As some of you will know, a couple of weeks ago i set off with my younger cousin to Japan to visit our kid Tachikoma and do a spot of riding
Thoughts of old bike shops full of nos gear flashed accross my mind occasionally during the 15 hour flight but early reports from our kid had dampend those heady dreams to such a degree they left me wondering if bmx had little more than a tiny cult following in the land of the rising sun.
Within 20 mins of arriving thoughts of jet lag were cast aside as we set about getting our rides for the fortnight in some sort of shape for the mamoth task that awaited them. Mine was a united that had sat with flat tyres and a solid rusty chain for over a year through the blazing heat and rainy season and looked more than a bit sorry for itself.
I took an extra long seatpost, padded seat, 4 inner tubes, 2 chains, 2 sets of grips and a multi tool. Our kid already had a decent tool kit and before long we were off in the eveing light for an evenings jaunt along the river to give our new rides a shake down.
The plan was to ride to the Happy bike meet in tokyo a few days later (around a 32 mile round trip )
http://www.radbmx.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,182371.msg1830825/boardseen.html#newHappy our rides were up to the task we settled in and spent a few days padding round some of the cool second hand shops called Hard off where you can find almost anything, usually at a fantastic price.
I found the guitar sections particularly interesting
A tasty bit of vintage pedal action
And a nice chopper type thing
The morning of the bike meet we were up around 5 to discover a flat tyre on my bike. A quick check revealed a small puncture on the rim side. Repaired and rim checked for owt sharp we set off oblivious to the disaster that would befall us.
A mile or so in the same tyre let go and we thought it best to replace the inner tube with a new one in case the tube was defective. We rode on and soon after my front end dropped and squirmed around like goodun. Another pit stop revealed another duff inner tube.
Thoughts of my happy pound shop purchases now turned to dread and the phrase buy cheap buy twice looked like it wasnt even close
We decided they probably were not up to the higher presures of new school stuff so we went at around 30 psi and crossed our fingers.
Alot of good that did.... By the forth puncture we decided it would be wise to cut our losses and head home gutted, walking most of the way.
A few days later and a few oddball inner tubes with weird valves procured we nervously set off for the beach. Being a 50 mile round trip and with bikes not allowed on trains, let alone never having ridden that far on any bmx, i wasnt that confident. The MANY drinks machines dotted around literally everywhere made the going much easier in the heat and we stopped for a pic at one of them.
We soon found ourselves amount the surfers with their beach cruisers.
And stumbled accross our first real taste of indigenous bmx
coolest boat trailer ever
The bogs at the beach made me feel a little homesick..... and mouthsick too
The ride home was interesting to say the least in the dark with nothing but our legally required little led lights to guide the way but we made it without a hickup from the bikes and our confidence in them was renewed.
A few days later we decided to go to downtown Tokyo to check out a shop called Wbase and the legendary Screaming Wheels. You may have seen a pic of Bob Haro doing an endo outside Wbase last year. I expected it to be a bit like Alans with a good selection of new school stuff, sadly it was full of mountain bike and fixie gear with the bmx stuff relegated to their website it would seem.
We did find a little back street shop doing skate boards and new school stuff
Screaming wheels was an all together different experience though
The lad who runs it is a top bloke and clocked my b73 tees Zeronine t-shirt straight away. We got chatting and thankfully his English is miles better than my Japanese. Deffo a must if you ever find yourself in Japan. No real bargains to be had but he did have some tasty stuff. A set of Webco mags really caught my eye
Not far from his shop we stumbled accross this, things were on the up for our bmx odyssey
The next day we set off on another epic ride to a scrap yard our kid had stumbled on a while back. we called into a few Hard offs along the way and finally made it to find it shut
I reckon on the right day it could be a gold mine. This was just the stuff outside.
Clocked a mag amongst the road stuff.
A quick pit stop for yet another vending machine drink
On the way back we found a true relic. A shop which looked like it closed 30 years ago and had never been touched. The roof had started to fall in but most of the stuff in there looks salvageable and still under its original wrapping
The little side building which could be accessed through a small hole in the wall had hundred of tyres and forks in it.
I could see the odd dia compe, shimano and suntour box which looked interesting. I reckon a good rummage amongst the road stuff would turn up more than a few gems
My time in Japan was coming to an end. With around 125 miles covered on the bikes and around 70 on foot i felt i had seen a great deal yet hardly scratched the surface. It seemed It wasnt the gold at the end of the bmx rainbow that i hoped it may be but it also hinted that there was still gems to be unearthed. Could there be nos framesets, completes, parts just waiting to be found..... hopefully i will be closer to finding out the next time i go
Clint
