Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Any of you just up and leave to Japan on your own with your bike?

I'd like to do it sometime soon. I've been to Japan twice in 2004 (without bike)..loved it...want to go again. Just got rid of a psycho b!tch, a car, and a scooter, so now I have mo' money.

How long did you stay? How much did you spend? What was the total cost? Did you have lots and lots of fun by yourself? All these questions answered (hopefully), and more, in this thread!

do it man. Cheap fares from HI to JP .... very bike friendly country. Cheaper than people assume too (food/drinks/trains etc..)

Ride there.

i did it to europe for two months with 700 and that included plane fare
got back spent two month living in florida working as a life gaurd rode my bike home from there

I don't understand what the fascination is over Japan. :) ??

i did it to europe for two months with 700 and that included plane fare
got back spent two month living in florida working as a life gaurd rode my bike home from there

That's awesome.

I'm (fingers crossed) heading to some village outside of Hong Kong in a few months with all my possessions shoved into two bags, along with a bike bag for an undetermined amount of time. I've never left the states, excluding a week trip to Iceland.

Should be entertaining.
Life's pointless, live it absurdly.

Good luck.

I don't understand what the fascination is over Japan. :) ??

It's because even if you masturbate to Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction, you're still way less perverted than most of the salarymen you see around you on the subway, so it's all good.

Good luck to the OP, sounds like a blast.

I'd rather go to Taipei... Taiwan > China > Japan

haha.

How can you compare China to Japan? Talk about apples and oranges.

I don't understand what the fascination is over Japan. :) ??

asian women :D

asian women :DI would rather go to Bankok. :D

I went to Japan in October (2nd time) and took the bike along.I went to Tokyo,Nagoya,Kyoto and Osaka and all the Citys were easy to get around on a Bike.It's no problem taking a bike on the Shinkansen if it is in a bag so visiting multiple citys is easy too.Japan has a pretty low crime rate so there's no need to worry about the bike getting stolen either.I took my usual U-lock and cable combo with me ,but after seeing a few nicely built "pisto bikes" unlocked or locked with a tiny cable i started feeling stupid using myheavy stuff.

I used to work for Panasonic and they flew me to Japan for training 3 years ago. I had them book my flight a week early so I could hang out and see the sites. I was by myself for a couple days, and then I met up with another co-worker for the remainder of my extra week. We stayed in a Hostel for $20 bucks a day, drank beer from vending machines and ate noodles and fruit most of the time. We only ate out when we were too far from the hostel to go back and cook, and even then some of the time we just ate fruit and crackers and stuff. Public transit is cheap and I rented a bike for something silly like $5 a week. I think I only spent $400 or so on everything including Sumo, which was like $60 alone. If you break it down, my mortgage costs me almost that much a week, so it was incredibly cheap. For the week that I was working, I got to stay in a $$$ hotel and they paid me a daily stipend for food (something crazy like $90 a day). I kept eating fruit, veggies and noodles and eating out only when the company way paying and I actually made money on the trip, on top of my salary.

I would rather go to Bankok. :D

but you can't be too sure if they're really women.:D

I took my usual U-lock and cable combo with me ,but after seeing a few nicely built "pisto bikes" unlocked or locked with a tiny cable i started feeling stupid using myheavy stuff.

on bikeforums.co.jp there was a thread called "how to spot an gaijin's bike" with a picture of your bike and 7 pages of "fail" pictures and lolcatz. They photoshopped the Marlboro man having a smoke while unlocking your bike.

I'm (fingers crossed) heading to some village outside of Hong Kong in a few months with all my possessions shoved into two bags, along with a bike bag for an undetermined amount of time. I've never left the states, excluding a week trip to Iceland.

Should be entertaining.
Life's pointless, live it absurdly.

Good luck.

China is a crazy place, just try not to be around when they have a Capitalist revolution and another civil war begins between them and the red party.

i have no idea how you'd get around tokyo on a bike

none of the streets have names, there's no maps larger than a square kilometer, and everyone gives you directions from the train station.

on bikeforums.co.jp there was a thread called "how to spot an gaijin's bike" with a picture of your bike and 7 pages of "fail" pictures and lolcatz. They photoshopped the Marlboro man having a smoke while unlocking your bike.

After a week i got a cheapo lock at tokyu hands to escape the baka gaijin spot.The sad thing is that i knew better but living in the US makes so paranoid that i brought all my heavy stuff anyways.:o

Ride there.

http://www.digave.com/images/amphib/foggy2.jpg

i have no idea how you'd get around tokyo on a bike

none of the streets have names, there's no maps larger than a square kilometer, and everyone gives you directions from the train station.

The tokyo city atlas is super easy to use and it's bilingual.It's published by kodansha.The address system is not so bad once you get used to the concept of it.For example:
Tokyo
Shibuya ku
Jingumae 6-24-4
is
Nr.4 on block 24 in shibuya's 6th jingumae ward
the hardest part is finding the Nr.4,but if it's a buisness there's a sign,if it's someones home call and have them come out side.
All the big roads have signs in Kanji and romanji.

I would rather go to Bankok. :D

all asian women are good :D

As bad gaijins we used to place stones on trolly tracks while growing up in Yokohama.

I've never left the states, excluding a week trip to Iceland.

Yeah, Iceland is pretty much the US anyway.

(No, I don't really have anything to contribute to this thread. Do it and have fun.)

^Bobby Fischer disagrees. Well, he used to.

i have no idea how you'd get around tokyo on a bike

none of the streets have names, there's no maps larger than a square kilometer, and everyone gives you directions from the train station.



the big streets have names.
map books are great, as is google if you have a computer.

if you have a decent sense of direction you can ply the little back streets until you hit something big to orient yourself. it really isn't that hard to get most anywhere. and bikes often faster than trains/cars, but lose to motorcycles....

I'd rather go to Taipei... Taiwan > China > Japan

haha.

I lived in Japan for a while, and I really liked it a lot. I do think there is a lot of weird fascination with Japanese culture and Japanese women, which I don't quite get. Generally once you are out of the city, it gets really conservative (especially dating). It definitely appealed to my OCD tendencies because everything was ridiculously clean. Plus, cycling around Kyushu with stops in onsen/ryokan along the way cannot be beat (well, only by skiing in the mountains and being outside in a hot spring while snowing, but it is a close call.)

I've been to Taipei, and it is a lot of fun if you know people there to take you around, but is sorta an industrial city otherwise. Shanghai is full of cheap, brassy newly rich BS with a ridiculous nightclub scene and a lot of garbage and Beijing is pretty sleepy. But the pollution in the urban centers really rules out cycling, it is beyond belief.

For a visit, I sometimes recommend going to Pusan or Seoul. The barbecue is good and it is a bit less trodden by tourists than elsewhere. Not sure how cycling is though, I've only taken the ferry there and used high speed trains to go around the country.

the big streets have names.
map books are great, as is google if you have a computer.

if you have a decent sense of direction you can ply the little back streets until you hit something big to orient yourself. it really isn't that hard to get most anywhere. and bikes often faster than trains/cars, but lose to motorcycles....
iphone

iphone
iphonu

I don't understand what the fascination is over Japan. :) ??

It's NJS approved... of course :rolleyes:

I'd go but I need to take my drums too.

I don't understand what the fascination is over Japan. :) ??

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/58-japan/

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/58-japan/

Not to derail this thread but the water bottle post is the best one ever.

on bikeforums.co.jp there was a thread called "how to spot an gaijin's bike" with a picture of your bike and 7 pages of "fail" pictures and lolcatz. They photoshopped the Marlboro man having a smoke while unlocking your bike.

I dont care who ya are, thats funny right there!