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The above is an excellent article about bike usage in Japan. As I have stated before, bikers in Japan ride furiously on the pavement, weaving in and out of pedestrian`s way whilst gesticulating with umbrellas, mobile phones and cigarettes. They are recognised as a scourge in Japan, even though their use promotes a healthy lifestyle and is good for the environment.

Quoting from the linked article in Japan Times - Sunday October 17th:

According to the law, bicycles are only to be ridden on streets. However, as the number of bicycle accidents increased in the 1970s, the government revised traffic laws to allow bicycles on sidewalks as long as such permission was indicated by signs. According to Kosugi, the law was so vague that the police never enforced it, and so bicycle riders came to think that they were supposed to ride on the sidewalk. Even the police ride on the sidewalk.

Interestingly, mountain bikes and more modern bicycles are rarely seen. Instead, the majority are the standard (read old-fashioned) bicycle with basket in front and contraption for tying extra baggage above the rear wheel, which is more often than not used for seating a passenger. They have a certain charm to them as even the coolest of adolescents ride these standard bikes and don`t look out of place riding them.

The main problem I have with them is the loud spine chilling noise they make when the brakes are engaged. None of them seem to have been oiled in the last year. I am sure bike centres selling WD40 to cyclists must go out of business. If I were of the Michael Moore personality type, I would set up a free oil your bike`s brakes public service in the city centre near a set of busy traffic lights in order to correct as many bikes in the shortest time possible but I`m not and I won`t and therefore I will have to suffer eternally under this, a uniquely Japanese trait.