Tokyo On Bicycles

---

Police officers in Tokyo have shining white Bridgestone bicycles, with reflector bedecked white document carriers, a baton slung on left hip and a walkie-talkie. Koban (police boxes) range in size from telephone boxes (think glass TARDIS) to three-desk offices. They often have a small stable of white bikes lined up outside them. The police officers are unfailingly polite and helpful. They patiently show foreigners where the unlocate-able building is, i.e. across the road and 50 metres to the left. When presented with a punctured tyre, the older officer kindly pumped it up for me, while the younger one quizzed me to ascertain if I really was the owner of the bike. The fact that the tyre needed proper repairs was overlooked and after gracious thanks and bows all round, I walked off in search of a bike shop. Never underestimate the importance of bike shops locations!

Bicycle riding in Japan is much safer than in Australia, even in Tokyo. In 2010 I wrote road rules for Himeji, a tiny city of half a million people and have rewritten them here with minor adjustments for Tokyo.

1. Always give way to any pedestrian: young, old, ancient and bent over, walking, running or meandering over the pavement. Also avoid dogs wandering along with pedestrians.

2. Cars must always give way to cyclists – regardless. However, in Tokyo I watch for large bright blue trucks that seem exempt from this rule.

3. Bikes may be ridden, regardless of age of rider, on the pavement, on the road, travelling with the traffic, travelling against the traffic, or weaving wildly in any combination of the above, including across roads with cars coming directly towards them. In Tokyo, cyclists mostly stop at all traffic lights, especially when there are police officers in attendance.

4. Bikes go before cars on pedestrian crossings. The car drivers leave just enough space for you to get across if you maintain cruising speed, but, should you hesitate, the car must brake, you must brake, then the driver will nod the cyclist on. Bowing two or three times in thanks with said driver is de rigueur, even as you ride on by.

5. A special Tokyo hazard is pedestrians talking or texting on mobile phones, completely oblivious to everything around them, who look startled as cyclists brake furiously to miss them.

Navigating the canyons of tall buildings, sprinkled with shrines and rivers, that is Chiyoda-ku (Ward or City, Central Tokyo) requires significant planning and preparation. With the absolutely accurate address for my destination, I then use Google Earth to locate it, and check directions from home, for walking and for trains. At present I am limiting my bike rides to about 6 kilometres from home, but with time I plan to go further. The availability of unlocked Wi-Fi in the city means that I can use my simcard-less iPad, and Maps can pinpoint my location anywhere along the route. The moats of the Imperial Palace, the gardens of large shrines and unusual tower block architecture are my most reliable landmarks. Family Mart, Starbucks and Café Veloce are unuseful, as there is one or the other located on nearly every corner.

People and bird watching is great fun from a bicycle. There is a jogging circuit around the moat of the Palace, and at any daylight hour, well-dressed Tokyo joggers are pounding and sweating their way around the 5-kilometres. Once, I even saw a group stilt walking the course. A small collection of white swans (begifted in 1953 by Germany) float about the moat, managing to always look picturesque and have several people admiring and photographing them. In a shaped Japanese Black Pine tree, a tiny kingfisher (kawasemi) was catching insects for lunch. It was surrounded, at a respectable distance, by seven photographers with camera lenses, suitable for big game hunting. The bird and photographers were in the same place the next day, doing the same things.

Tokyo by bicycle is fun.

---

Photos

On Patrol
in the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace

Koban (Police Box)
on Ieshima Island

Walking the bikes
in search of a bike shop

Jogging Track
5 km around the Imperial Palace

Hi Ho Silver
Mine is the one with two baskets, and the blue shopping bag.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Texting and walking
Unconscious people walking around texting will be the death of all of us. Enjoy your riding. Great rules.

[Byron Kidd]

Some factual errors.
Tokyo is indeed a fine city cor cycling but point three of the article asserts that cycling on all pavements, cycling into traffic, and weaving in and out of traffic are all legal. In truth all those practices are illegal, but the police are lax in enforcing the laws. Under Japanese cycling law bicycles must be ridden on the roadway, on the left hand side. Bicycles can be ridden on sidewalks which are marked as being for shared use. Children under 14 can cycle on any sidewalks. Cycling in Tokyo would be much more enjoyable if cyclists stuck to the rules and exercised some common sense.