Taking In Tokyo On Two Wheels

 I have claimed this city for myself.

That is a bold, even bombastic statement, I know. But that is how I feel any time I’ve taken a bike ride after arriving for the first time in some place. That city, town or even country, even if I have experienced only a small part of it, becomes a part of me.

Tokyo is new to me. It doesn’t, however, feel as strange as it did last night when, the closer I came to my hotel, the more lost I became. Is it my imagination, or do Google Maps directions become more vague the closer you come to your destination? 

I had a similar experience this morning when I went to meet a group for a bike tour. When I got off the Metro at Daimon station, I was across the street from the meetup spot. That street is wide—like a “stroad”—and the point of reference wasn’t easy to spot. So I wandered away from it and missed the ride. Fortunately, the folks at Tokyo Rental Bicycle allowed me to join their afternoon tour. In the meantime I wandered around Shiba Park, which includes everything from traditional Japanese gardens and memorials to a modern playground, and fronts this:

Who knew that a flight across the Pacific would land me in Paris? Or that instead of the Champ de Mars and Invalides, I would see it from the Shoguns’ burial site?

Anyway, after seeing that, I entered the Zojoji Temple just as a ceremony was about to begin. I had just enough time to photograph the interior: Although I am not religious, I have enough respect to honor the request not to take pictures during the ritual. I thought it looked new for such an ancient temple. Turns out, it was reconstructed, using both ancient and modern techniques, half a century ago on the site of the Tokugawa Shogun’s family temple. That building stood on the site for centuries before bombing raids leveled it in 1945.

After spending time there, and in the Treasures Gallery, I figured out where the bike tours met and took a ride with Sho,  a young Tokyo native tour guide, a woman and her son from Strasbourg, France (I can’t leave wFrance, can I? and another woman, originally from Spain but living ini Belgium and speaking French (!) as her everyday language.

The first stop on our tour was the Zoiji Temple and the shrines, which I had just visited. I didn’t mind: Sho explained, among other things, the differences between a shrine and a temple (A shrine is usually for Shinto and has a gate delineating it from the rest of the world; the latter is more commonly associated with Buddhism.)and how the role of the royal family has changed. He told us to park our bikes right outside the temple’s entrance—without locking them. As a New Yorker, it amazes me that people leave their bikes unsecured in public places of such a large city!

From there, we rode to the Imperial Palace. Like the Zojoji Temple, it’s a reconstruction of a building destroyed by Allied bombing raids near the end of World War II. The Palace itself isn’t open to the public except on special occasions, but the grounds, which include a moat and fortifications, are nice—and a short from Tokyo Station.

Then we cycled to what Show half-jokingly called “the most expensive Air BnB: Akasaka Palace, where visiting dignitaries stay. From there, we made one of two climbs included in the ride (You have to get your money’s worth, right?) to the National Stadium, built for the “2020” Olympics held a year later due to COVID and, much to the dismay of taxpayers, hasn’t been used and to a Hachiko’s grave. (Yes, there’s also a tombstone for the dog who waited for him!) Sho mentioned that all of the trees in that graveyard, where some of Japan’s wealthiest and most famous people are interred, are cherry blossoms. It made me wish I could have come early in the spring!

As if to show us what a city of contrasts Tokyo is, Show took us to the Aoyama Fashion District and Shibuya Crossing, which makes Times Square seem like an intersection in one of those town’s where there’s only one traffic light. Aoyama and Shibuya epitomize everything you’ve heard about hyper-modern Tokyo.

Now that I’ve taken the Tour, with Show guiding us, I feel more confident and ready to explore a city that I feel is now mine, if in a small way. A bike ride always seems to do that for me.

Our group. Please try not to notice the weight I gained this winter!

I rode this.

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.”

For Once, Don't Listen To The Talking Heads!

Six years ago, Paris drained its Canal Saint-Martin to clean it, as the city does every fifteen years or so. Although the canal now bisects fashionable streets with chic cafes and shops, it was once bisected a rather gritty working-class area.  But, perhaps to no-one's surprise, the most commonly-found objects found in every canal-draining were wine bottles.

And the second-most common?  Bicycles.  The only difference is that in the most recent cleaning, many of the bikes came from Velib, the City of Light's share program.

Bicycle uncovered during most recent draining of the Canal Saint-Martin.  Photo by Yoan Valat for EPA.

The company that ran Rome's bike-share program abruptly ended its contract because so many of the bikes ended up in the Tiber.  Not exactly what Remus and Romulus had in mind, is it?

Amsterdam has had to resort to "fietsen vissen"--bicycle fishing--because bikes were piled so high in the city's canals that they scraped the flat-bottomed boats.  At one time, freelance scavengers picked them up on poles and sold them for scrap.  In the 1960's, the city's water agency assumed responsibility for the "harvest."  Now a corps of municipal workers trawl for the submerged bikes on boats equipped with cranes attached to hydraulic claw grapples.  The bikes are hauled  to scrapyards for recycling where, according to urban legend, they become beer cans. (Think about that the next time you grab a Heineken or Amstel!)

The phenomenon of bikes "sleeping with the fishes" (I grew up in a Mafia neighborhood. Gotta problem widdat?)  isn't limited to European cities.  In Tokyo, officials decided to drain a large pond in the middle of Inokashira Park to rid it of a non-native species of fish that was causing environmental damage. Their work uncovered another species that wasn't native to the pond:  bicycles.  And, in February 2019, a Citibike appeared--covered with barnacles and blisters--appeared overnight in an Upper West Side docking station. A Hudson River conservancy group expert estimated that evidence--including "oysters on the handlebars" (Upper West Siders pay good money for such things!)--indicated that the machine met its fate in the Hudson the pervious August, or possibly June.

Jody Rosen has just written an article on this phenomenon for the Guardian. It speculates on some of the reasons why so many bikes end up in waterways.  Some are dumped when by fleeing criminals--who are as likely as not to have stolen the bike they're drowning.  Others are tossed or accidentally ridden into the water by drunken revelers.  (Could recycling be contributing, if unintentionally, to bikes ending up in Amsterdam's canals?)  And there are a few instances of folks who "ended it all" by riding into murky waters, as one woman did after handcuffing herself to her machine.

But, as Rosen points out, a bicycle--especially one whose owner is unknown or a corporate entity--is an easy target for people taking out their frustrations.  I suspect that at least a few share bikes were tossed into canals, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water by folks--more than likely, young--who feel lost, alienated, abandoned or simply ignored by their societies, cultures or institutions that control their lives, and over which they feel they have no control.

As a lifelong cyclist, I cannot imagine myself tossing a bike that did nothing wrong to me into the water.  And, as an environmentally-conscious person, I cannot condone throwing anything into a body of water that its native species can't eat.  But, as we've seen, these days, where there are bikes, there are e-bikes.  That, unfortunately, includes waterways, where e-bikes and mopeds are even more of a hazard because of the rare metals and chemicals used in batteries and other components.  

So, if you have a bike, e-bike, moped or scooter you want to get rid of, sell it or donate it. But please don't follow the advice of a Talking Heads song!