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Cycle Tokyo! - Your One Stop Solution for Tokyo Cycling Information

Feel a bit worried moving around on your visit in Tokyo ? Cycling is a great way to sightsee and discover the city ! Tips and suggestions on cycling in Tokyo, and one day cycle tour information are provided to help you plan your cycling adventure in Tokyo !
Cycle Tokyo! : http://cycle-tokyo.cycling.jp/


Bike Garage

@nak's bicycle garage...we own a bunch of folding bicycles.



My Air Friday

The canary-yellow Air Friday is the latest on our bike-list, and our third Bike Friday. The main feature of the Air Friday is it's titanium seat beam frame. This frame design provides comfort suitable for long-distance rides, and it's cool appearance raises your riding motivation. It's a high performance folding bike, which in minimum folding size fits in cabin luggage !

Several years ago, my wife and I had a chance to test-ride a Pocket Rocket owned by our friend. Till then, we had thought that getting the lightness, direct feeling, and the speed of a non-folding road-racer bike out of a folding bike was asking too much. We were surprized at the handling of the Pocket Rocket, and that was when we first knew about Bike Friday. Though surprized, the Pocket Rocket Pro was a bit to hard on my butt and I thought a bit softer ride would fit me more.
That night, we surfed to the BikeFriday site to look up the Pocket Rocket, where I ended up staring and sighing at the sight of the Air Friday model. (My wife's first impression of it was a "broken bike", without a setpost !)
That was then, and several years past. Last year,(2003) I had a chance to ride several Pocket series bikes, and the ride was all was exciting. The last push was in November, when we participated in Bike Friday Meeting in Japan 2003 - Karuizawa. Alan (Scholtz) brought his Air Friday, and I was knocked out by its beautiful looks.
A couple of months after the meeting, I was contacting our Japanese distributor ; Mr. Kataoka/CYCLETECH-IKD for a test ride. Yep, this was what I was looking for !


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Sat-R-Day

The latest ones to fit into our garage is the Bike Friday Sat-R-Day. Our first recumbent is a foldable one (!) by Bike Friday, famous for it's foldable bikes.

First thing, it's a recumbent !
After you get used to it, the ride is a very comfortable one, and the sight in front of you is uncompareable to the upright bikes.
This recumbent is a 16 inch short wheelbased model, which easily folds to fit in the luggage compartment of our car, and can actually fit into a suitcase, for airline travel ! Though it doesn't run as fast as the long wheelbased and low-profile recumbents, the Sat-R-Day is a very nice touring machine. This was our first semi-ordered bikes, and it fits us very well resulting in a very comfortable ride. Well honestly speaking, I don't have much to say yet ecause this is our first recumbent, except that is one verrry exciting bike, and one that attracts ALOT of attention, at least in Tokyo.


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Pacific-18 BD-3

The first folding bikes we got were the Peugeot Pacific-18. Though it carries the PEUGEOT brand name, the Peugeot Pacific-18 actually is an OEM version of the the "Birdy", a bike by a German bicycle manufacturer called Riese und Muller. In Japan, the "Birdy" is imported by Mizutani Bicycles and branded as the "BD" series (BD-1, BD-3, BD-1ti etc.), whereas the Peugeot Pacific 18 is imported by Cycle Europe. The Pacific-18 comes in a very beautiful variation of frame colors, one feature that sets the Pacific-18 apart form the BD-1.

Why did we pick our two Pacific-18s ; the Navy and the Polish as our first folding bikes ?
Two reasons:

we also have another birdy...the Riese und Muller(R amp& M) BD-3. The BD-3 comes equipped with a 3x7 speed gearing... the 3 being a internal-hub gear by Sachs. The low gear is useful in hill climbing, but the gearing adds a little weight compared to the non-internal hub geared birdys.

The Pacific-18 Navy is left normal, used for in-town riding, whereas the Pacific-18 Polish and the BD-3 is tuned up and used for touring and hill climb purposes...a bit on the rough side :-).

Some links related to the Pacific-18 and the Birdy :


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Traincle

The Panasonic Traincle7500(B-PEMT223), at 7.5 Kg is probably the second lightest foling bike on earth, with the Traincle 6500 as the lightest. With 14 inch wheels, and single speed gearing, it's not the best bike for long distance touring or pass climbing. It does it's job best when casual riding around the city on weekends. The light weight and the small size when folded make it an ease to carry around when we hop on the train. (which is an important factor in Japan !)

Though I haven't tried, this thing is supposed to fit in to a JR (Japan Railroad) coin locker space (luggage space found in most railroad stations in Japan) when folded. Panasionic had actually teamed up with JR to co-develop this model to do so. That's why the name "Traincle" stands for "Train-Cycle"

Some links related to the Traincle :


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UK Brompton
The ever famous Brompton...

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Kiwa-chari
A Toy bike...look at it's size !!

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Cycle Tours / Park & Ride Reports

DateLocationDistance(Km)Wheels
2006-07-30 2006-07-30 Bike Friday Tokyo Sightseeing Pottering
...2006-08-15 up
est. 30KmAir Friday/Air Friday
2004-11-13thru14 2004-11-13thru14 Bike Friday Japan Meeting Kyoto 2004
...2004-12-06 up
est. 50KmAir Friday/Brompton Ivory
2003-11-08thru09 2003-11-08thru09 Karuizawa Cycling - Bike Friday Meeting Japan 2003
...2003-11-12 up
est. 70KmSat-R-Day Blue/Sat-R-Day Yellow

Okay...the reports below are translated from Japanese to English and shown "as is" using automatic translation tools, so I'll apologize in advance that a great amount of it doesn't make sense :-(.
I plan to translate a few "manually" when I have the time, so please bear with the un-natural English and enjoy the pics for the time being.

DateLocationDistance(Km)Wheels
2003-08-11 2003-08-11 A ride from Honolulu to Kailua, Hawaii ...(Original report in Japanese)
...2003-08-22 up
ext.90KmBrompton Yellow/Brompton Ivory
2003-04-06 2003-04-06 Sakura(Cherry) Blossoms In Senkawa,Tokyo ...(Original report in Japanese)
...2003-04-10 up
ext.40KmBrompton Yellow/Brompton Ivory
2002-09-22 2002.09 '2002 Honolulu Century Bike Ride ...(Original report in Japanese)
...2002.10.05 up
est.160Km BD-3/Pacific-18 Polish
2002-03-21 thu 24 2002.03 '2003 Tokyo - Nagoya Long Run ...(Original report in Japanese)
...2002.04.02 up
est.230Km BD-3/Pacific-18 Polish

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