"Bike Town" - Tokyo
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 11:34 pm
Hey All,
Was in Tokyo last week for work and managed to hook a couple of days to myself. So I headed out to Ueno, home of "Bike Town". They call it this 'cause it's where the bike dealers, repairers and accessory shops are side by side and you can get everything and anything. It has to be seen to be believed. One place I went to was 8 stories of bike accessories, with a floor for everything. One for leathers, one for fabric jackets, two for helmets etc etc. I couldn't get any pics in the shops 'cause they don't want you popping next door and trying to screw the price down on someone else... but what I did get pics of was:
These are a few shots of the streets around bike town...
They're really big on retro...
Anything over 450cc over there needs an expensive licence which I was told is really really hard to get. So they tend to ride 250s and 400s. But the weird thing is the scooter culture. They ride these 250cc scooters and pimp them out. So you see these hardass looking jap dudes on these crazy looking scooters that sound like Harleys. You'd laugh, if you weren't scared the guy and his Yakuza mates would cut your fingers off lol
This was one of my favs, check out the rear wing on this badboy... lmao
And finally, I stumbled across this in Akihabara. It's just a little 50cc dirt bike but the thing is actually road registered...
Anyway, I just thought I'd share some of the bike related craziness from Japan. If you're ever in Tokyo it's definitely a good way to kill an afternoon...
Was in Tokyo last week for work and managed to hook a couple of days to myself. So I headed out to Ueno, home of "Bike Town". They call it this 'cause it's where the bike dealers, repairers and accessory shops are side by side and you can get everything and anything. It has to be seen to be believed. One place I went to was 8 stories of bike accessories, with a floor for everything. One for leathers, one for fabric jackets, two for helmets etc etc. I couldn't get any pics in the shops 'cause they don't want you popping next door and trying to screw the price down on someone else... but what I did get pics of was:
These are a few shots of the streets around bike town...
They're really big on retro...
Anything over 450cc over there needs an expensive licence which I was told is really really hard to get. So they tend to ride 250s and 400s. But the weird thing is the scooter culture. They ride these 250cc scooters and pimp them out. So you see these hardass looking jap dudes on these crazy looking scooters that sound like Harleys. You'd laugh, if you weren't scared the guy and his Yakuza mates would cut your fingers off lol
This was one of my favs, check out the rear wing on this badboy... lmao
And finally, I stumbled across this in Akihabara. It's just a little 50cc dirt bike but the thing is actually road registered...
Anyway, I just thought I'd share some of the bike related craziness from Japan. If you're ever in Tokyo it's definitely a good way to kill an afternoon...
It's definitely worth a look while you're there man, it's pretty kewl. It's really easy to get to on the subway, and the bike area is a short walk from the station (if you walk in the right damn direction 
)
"Beat Ya" 
