Busy is only the beginning

I have now been in Japan just over 1 week. Plenty has happened to keep me VERY busy. Aside from going out and meeting new friends (hello again co-workers of hubby). I spent time reorganizing the house this week as well. It went from “my wife hasn’t lived here in a year” to “we’re a family again”. Honestly though, bike hunting was the task that took the most of my time with busywork this week.

Now that the main room I spend time in is more tidy, the ideas been having are great! . It’s amazing what a clutter free zone does for mental health. The first benefit I noticed from the change is that I feel less stress. For the record, I am not less stressed by any means. It only feels less stressful. The second benefit I have found from my organizing is environmental distractions no longer getting in the way of my thinking ability. Allowing me to do excellent research on bikes and have the brilliant idea to write about this process.

The clutter that was downstairs is now upstairs. Unfortunately the other rooms in my house now look as though they are in disrepair thanks to transplanting everything. Speaking of other rooms, the room that has suffered the most is the crap room. Out of sight out of mind. “What is a crap room?” you may be wondering. Well, the junk drawer is just the gateway crap holder. Plus I don’t have a garage at the moment which is most peoples crap room. However, the crap room is a project is a project for another day…or month…

Enough about that, back to the busy!

The Agenda

The goals of the week was rest from the travel, look for a bike, spend time together, and get groceries. Check, check, check, check.

Luckily for me the hubs was off work because of the holiday. Kevon was thrilled to get quality baby bear time and she was equally happy to get daddy time. The only downside is that he is ABSOLUTE putty in her hands. *sigh*.

The holiday also allowed me to get some good rest and for us to spend time together. It was nice to snuggle together again. Just to talk to each other in the same room. Amazing. Watched some good shows (Big Mouth anyone?!). Talked about the future plans (my favorite subject!!). Groceries I already covered in this post.

The Bike Hunt

Look for a bike. What an irritating sentence. Looking for a bike was not the joyous experience I had been hoping for. It was exhausting, and tedious, and frustrating, and worst of all…it’s not over. To be fair…most of the frustration is my own fault. I could have prepared better.

I am looking for a 3 wheel bike that will hold a child seat and has at least 3 speeds.

It can’t be just any tricycle either. I can’t just order one on Amazon like I had originally planned due to Japanese regulation with rear axle width restrictions on what is street legal. AKA American trikes are too wide. Boo.

We knew going into this journey that we didn’t want to make a whole quest out of the hunt but we also didn’t want to get “just anything”. So we selected several shops to see that were also close enough to walk to.

At recomendation of local facebook groups, we added Wattmans to the visit list. We added D2 to the visit list mostly because it was very close and we had found a trike there before. The 2 Cycle Base Asahi shops we visited were suggested in Facebook and had excellent google reviews. We mapped out a circuit and got to walking.

The Shops

We went to Wattmans which is a local resale store but likely due to the time of year did not have a good bike selection at all. We have a store called D2 down the road and we have found a trike there every time. Unfortunately for us, it has no gears and we would like at least 3. Let alone a trike selection. The store we had the most success with was Cycle Base Asahi, we went to 2 different locations and had a different experience at both.

We walked to the first cycle shop from the house. The immediate welcoming when the doors opened was the trikes! Huzzah! One electric and one not. We’re not in the market for electric. The other had no gears. Boo!! Eventually a lovely attendant came over. After we said our hellos, we fumbled through explaining what we were looking for. (First I pointed at 2 bikes and then made the motions of “combine”) The lady nodded, left and returned with some papers. After she handed me some pages she printed we left defeated. In hindsight my charades must have been on point. Which I realized later when I translated the pages and did some further research. Anyways…

From the first shop we walked all the way across Yokosuka to the other cycle shop. We were greeted and shown a 3 speed bike option which was exciting and a real possibility. The bike came in 3 colors and we had the choice of 3 speed or 5 speed. The cost of 5 speed quickly removed that option from the table. Bike color is something I was indifferent towards but I would likely go neutral. That way anyone would feel comfortable riding it. The plan was to order the bike at the end of the month since it met all the criteria. One problem…

Bike Research

The intention was to get the 3 speed bike and mount baby bear to the handle bars. She exceeds the weight for that. Yay growing, sigh plan. Time to return to the drawing board because clearly that plan was a flop. Freshly discouraged from my failed plan I had to quickly come up with an alternative. Eventually I remembered the papers the attendant handed me at the first cycle shop. From there I decided to look up the printed bike specifically for more information.

I looked up the site specifically from the URL printed at the bottom, not an easy task but I am stubborn. Except I don’t know how to read or write Japanese. First I had to figure out what the characters meant. I used my phone to translate the characters. After I reverse translated the English translation into google to obtain the characters. Finally I used copy/paste to insert the characters into the URL. I was able to pull up the website and google translate was able to help me fumble through it. From there I was able to do deeper research after learning the name of the bike and was able to learn quite a lot. I will save you the trouble of looking up the Japanese, here is the site printed at the bottom of the paper…

https://ogk.co.jp/press_cat/%E8%A3%BD%E5%93%81%E6%83%85%E5%A0%B1

Beautiful. I am in love with this bike. I stopped riding years ago from being so unsteady on 2 wheels. Let’s be honest…I’m unsteady on 2 feet! I am planning on sharing my bike with baby bear, you best believe safety is getting high priority. That also includes safety from the driver. Which is why is HAS to be a trike. Or 4 wheels. Honestly more than 2 wheels is the only requirement, I need stability.

Futago Bicycle

From what I read in the translations of articles, it is the first bike of this type of design to pass Japan standards and receive the seal of approval. I’m hoping the seal of approval makes a difference registering the bike. I don’t want or need complications when the time comes for registration of the bike.

My research leads me to believe that this bike is the first Japan approved child seat trike on the market or it is just the first with 2 seats in back. I still need to dig deeper. Current MamaChari have the front for a small child and back for a large child on 2 wheels. Those types of bikes can be very unsteady especially with uncooperative kids even for steady and experienced drivers. The Futago bike was designed for use with 2 children from infancy to toddler age to ride the bike before exceeding the bikes limitations from what I understood reading the translations. (site mentions up to age 6) Great for parents of twins. Or in my case, great for parents who fail miserably at riding a bike.

In order to purchase this bike you have to receive a certificate which I went through the steps to obtain so if this becomes THE bike I am already prepared for purchase. Unfortunately it also appears that this bike isn’t even officially on the market yes as they haven’t given a definitive available date only an ‘around February’ estimation.

The bike hunt continues

This particular bike checks all the boxes. It’s hard to commit to spending that much money though, especially when I am unsure if that price includes the child seats. (120,000 yen).

The average bike cost for Japan is over 100,000 yen. Bikes are considered vehicles here in Japan, not JUST a bike. Bikes also come with electric assist options as well but that isn’t a feature I am looking for.

Basically I need to know that I am making the best decision for our situation so until I feel that I have exhausted all resources I will not commit to ordering a bike. Even though I am horribly impatient and would like more freedom to explore the area.

Anyone else researching so you can make a decision?