to go through a red "Don't cross the street right now" light. I was turning the corner and neither of us stopped, so we sort of bodychecked each other. I got a bit of a rugburn on my inner thigh, which was less than comfortable, but I think we were both okay outside of that. Quick "Okay?" from each of us and it was over.
   
3. With a car, while coming out of my apartment one day.
   Usually, when I leave, I glide downhill into the road and merge happily in, but there's a wall that prevents me from seeing to the left until I'm actually in the road. Fortunately, Japan is a drive-on-the-left country, so I can see oncoming traffic plenty early enough.
   This time, though, the guy was on the wrong side of the road and only inches from the retaining wall. Combine that with the fact that I was turning left this time, and stupidly didn't stop to check left, neither of us could have known about the other due to the wall. Fortunately, I just barely heard his engine noise and was able to slam on my brakes. He hit his brakes, too, but too late and slammed into my front tire. Fortunately, it turns.
   I don't know if this is normal, but our conversation went like this:
   Car-Man and I simultaneously: "Excuse me!"
   Car-Man: "Are you alright?"
   Me: I glance at myself, look at the bike tire. "Yeah, I'm okay. ... Well..."
   And we head off.
4. This was just yesterday, on my way back from getting fried rice cakes filled with course red bean paste (tsubuan yakimochi). I saw the train going overhead and tried to get out from under the overpass before it got there. There was a junior high school kid coming the other direction and we both tried to go to my left to go around each other. If hadn't been rushing, it would've been fine, but I was, so neither of us had enough time to negotiate. We both hit our brakes and I came to a stop with my foot on his front tire. My 90kg (~200 pounds) is plenty to stop a small Japanese kid of probably 1/3 the weight, it would seem.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Finally, the Bike Post

I bought my bike last week, but somehow I totally didn't mention it here on the blog. It's too bad, 'cause last weekend was pretty slow and it would've been a great time for it.

Anyway, this is my old bike (at left), which I'm letting Bethany use until she goes. Not certain what to do with it after that, though. I might be able to sell it back to the cycle shop i got it from, but I don't have a lot of hope for that. Besides, it'd be nice if I could keep it. You never know when a second bike might be handy.
Actually, there's a place by Part One that might work well... The biggest set of differences is in the ass-end, so I took a close-up of the back end, where you can clearly see the drum brake, the downward kickstand (you got a better name for it?), the lock, and... the little plastic guards to keep your skirt from getting caught in the spokes.

Yeah, I'm excited to have a new bike.

Here it is,alone and straight-on at right, and with my old one for comparison at left.

To review, I picked out my new bike because it has pretty much all the features I want in a bike here, about which I learned a great deal through my mamachari - "mama's bike" (actually "mama's chariot", a reference to the shape) - that was a $62.50 used deal.

My new bike - scratch that. It needs a name. "My new bike" just doesn't work. It's temporary name will be nueji ("new bike" - you see a lot of creative names like that in Japanese).

Anyway! Nueji has the following features that I want in a bike:

• Bike - That is, it means I don't have to walk. Walking is so frustrating after riding around town. I average 10-12 miles an hour through town if I pay attention to lights, while I average about 3 miles an hour.
  
• Twin caliper brakes - Caliper brakes are standard in the States, but most brakes here are of the drum type. This means they start to squeak after about a month, even when they are completely dry. It's a noise you quickly get used to, and you end up using your rear brakes as a way of warning people that you're behind them.
  That said, I can fix caliper brakes. Nothin' doin' with drum brakes.
• Basket shape - If you take a close look at the diagram at left, you'll see the difference. Nueji's basket is the one outlined in purple. I'm too lazy to take a top-down view, but it's squared off more from that perspective, as well, which makes it infinitely more useful than the more narrow, curvy basket of my old bike.
• Gears - Nueji has 6 gears, from which I've found myself generally using 3-5 and occasionally 6, if I'm trying to keep up with cars. The others might be useful if I were going up a steep hill, but I'd probably as soon walk.
• Magnetically-driven light - Many bikes use a cog that rubs against the tire to drive a flywheel which powers a light. These have to be switched on and require a noticable amount of work to drive, in addition to being loud and - this surprised* me when it happened - I've had them completely not work when my tires were very wet.
  Nueji's light is driven by a magnet mounted on the axle of the front tire that passes another and works as a very simple electric motor, just in reverse. I understand speedometers often work in this fashion.
  
• Shape - It's not a mamachari. I feel silly enough about having a basket on the bike, but the bent-back girls' handlebars and the I'm-wearing-a-long-skirt super-low frame just rubbed salt in the wound. Besides that, the frame is unsturdy when you start putting any decent amount of weight on the back rack.
• New tires - Old bike's tires were pretty worn down, and skidding took very little effort. In addition, the tubes had been patched too many times and needed to be replaced, so they had to be pumped up about once a week or they would be dangerously low. If you've ever tried to ride a bike or drive a car on rims, you know what I'm talking about. There are a lot of little imperfections in the road that you don't notice until your tires slide into every single one of them.

So, I got a new bike, and after a week, the only thing I don't like is that the bell rings very quietly every time you go over any decent bump. Easily solved by placing my hands closer to the center of the handlebars, though.

Thanks to my dad, who financed this. Thanks!

*Original word here was shocked, but I thought that might convey the wrong meaning. I turn the light on and off with my foot anyway, so that would take quite some doing. Insulated, waterproof boots don't conduct electricity so good, you know?

Traffic... Laws? With Bonus Takoyaki

On the way back from the school today, I unintentionally joked a rather true observation: Japan doesn't seem to have traffic laws. It's much more like they have traffic suggestions. I don't know if it's the case in other large cities (Kyoto is 1.4 million. I consider that to be pretty big), but the lights here turn red, and people keep going through. Pedestrians wait at crosswalks about anywhere from 50% to 95% of the time, and this number varies on the width of the street the walk crosses, with streets 20m (60 feet) across usually not crossed unless it's green.
I've seen plenty of instances where motorbikes have been puttering along on the sidewalk or in a bicycle parking lot.
One of the weirdest things is that the areas with big, six-foot-tall signs that say "Don't park your bike here!" - and have large pictures in addition - these are the places where you will find the most bikes parked. They will theoretically impound your bike and charge you a $20-40 fee (varies on location) if you do, but these areas usually have a pile of bikes neatly lined up near them.

I had Sandy pose while parking his bike right behind the sign, as you can see here. I don't know why they even bother with the signs.

I picked up some takoyaki (octopus dumplings) at a place by the school for dinner, as they're cheap and pretty filling.

They don't look real appetizing in the picture, but a 10-minute ride over bumpy road in a sealed container covered in sauce doesn't make much of anything look attractive. But they were pretty tasty and at just the right temperature when I ate them.

One of the hardest parts about eating takoyaki is that they very quickly go from "Ohgodthefireextinguishernow!" hot to "That's some slimy... goober-balls you've got there" cold. There's a shop near the school that probably makes a killing in the winter selling these things for lunch.