A Journey To Midlife

I have been posting less frequently. Fear not: I am not going away. Nor is this blog. 

Midlife Cycling began as a spinoff of my earlier blog, Transwoman Times, as I was coming out of convalescence from my gender-affirming surgery. At that time (2010) there were a lot of “girls on bikes” blogs. Some seemed to be little more than fashion shoots but others, thankfully offered genuine insights into a male-dominated activity in which I’d participated as a boy and man but would re-enter as a woman.

I took my cues from the latter category. It was interesting to relate how drivers, pedestrians and other cyclists sometimes treated me differently than they did, or would have, when I was in male drag. Also, while I could ride with most of the same equipment I previously used, I became aware of how poorly, for the most part, the bicycle industry addressed women’s specific needs and wants.

All of that kept me going for a while. But eventually this blog became, really, just another bike blog: I wrote about equipment, events and sometimes interesting stories about people. And I was posting nearly every day. I guess it became my graffiti: Like those bold strokes and colors I see painted on public spaces, this blog became a way of leaving a mark, as it were, of my presence in this world.

After my mother’s death—six years ago tomorrow—and the crash and “dooring” incidents I experienced within four months of 2020, my postings became somewhat less frequent. Perhaps that was a sign that I needed to focus as much on the first word of this blog’s title as I had on the second.  That, I now realize, is where I would discover the real voice, as it were, of Midlife Cycling.

Now I realize that going to Japan last month has clarified this new vision. I wasn’t posting every day because I did a lot, including rides in very hot weather, and I was exhausted at the end of most days. But the trip was different from others I’ve taken because, well, Japan is different. It’s hard to imagine a more interesting juxtaposition between an ancient culture and modern technology that makes America seem like in the Late Bronze Age. And, although my perspective might be skewed, I couldn’t help but to feel that you don’t have to hide your age when you’re there. While a reverence for tradition can hinder the ability to see new perspectives, it also means that you’re not something to be pushed out of the way. Young people spend just as much time as American teenagers looking at their screens, but even on the busiest streets, they were polite, almost deferential.

Another way this trip was different was that I didn’t “disappear.” Nearly all of my travel and most of my cycling has been solo. In the days before cell phones, I might call a friend or family member once a week. And I would write letters or send post cards.

During more recent trips, however, I could make—and receive—calls. Cora was well aware of that.

She, the partner of my neighbor and riding buddy Sam, was my cat-sitter while I was away. Since Marlee underwent surgery just before I left, she knew that I felt a little guilty for not canceling my trip. Some of her calls were to reassure me that my feline housemate was doing well. But more than anything, she wanted to hear about Japan—and, as it turned out, simply to talk to me.

Calling, or being called by her, several times a day was a sign, I now realize, that I was not on a footloose wandering of my youth. Rather, sharing my trip with someone about my age who wasn’t a family member really made my trip to Japan a midlife journey.

Perhaps that will be the new focus of this blog. Yes, I will continue to write about bicycles and bicycling—but as they are that midlife journey.

P.S. I can’t help but to notice that this blog has been getting more views since I stopped posting daily. In fact, there have been more views in the nearly three months since this blog’s 15th anniversary (2 June) than in its first four years online!

A Prelude To Another Midlife Journey?

I have been home from my Japan trip for as long as I was there. I can’t stop thinking about it. The other night, I e,

availed myself to the Taco Tuesday special at Webster Cafe and Diner. (It’s really good!) There, I encountered Robert, one of the regular customers.

“Wearya bin?”

I told him about my trip and showed him a few pictures.  He, a neighborhood “lifer,” told me he’d been to Japan briefly when he was in the Navy. “Then I got sent to the Philippines.” He said he’d thought about going back—“Japan was great,” me exclaimed.

I nodded. “I fell in love with it, especially Kyoto.” Then I tried to describe how I felt, much to my surprise, that I was in the right place and everything felt right even though the culture is as different from any other I’ve experienced as any culture can be, and I don’t speak the language. “Even when I got lost and Google Map directions weren’t making any sense, I felt I was going where I wanted and needed to go, if that makes any sense.”

“You weren’t just taking a vacation. You were on a journey.”

He understands my travel philosophy, exactly! I nodded again.

Then he reverted to his neighborhood lifer voice. “So why the hell did you come back?”

I’ve been asking myself that same question. Marlee: Any time I travel, I miss my cat(s) more than anything else. Friends. My bikes.  And…and..

