Don't despair the lack of infrastructure spending on better bike-paths and smoother riverine byways and backroads. Despite the ponderous plodding of "Samurai Socialism" as the main organizational princliple of the state since Yoshida Shigeru sat down with his mentors from SCAP and decided the best way to fight the scourge of REAL socialism would be to merge the Liberal and Democratic parties of yore, and lo and behold create a hitherto logically implausible mashup of samurai plus socialism  this place is NOT going to become a Sweden or Denmark any time soon. 

 

The real architect of Sammy-Soc, of course, was none other than Nobu Kishi, who was given a Canada-sized laboratory called Manchuria for his experiment in the 30s but didn't really do all that well until Doug MacArthur unlocked his padded cell door at Sugamo and told him, "if you say you are sorry, we'll give you another chance," which of course they did, and he did. Ipso Facto. Too bad his photogenic grandson is incapable of uttering the word sorry (maybe he should go back and read Kishi's memoirs), but mea culpa has never been a prominent character trait for people of his ilk. People who confuse stature with posture and status with respect.

But I digress.

 

For those with some command of Japanese, there is a nifty source of info on bike ships around town, bike paths, daytrips, detailed maps, and much other USEFUL information in the current issue of TOKYO JITENSHA-JIN magazine. Granted most of this knowledge is shared by Half-Fast riders as a group knowledge base, but sometimes it is easier to have it all between the covers of one magazine.

 

Here are some excerpts - the rather lame looking cover should not discourage you, a route map from Kasai Rinkai up the Arakawa, another version of the popular Half-Fast Miura Peninsula trip, and a page on what seems to be the consensus Best Bike Shop for Roadies in central Tokyo, Narushima Friend.

 

           
JitenshaJin  

 

(Click on the thumbnails above - you can then click enlarge and see large size scanned pages which can be printed with the maps etc. Ed)