robatsu

Well, if you can even find vintage Japanese stuff in Japan. First, a lot of that stuff was primarily for export, as with other products like big motorcycles (it is way easier to find old Japanese 750-1100 bikes here than there). At least in the Japanese warrens I haunt, it is fairly unusual to see a bike w/drop bars & derailleurs, my estimate is less than 1% of random bikes traveling down the road. Beyond that, and beyond the handful of Japanese collectors and Toeis, Japanese tend to view a bicycle as a completely utilitarian object to a much greater degree than Americans, even Americans who are only peripherally involved in cycling. It is like a mixer or something, just a tool to get them to the train station, grocery store, etc, without little special character or romance. And Japanese are pretty merciless with pitching old stuff they don't venerate, some of this is cultural, some of it is due to less living space.

So I'm not expecting much, although occasionally you see some cool stuff in dusty old bike cases and there are the renowned Japanese classic bike operations. But I wouldn't say that is any more frequent there than here.

One thing that is cool, though, is some of the new bike stuff, esp lights and stuff. Since they are much more utility oriented, a much greater percentage of bikes have lights and fenders than here and there is a wide array of dynamo lights, fender mounted taillights than here and won't be imported here due to reluctance of Japanese companies to deal with U.S. product liability environment. I know this from personal experience being involved in trying to get some neato Bridgstone fender mounted solar powered taillamps here for Velo Orange a couple of years back.

And beyond that, the dynamo lights we get here tend to be of European manufacture, which adheres to some German standards limiting output.

So in Japan, you can get something like the below at your corner grocery story for $60 or so. Some of this, some shops will ship to U.S. (check en.rakuten.co.jp, an internet order collective site), but it is a case by case basis, some products the mfgr forbids retailers from shipping to U.S. because of product liability issues.

Maximum brightness of the National 2007 Edition!



Dazzlingly bright enough!

National [National / Panasonic]
NKL754 Gorudopurojekutabimuranpu

With high-power LED lamps!
Provide uniform light to focus so small deviation can occur in the case of spherical and aspherical lens shape of the lens.
Because the exposure to ambient light illuminates evenly crisp.

★ when driving at night, the lights automatically.
★ 2007 year a new high power LED.
NL-895P-S lenses and other equipment are upgraded versions.
Former model (NKL733) was thicker than the leads.

How to install easy!
To insert the bolt and the washer light
With bicycle
In addition to the nuts from behind to secure.
Sashikondara the terminal ends!