Four days in Tokyo. Three in Osaka, five in Kyoto and one more in Tokyo. Robert was right: It wasn’t just a trip; it was a journey. Could it have been a prelude to another midlife journey ?

The Scent of a City

 Many years ago, during my second European bike tour, I visited Marseille, France in spite—or, given the kind of person I was, because—some people warned me that it was dirty and dangerous. 

About the “dangerous” part: I had moved back to New York a few months earlier, just as the crack epidemic was unfolding. So I believed, like any true New Yorker (or someone who tries to seem like one) that no place could present greater perils than what Gotham could proffer.

I had no problems in Marseille. Parts of it were gritty, yes, but even they seemed like the Ginza or Avenue Montaigne compared to where I was living.  They did, however, have some pretty dive-y bars and cafes, which isn’t surprising when you consider that it’s a seaport. (Not for nothing was it the “French Connection.”)

Speaking of which:  The city seemed to have its own distinctive odor: a combination of fish and brine, tinged with bits of sisal and smoke. 

On the Shinkansen, I realized that was a reason why Osaka reminded me somewhat of Marseille. Japan’s third largest city seemed to have its own distinctive aroma, everywhere I turned. It wasn’t at all unpleasant, though it made me hungry: I felt that wherever I turned, I could smell food being prepared. Near my hotel, and around the Doutonbori, frying tempura batter, scallions and soy sauce (or something like it) filled the air. Along other streets and byways, I could follow my nose to steaming fish and meats, sizzling takoyaki and bubbling ramen broths.

No wonder I felt hungrier leaving Osaka Castle than any other museum or monument I’ve ever visited! While learning about the castle‘s—and Japan’s—history and art might have been enough to whet my appetite (Is that why people like to have lunch or dinner after museum visits?) the olfactory enticements to eat seemed to be everywhere.

While there are temples and other historic and cultural sites in Osaka, there aren’t quite as many as in Kyoto, which is practically a World Heritage Site or Tokyo, which is a much larger city. One explanation I’ve heard and read is that Osaka had many military-related industries and thus was a major target of Allied bombings during World War II, while Kyoto, which didn’t have those industries, was spared.

But does that account for all of the eateries, street foods and the ever-present aromas of Osaka? Does steam from bowls of udon noodles rise from the smoke (and ashes) of munitions factories?

It Isn’t “Another Asian Country “

 I have never done a “whirlwind “ tour of any country or area I’ve visited. Instead, before taking a trip, I decide on a few places I want to see or experiences I want to have. And I wander, in part to see what most tourists won’t and to experience the “feel” of a place.

Perhaps my philosophy has been shaped by some of my trips being bike tours and by exploring places on rented bikes—as I did during my Japan trip—during other journeys.

So, before heading to the Land of the Rising Sun, I’d planned to go to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. I kept to that itinerary, landing in Tokyo on the 16th of July, taking the Shinkansen to Osaka on the 20th, Kyoto on the 23rd and back to Tokyo on the 29th before flying back to JFK on the 30th.

In each city I had planned to take a guided bike tour shortly after arriving and let my choice of sites to visit and places to explore be guided by it.

I followed that plan in Tokyo: I wrote a post about the ride with Sho. I didn’t take such a tour in Osaka because no one seemed to know about them. I also didn’t look for a rental bike because I didn’t want to spend too much of my limited time pursuing it. As it turned out, Osaka was a more compact city than I’d expected. Finally, I didn’t take a guided bike tour in Kyoto because I felt strangely confident about getting around from the moment I rented my bike, shortly after arriving.

Okazaki nishitennocho Shrine

Turns out, my confidence was justified. First of all, mountains border Kyoto on three sides and the Kamo River bisects the city. So, even without Google maps, it’s fairly easy to navigate, especially if you like to use landmarks, as I do.

Without trying, I managed to visit most of the “important “ sites: the Imperial Palace, Nijo Caske, Shimogoyo Shrine and Kinkakujicho (“Golden Palace”), among others, in Kyoto; the Castle and Dotonbori (less than a block from my hotel) in Osaka and the Imperial Palace, Shibuya and Shinjuku Gardens (again, among others) in Tokyo. But the best thing about my trip was feeling the pace, the light and even the sounds of a language I don’t understand. It was also interesting to see how people don’t so much negotiate or navigate close spaces as much as they seem to simply move among each other, as if they’ve been doing it for centuries.

