Hi Travelbug,

I live in Osaka and last year had a Thorn Raven Tour (Rohloff Speedhub Equipped) shipped over here. You don't have to pay the 17.5% UK Vat and Japanese custome charges were surprisingly inexpensive. However shipping from the UK had to be in two boxes. Total shipping costs were around the 200GBP mark. Ouch! Anyway, the Raven tour is a good bike. The Rohloff hub is fantastic IMO. From an aesthetic viewpoint I'm not too happy with the bike. Costing well over 1000GBP I was disappointed to see that it looks like it was made in Taiwan! The head badge is really tacky. However it is the cheapest rohloff bike out there and it does ride well, so I do like the bike. I'm just back from a 9 day tour in Kyushu and the more I cycle the bike the more I like it.


Initally I was also interested in buying a Sherpa. I had a chance to visit SJS and take a look at one. I wasn't impressed. It's a light touring/commuting bike. Looks better on the SJS website than it does in reality IMO. Definitly don't buy one without first having seen one.

It's possible to buy a Surley LHT here in Osaka. One of my friends did that just last year. He got a 54cm frame. I think the 56cm frame and upwards takes 700c wheels. Don't know what size frame you'd require, but obviously if your keen on 26ins wheels then this may rule out the LHT. I'll try to get a link to that shop in Osaka. Their website is in Japanese though and watashi no Nihongo wa totemo warui!

Where exactly is Sanjo?

Hope this helps. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.