Lenton58 

Yes, some them are very amazing, like the one that used to pull out of a side street right in front of my front wheel without looking — a baby on her back, the oldest child in the back chair, and the middle child in the handlebar seat! I learned to creep up on that corner with my hands on the brakes.

Anybody who has not been here has no idea how many bicycles are on the streets and roads of Japan. The underground bike-parks in Sendai are consistently over subscribed. (At least they are there!) The sidewalks are lined with bikes. Special squads of what I call the "Bicycle Nazis" troll the streets in brown shirts and armbands. They slice through locks and toss hundreds of bikes onto a lorry and take them to one of several compounds where you must pay a fee to get them back. The official belief is that bicycles make the city look ugly, and "illegal" parking is a very bad thing. But that is not stopping an increase in cycling.

If anything, cycling is growing. Years ago in Sendai, a drop-bar bike used to be a rather rare thing, despite the fact that several regional races are held here each year. Well things are changing — they gotta be when you see a 20's something woman in a skirt, blouse and jacket dressed for the office speeding down a hill in the drops on her way to work!

Drop-bar sports bikes are becoming more and more popular. Youngsters are not worshipping the car like they used to; they are buying a better bicycle than the ubiquitous mama-chari (shopping bike). Huge mortar and brick bicycle shops like Aeon and Asahi are springing up across the city. Twenty year old girls are working as mechanics. The fixie craze is fading, and more and more bikes have big, free-hub clusters and brifters. These are not bikes that I envy, but they are surely different than what almost everyone used to ride just a couple of years ago.

For years I've been incensed by daily encounters with people riding all sorts of bikes, from scrap metal that has not seen oil since god was a corporal, to a week old drop-bar sporty model — all on the wrong side of the road! Then two weeks ago, I was told by a Japanese acquaintance that when he was in school, the kids were being taught to ride opposite of the traffic! How is this! Bicycles are subject to the motor vehicle laws of the road?

Just another idiosyncrasy in the country that travel writer David Barry called, "the most foreign place I've ever been to"

I ride partly to keep my BP down, but sometimes I swear it gets raised up. There is what I call 'the bike dance'. When another cyclist is coming straight towards you, there is this wobbling and guessing what side the other rider will take. The rider can be of any age — from 8 to 85. The dance is the same. Of course, if you are going with the traffic, you risk being rear-ended if you swing out because the other rider insists on taking the inside path. I've had a lot of occasions when with screeching brakes we both came to a halt — front wheels touching.

Bicycle accidents are not uncommon as you might have guessed. A few years ago a law said that children had to have helmets, special seats to protect them in falls and seat belts. Most, if not all mama-chari frames, proved to be not rigid enough to carry the increased loads, so the government specified a new frame and design for transporting children. The first ones rolled out of the factories, and the costs were so high that they enraged the young mothers of the nation. They rose up in revolt. City wards began subsidizing families to buy these newly designed bikes — oversize frame tubes, smaller wheels and unusual shapes. The manufacturers were pressured to lower the prices. Children did start wearing helmets — the children. No young mother is going to wear one. It just would not be right — very unfashionable, not cool, ugly.

I don't see these new requirements being policed, but conscientious, new parents are more often purchasing this new style of child transporter as part of the expense of having children. The law says only two children are allowed, but I still see the babies strapped behind mama and the two kids front and rear.

Still, one thing has not changed: the morning sounds of thousands of unlubricated chains, chains clanking against chain guards, the screeching of shoe type rear brakes indicating panic and danger somewhere out there on the streets where thousands of Japanese are grinding their way to another day of work or school.

Now if you go to Shibuya in Tokyo you will find yourself bent over and examining hundreds — thousands of bikes. Velo heaven! If there is a score of famous frame-makers that you worship, you find many of their names on bikes within a three block stroll. And in-between there will be bikes of such interest that your back will be bent over staring at parts and decals fr so long that so you will be on aspirin and Scotch for a week!

In Tokyo, Nitto still makes parts by hand. Vintage swap meets are held several times a year. People ride tweed bikes — in tweeds. Just follow Dawes-man here on BF and his photo site. He'll show you. I live in provincial Sendai. We are the peasants of cycling compared to parts of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Oh yes ... amazing!