Japan, at least what I experienced of it, is about as different from any other place I’ve visited or lived as any place could be. I can’t even say, after being in Cambodia, Laos and Anatolia, that I was in “another Asian country” as I could say I was in another European country when I was in Greece or the Czech Republic after having lived in France and visited Italy, Spain or Belgium. 

Some of that feeling has to do with cycling and even in the bikes I rode and saw Japanese people riding. I will try to describe more in future posts.

A Midlife Journey

 Many years ago (Yes, I can say that, even though I am in Midlife!) I took my third multi-day bicycle trek, which also happened to be my first trip outside North America. Like many Americans on their first (and for some, only) European adventure, I started in London because Laker Sytrain (Remember them?) and a few other carriers provided flights to Gatwick that even newly-minted college graduates like me could afford. Also, I—again, like many other Americans—felt I could “ease in” to my journey by starting it in a place where people speak my language, more or less.*

After living on my bicycle for three months through four countries, I landed in Paris, where I would spend three years. When I came back to the States, I was convinced that I was a changed person.  Indeed I was, though perhaps not for the reasons I thought I was.

The real difference, I  now realize, between myself and my peers (around 25 years old) wasn’t so much that—as I believed at that I’d become less American or more European. If anything, my journey and stay highlighted the differences between me the people I met. For one thing, although the bike I rode—a Peugeot PX-10 with clincher wheels and tires—was considered good but not exceptional among my riding, training and racing partners and rivals, it seemed like a spaceship compared to most everyday European bikes of the time.  But perhaps more important, even though my command of any language besides English was not rudimentary, to put it charitably, I could sometimes “go stealth” because I am visibly of European heritage. That, of course, is not possible for me or most Americans in any Asian culture.

The way my European sojourn changed me, I realized much later, had more to do with not following the expectations of my family or society: I did not go to graduate school (I would, however, do that later), take an entry-level corporate job or, as my father wanted, become a young military officer. That, in itself, made me more American than I was willing to acknowledge: Even in the most liberal parts of Europe, most young people followed, consciously or not, a proscribed narrative.

As much as I loved Europe—especially France—I knew I had to get to Asia, particularly India and Japan, some day. Back then, I had a vision (though not a real plan) to save money and work, whether by tutoring English or picking grapes, my way across two continents.

So, on the journey from which I just returned, I couldn’t help but to wonder what I would be like had I taken to my version of the Silk Road, whether on bike or by other means, or had I come to Japan for my first non-North American sojourn.

My guess is that what I would have encountered would have been very different from what I witnessed during the past couple of weeks. While I saw many people riding to and from work, school and other places and events in their daily lives, I suspect that Tokyo and other cities didn’t have the kind of bike culture one now finds there and in many European (and a few American) a cities. My bike probably would have stood out even more than it did in Europe.  

(The bikes I rented in Tokyo and Kyoto were similar to machines people ride every day.)

But perhaps more importantly, simply to survive,  I probably would have had to immerse myself in Japanese language and culture to an even greater degree than I had to learn European ways. That is not to say the Japanese are less hospitable; they simply express emotions and relate to their heritage (and that of others) differently from Westerners. Also, I get the impression that breaking away from expectations could result in more ostracism,  and is simply more difficult, than in Western cultures.

Some of what I’ve mentioned may have to do with the Japanese language itself: There seem to be even more rules, implicit as well as explicit, than in say, French, which is less flexible than English. Could that be a reason Japanese pedestrians and cyclists, let alone drivers, do not seem to even think about crossing at red lights—and why Japanese cops don’t seem to have to do much to enforce traffic regulations?

Oh, and while temples, shrines, monuments and other sites are full of tourists, they feel more like little worlds to enter than boxes to check off on an itinerary. Some of that, of course, has to do with the fact that most visitors—Americans, anyway—know little or nothing about, say, the Shoguns but have at least heard of Michelangelo or Leonardo before going to the Uffizi or Louvre. Also, at many Japanese sites—even the non-religious ones—visitors must take off their shoes and even perform some small ritual or make an offering upon entering. This, I believe, delineates the “inner”and “outer” worlds and is a reason (along with hygiene) why Japanese people take off their shoes when entering their, or anyone else’s, home.

Of course I’ll never know what kind of person I’d be had I first visited and cycled in Japan during my youth rather than in midlife. But I am glad I finally got there,  and have more to tell. (I didn’t want to make this post too long!)

*- I think it was George Bernard Shaw who quipped that England and the United States are two countries separated by a common language.

