Bicycles in Japan

Lana is partially used to it by now: we're walking down the street, talking, and she turns to say something, and there's no David.  He's back at the beginning of the block staring at an unusual deraileur, frame, crank, or logo on a bicycle.  In Japan, she had to explain to a tour guide that David was taking a picture of a bike.  "Why?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.  David's gotten odd looks for taking pictures of a lot of obscure things, but taking pictures of bikes generally get the most confused glances from passersby.  It's also one of the few things that David's never caught another photographer surreptitiously sizing up for a me-too photo.  If you're in the "Why?" camp, this may not be the post for you.  However, if you know anything about Japan or bikes, David has some burning questions about some of the peculiarities he observed in Japanese bikes.

Bicycles everywhere

David is an avid cyclist, and he was always looking at the bikes we encountered on our trip with the eye of both a cyclist and a photographer.  He didn’t indiscriminately take pictures of every bike he saw, but limited himself to bikes that stood out to him for some reason.  The bikes in this collection are the best of those.

Above: Penny-farthing bicycle and tricycle at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.  Below: Classic Schwinn “Le tour” with original Sugino components in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Postcard: Odense

Down the street from Hans Christian Andersen’s house, in Odense, Denmark.

Antsirabe to Ranomafana

We had another driving day, moving from Andasibe-Mantadia to Antsirabe, a large city where we’d spend the night before continuing to Ranomafana, our next wildlife destination.  As with every other drive, the scenery was ever-changing and beautiful. 

Andasibe-Mantadia

We flew back to Tana from Morandava, where we met Dorique, who would be our driver for the rest of our trip.  We’d be driving south and east, and would not fly again until we flew out of Madagascar.  The scenery was beautiful, and reminded us a little of a Miyazaki film; vivid rice fields surrounded by rolling hills, and villages with European architecture.  Also, this little gas powered rail car seemed like it had driven right out of one of his films.

On our way to Andasibe, where we’d spend the night, we stopped at the Mandraka Reptile Farm.

Bikes of Amsterdam

While we were wandering around Amsterdam on foot, I started noticing the brand name emblems on the head tube of bikes that were parked everywhere around us.  Some were quite pretty, and I thought it would be neat to have a collection of them, and make a poster collage of them, when we get back home.  There’s enough quantity and variety of bikes that these represent just one afternoon of keeping my eye open, on our way between sightseeing stops.  Gazelle was by far the most common bike here; in Copenhagen the Raleighs were more popular.

Glenelg, Australia tandem ride

After staying in Adelaide for a couple of nights, we thought we’d de-camp out closer to the beach in the suburb of Glenelg after meeting some folks on our Kangaroo Island tour who said it was a lovely place to stay. We found Glenelg to be a quiet, pretty beach town; we loved it.  The place we stayed had tandem bikes for rent, enticingly parked out in front. It had been a while since we’d been on bikes, and things had gone pretty well on our recent tandem kayak experience, so decided to test the strength of our marriage by renting one of their tandem beach cruisers.

Based on Lana’s smile, you can see that it was a successful gamble.  We got the hang of getting started quickly, and also improvised a system for communicating when David was going to shift gears or change speed. It was definitely a lesson in communication, mostly with learning to ask for the cues necessary to accomplish the task together. All that bonding aside, it was just a lovely bike ride. We didn’t want it to end so when the beach path ended we took one that ran along the river. We didn’t make it all the way in to Adelaide, but we came pretty close. We also saw a lot of beautiful nature and birds along the way, including this guy.

One thing about it, if you want people to notice you, a tandem bicycle is the way to go. We got a lot of “Look at that!” and pointing from kids and adults.  But it was all fun, and even added to our own enjoyment—bringing grins to our own faces.

The weather was perfect for a ride—cool and cloudy, but without any wind or rain. We wanted to spend all day out there, but since our seats were getting sore and our tummies were beginning to rumble, we pointed our chariot back to the beach and our hotel for a shower.

Lana isn’t a big fan of giving up control, but she also isn’t a confident cyclist. For her, this ended up being the best of both worlds. She got to spend time with her favorite person, got in a little fun exercise, and all she had to do was pedal.  David was happy to feel the breeze in his face again, despite the horrible, wide saddles on that tandem.

Here’s a little video from the back of the bike: