Mike buys a bike!

Last weekend I finally bought, after months and months of deliberation, a new bike. Part of the problem was having a similar bike back in the UK- but the cost of shipping it was prohibitive. A tricky situation, since I have a hard time spending money.

Why is that? Is it the Puritan ethic I was raised with? Is it me trying to save the world by minimizing my carbon footprint? Is it that I don’t want to consume any goods as that encourages little kids in Asia to work in sweat shops? Who knows.

Anyway- here it is:

She’s a beauty. I name her- Talulah!

It’s a Trek (Talulah the Trek) 7.3 FX, which means it has 7.3 different types of special effects- like cross-fade, fade-out, and bullet-time like in the Matrix. I can control them from a handset mounted on the handlebars.

It cost a pretty penny- 72,000 yen for the bike, then gear cost another 50,000, which adds up to about $1,200, or 800 pounds. It’s expensive, but I think it’s a solid buy.

Jason and I went for a 66km ride the day that I picked it up. We basically did a loop all round the city, up towards Saitama, round to the East and a park in Chiba by Tokyo Bay, then up through Ginza and Tokyo.

It was good. Exhausting though. The ride down the Arakawa river was against a severe headwind. Very hard work- never getting any momentum. All the joy sucked out of going down hills, as the wind stole our inertia.

We made it home around 6pm. 3 hours 10 minutes actual riding time. Maybe 5 hours for the whole journey. We didn’t stay in the park long- it was freezing down there with the wind off the ocean.