I’m Back And Will Have More To Share

 Last night I returned from Japan. The Boeing 787 was like a time machine: It landed at JFK Airport at almost the exact minute it departed Haneda! The reason, of course, is that Tokyo time is thirteen hours later than New York, and the flight took about 12  1/2 hours. (The flight to Tokyo took about an hour longer because the plane was flying into the prevailing wind.) But I am still living on Japan time; it probably will take me another day to re-calibrate.

When I embarked on this trip I had planned to post on this blog every day, or nearly so. So why didn’t I? I was having such a good time.  But, dear readers, that isn’t to say that I post when I am not having a good time. Rather, I enjoyed—and at times was exhausted by—my days there because I was experiencing so much. 

Also, even though I’d read that most of Japan is very hot in July, I was not prepared for the heat I experienced: Every day the temperature reached 34 to 37C (93 to 98.6 F) and, because the areas of Japan I traveled are further south than New York, the sun was more intense. So at the end of a day of cycling to temples, shrines and other sites, I was exhausted!

Speaking of cycling: I rented bikes in Tokyo and Kyoto. The former has a bike share program but it’s difficult to use if you’re not a resident. I didn’t cycle during the three days I spent in Osaka: No one I asked seemed to know how or where to rent a bike. 

During the next few days I’ll write more about my cycling and other experiences in Japan. I hope the trip I just took won’t be my only one to the Land of the Rising Sun.

A Good Way To Be Tired

 I have been in Japan for ten days.  Every one of them has ended with my falling asleep moments after entering my hotel room,

I could blame some of that fatigue on the heat and humidity: Every one has felt like the steamiest one I experienced in New York, Florida or anywhere else I’ve lived or visited. I don’t recall Cambodia or Laos, which are well within the tropical zone, being so  resembling a sauna. Today I did the trek up Fushima Inari, where ten thousand orange gates frame the trail up the mountain. Every body—including those young enough to be my grandchildren and lithe enough to be ballerinas and marathoners—were sheathed in sweat.

 

 

Were my fatigue a result only of the sweltering conditions, I would feel resigned, perhaps dispirited: The weather just happens. But I am satisfied, even content. I am experiencing so much during my days here, not only from my bike rides and visits to shrines, temples and other sites, but simply from being here.

It’s as if I am “catching up” or “making up for lost time.” At the risk of sounding trite, I wish I’d come here sooner—as in, decades ago. I find myself wondering what I might be like had I immersed myself in a culture where people do their jobs and helpful not because they’re trying to be helpful, but rather because, really, what else can we do? Now I wonder how much I’ve come to see aggression and confrontation as normal as a result of living in New York and, increasingly, the United States.

When I ride the unprotected bike lanes that line some streets, I don’t hear a crescendo of car horns behind and beside me or feel the hostility of drivers who just might run me over if it meant nothing more than a fine and points on their licenses (if indeed they have licenses). And in the sidewalk bike lanes, I don’t get the sense that pedestrians see me as part of an invading hostile force.

Oh, and store clerks don’t stare and sigh when I confuse the two coins with holes in the middle—a 50 vs a 5 yen piece—and explain—or call someone can —when I ask what’s in a package or bottle with a label printed only in Japanese. They have better things to do—namely, their jobs—than to shame or patroniize you.

In short, I don’t think I have ever been in a more civilized place. I wonder what I might now, be like if I’d experienced it earlier in my life. For now, it’s an adjustment—and adjustments tire me out. But I don’t mind this kind of tired.

A Shrine To What Is

 A week in Japan. Three days in Osaka. My twenty-seventh country and—how many cities, monuments and faces have I seen?  Yet I feel I am experiencing everything for the first time.

This has been my first trip to a place I hadn’t previously seen since I went to Greece six summers ago, a few months before COVID changed the world—and me.  (In early 2023 I went to Paris, where I lived years ago and have visited several times since.) Tokyo, Osaka and Japan certainly are different from other places I’ve seen: The qualities of light and color, and even of time and space, are as unlike others I’ve felt as takoyaki is from a jambon-beurre sandwich or a hamburger. Yet I can’t help but to feel that the real differences between what I have known and what I am learning lie within me and sometimes within my body itself.

For one thing, I notice that I am more tired at the end of a day of cycling, walking and sightseeing. Mind you, I have long realized that wanting to end a day of any journey—whether in a place I am seeing for the first time or a place to which I return nearly every day—by laying down my head is usually a good thing:  It means that I have lived that day, if not fully, then at least to the best I could.

The bike I rented in Tokyo.

