Seeking an informed opinion of cycling in Japan? Please don't hesitate to contact Tokyo By Bike.
Arriving two decades ago as a budding software engineer, Byron Kidd soon found a place among Tokyo’s two-wheeled hordes. Mapping the Kanto plain by bike, Kidd would cycle 100 kilometers a day all over the mountains around Tokyo, even logging a season with Japan’s professional mountain bike league.
As the annual Spring Road Safety Campaign gets underway this weekend, we examine what the government is doing to improve conditions for cyclists in Tokyo. On Jan. 24, a full-page advert appeared in the Tokyo edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun for a petition on behalf of the capital’s cyclists.
The bustling walkways of Tokyo are no place for cyclists-or are they? The subject of cycling on the sidewalk seems to spark outrage among the foreign community in Japan, yet for most Japanese people, this is an accepted practice that millions engage in every day. Why the outrage?
In a recent independent survey Tokyo was ranked as the 10th most cycling friendly city in the world. The only other Asian city to make the list is Nagoya. In fact, urban mobility expert Mikael Colville-Andersen, CEO of Copenhagenize Design Co. the creators of the Copenhagenize Index of Bicycle Friendly Cities, goes even further and ranks Japan as the third great cycling nation behind Denmark and the Netherlands. And rightly so.
TOKYO - Nothing gets your day off to a good start like an altercation with a traffic cop. I was cycling along my usual route to work recently, and stopped to make a right turn at a crossroads, only to find myself caught in the sights of an over-zealous (or possibly just bored) police officer.
Shortly after last month's disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we posted a dispatch from Tokyo by Bike blogger Byron Kidd (@tokyobybike) about how more people were biking to work in the quake's aftermath.
My Grandma always told me to never talk about politics, religion or sex, for fear of dividing the dinner conversation. But thanks to Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live it's open season on those three. Cyclists, on the other hand...
If you've ever been mown down by a mamacharri, or had to dive out the way of one of the shopping bicycles ridden without much care in Tokyo, you won't be alone. If you are a law abiding cyclist, that's great, but to pedestrians in Tokyo some riders are a menace - so say city police, and it's easy to see why.
