Tokyo bike store

    This is the bike store next to my house I go here to have my bike fixed if I can’t fix it myself. Appearing an independent y run store by a family  the store stands out from the usual bike store as they mostly work on unusual highly visibly strange looking bikes. Most bike here in Tokyo are very simple shopping bikes I find it unusual for a country that relies so much on a bicycle to get around why do the bike seem so simple one gear and very heavy. Bikes in Tokyo are generally neglected here left in the rain or on the street.  I have seen a trend in riding very custom bikes that are very individually designed with different color tires and funny handled bars. It seems some here in Tokyo are trying to compete who can have the most custom bike regardless of functionality. This is an opposite trend of the older generation who ride the shopping bikes. This store caters to a group or young riders who are into customizing their bikes and making sure their bike look different from everyone else’s but in turn the bike seem to fallow a pattern that makes them not so unusual but riders in a subculture of bike messengers of want to be messengers style. The interest in bikes could be due to economic ecological or practical means of transportation. The trend of many youth in Japan has moved away from placing high importance on car ownership. Many people here in Tokyo seem to be employed in a bicycle messenger business they ride thru the streets weaving thru traffic at great personal risk for very little pay. I read the average bike messenger crashes one a year. These are short term jobs with little future but do seem free to do as they please more than other jobs in Tokyo.