Of course, some of my fatigue has to do with age: While I am in the middle of my life as long as I don’t know when it will end, I cannot pretend that my body is what it was forty years, or even minutes, ago. That, I realize, is also the reason why I could—and, I admit, do—wish I could have taken this trip earlier in my life, I am glad I am on it, and that it still lies ahead, now.

Then there is the weather: I landed in a heat wave. Or so it seems. Every day I have been here has been as hot as the steamiest days of any summer in New York.  That makes sense when one realizes that Tokyo and Osaka are on the same parallels as the American South. But it seems even hotter here than in Cambodia and Laos, which are undeniably tropical. 

I am not complaining: If everything is exactly as you expected, you aren’t traveling.

Perhaps that previous sentence seems smug or sanctimonious. Perhaps it is. For what it’s worth, it’s something that made sense to me today when I visited the Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine. (Hmm, maybe there is something to those shrines and temples after all!) Yesterday, after touring Osaka Castle, I wandered into NHK World. Not surprisingly, there were screens everywhere showing various Japanese TV programs—and Jaws with Japanese subtitles. I saw that movie the summer it was released and thought back to that movie time when I was pursuing the dreams of my father and a few other adults in my life. I thought that if I hadn’t pursued what they envisioned for me—mainly, their own unfulfilled wishes—my life would have been what it was “supposed to be.” I utterly failed in most of those pursuits because, I was told, I didn’t try or study or Jesus hard enough and that I should just “snap out of “ my “moodiness.”

But today I realize I hadn’t failed, although I couldn’t have known it all of those years ago. If nothing else, I learned that those dreams and goals—such as going to West Point or Annapolis and embarking on a military career, which my father wanted for me—simply weren’t right for me. Perhaps even the dreams I had, like being a marine biologist, were not meant to be even if I blamoed my father and a buddy of his for hijacking them.

As for what any of this has to do with cycling: It’s probably one of the few passions I’ve ever had that nobody could change or destroy.  So here I am, in midlife, cycling in my 27th country.

Anyway, I realized at the shrine that my failure—if indeed there is any—was in believing that my life was “supposed to be” a certain way, whether in line with my own or other people’s wishes. Rather, I need to acknowledge, if not embrace, what is and journey through whatever will be.

Front and side view of one of the shrine’s sanctuaries .

After leaving the shrine, I entered a cafe—“Vie de France”—for a cafe au lait and to use their internet connection. I called Callie, Sam’s significant other, who is looking after Marlee. “I miss you,” she said.

“I miss you too. And Marlee?”

I met her—and “Sam”—just over a year ago, when I moved to the place where I live now.

Crossing A Line

So where in the world is Justine, a.k.a. the author of Midlife Cycling?

OK, here’s the the first clue:

The sky is overcast, but neither it nor the water are as murky as they appear: I took the photo through a not-so-clear window. We should see a sunrise tomorrow.

Now, here’s another clue:

Hot coffee in a canister.  I can’t find that in my local bodega.

And one doesn’t normally find these on arriving at an American hotel or B&B:

Finally, here’s one more tip-off that you’re definitely not in New York City—or anywhere in the United States:

Even if you couldn’t see the signs, or didn’t notice people’s faces, I think you could tell I wasn’t on the D train.

I am indeed in Tokyo.  After a 13 hour-plus flight, I need some sleep. But tomorrow I’ll be exploring—on bike, I hope.

Watch for this notice at your local post office:  

“WANTED:  Justine Valinotti (alias: the Midlife Cyclist Blogger). For crossing the International Date Line to ride a bicycle.”

A Huracan vs A Housewife

There are reasons why police departments all over the world have bicycle patrols.  The main one is that an officer pedaling two wheels can reach places, such as congested downtown streets and alleyways of campuses, inaccessible to the cop with his or her foot on a gas pedal.  And, the constable on two wheels can get to a scene more quickly than his or her counterpart in a motorized vehicle.

What most police department brass don't know, however, is that one of its officer's legs can generate 573 horsepower on a bicycle. 

All right.  That's just a slight exaggeration.  In this one instance, however, a Japanese cop on a bike was a match for 573 horsepower of Italian automotivery. (All right, I made up that last word.)  Or, at least, those 573 horses--costing more than a lovely Louisiana abode that wouldn't look out of place in Gone With The Wind--couldn't escape from justice delievered from the seat of "a housewife-style chari bike.

For years, I've heard that red cars are more frequently pulled over than vehicles of any other color.  It makes sense: If you're going to speed, make illegal turns or do almost anything else you shouldn't be doing while driving, you're more likely to be caught if you catch an officer's eye while doing it.  And, of course, you are more likely to get such unwanted attention if your car has a bright, eye-catching hue.   

Now, of course, if you're buying a Lamborghini, you're probably not trying to be inconspicuous. So, of course, you'll go for a color like the bright orange of the Huracan in the video.  But even if that car had been painted in primer gray, its driver wouldn't have escaped the cop on the "housewife" bike.  Why?  Well, that cop had the law on his side.  No, I'm not talking about Japanese traffic code:  I mean the law of gravity.  

So, if you are contemplating whether to treat yourself to a sports car or a bike, just read this post--and watch the video! 

What You Can't Leave Home Without

Seems that some people believe in carrying absolutely everything:

That image comes to you from a post on strange bicycles from Japan (where else?) in TechEBlog.

A Japanese Moulton from Bianchi?

Paint your bikes green, call them "whites" and they'll sell like hotcakes all over the world.


Believe it or not, a company has actually been doing what I've just described. 


I'm talking, of course, about Bianchi.  Time was when a Bianchi was a Bianchi, and you couldn't buy them everywhere.  They were available in a few countries outside Italy and in the US, a relatively small number of shops sold them.  The Bianchis available outside Italy were almost all mid- to high-range road bikes, and they were all made in Italy.


Things started to change during the 1980's when Bianchi had some of their bicycles manufactured for them in Japan.  As far as I know, those bikes were sold only in North America, and were--intentionally--much like the better Japanese bikes of that time from makers like Miyata, Panasonic and Bridgestone.  Bianchi's finest racing machines were still made in Italy, but they apparently realized that in the less-expensive road bikes (I'm talking about the real ones, not the ones that mimicked their paint schemes), Japanese frames were offering arguably better workmanship and clearly better components, particularly in the drivetrains, than the Europeans were, or could.


That was the beginning of a major shift for Bianchi.  Up to that time, you sought out a Bianchi if you were a racer or other high-mileage cyclist who cared at least somewhat about speed.  And you knew that getting a Bianchi meant getting a particular kind of Italian road bike.  If you weren't the type of cyclist I've just described, you had probably never heard about Bianchi at that time.  But, from the 1980's onward, Bianchi became, in essence, a number of different bike-makers in a number of different countries.  As an example, they marketed one of the first hybrid bikes in the US, where that type of bike first appeared.  They also offered mass-market versions of high-performance mountain bikes made by the pioneer mountain bike builders in the US. Later, they would make and sell one of the first mass-market fixed-gear bikes--and helped to spawn, if unintentionally, the "hipster fixie."  And they have sold various types of utility and recreational bicycles in other countries.  Those bikes are tailored to the needs and tastes of the local markets.


I've never been to Japan.  So, in all honesty, I couldn't tell you what cyclists ride there.  All I know about the Japanese cycling community and markets, I've read in bike magazines or heard from people familiar with Japanese cycling.  And, oh, yes, from seeing what the Japanese buy on e-Bay.


I never would have guessed that their tastes ran to bikes like these:

Martin, the owner of this bike, brought it and himself from Japan.  He says it's a kind of bike the Japanese call the "mini-sprinter":  a machine with a relatively tight wheelbase, straight fork and small wheels (on this bike,  20 X 1 1/8).  He tells me that when people see it, they ask him how to fold it.  I remarked that in some ways, the bike--which is called the Mini Velo 9 Drop--reminds me of the original Moultons.  


According to Martin, Moultons are sought by collectors in Japan, where they fetch even higher prices than they do here in the US.  And, he said, a lot of Japanese believe that it's possible to go faster with the smaller wheels.


I've always wanted to ride a Moulton just to experience it.  If I had money to burn, I might buy one even though I'm not a collector.  I'm sure that the ride of Martin's bike is different, however subtly.  If I had more time, I might want to try both a Moulton and Martin's bike.  I wonder which one I'd like better.  In any event, I'm sure that the shifting and braking are better on the Bianchi than they were on the Moulton.  My love of vintage (and vintage-style) bikes, bags and other accessories doesn't extend to components. 


However, Martin does have two things on his bike that, if they weren't standard equipment on Moultons, were almost certainly installed on many of them.  He has a nice brass Japanese bell like the ones Velo Orange sells.  More important, he has a nice brown Brooks B-17 on his Bianchi.