Don’t google ‘Tokyo’s best kept secret’ because, let me tell you: If you’ve ever been to Golden Gai on a Friday night you’ll know straight away it’s not a secret to anyone. ¥2000 seating charges are a dead giveaway. The best kept secret is never a cool, quirky place that the locals want to keep to themselves. Usually it’s something that the locals would really prefer didn’t exist at all.
If you’ve followed the Olympics in recent years you may have heard of keirin before. It’s that cycling event where a funny looking electric motorbike paces the track cyclists for a few laps before peeling off to let them race. The word‘keirin’ (競輪/ケイリン) means ‘racing wheels’ in Japanese and while keirin at the Olympics is fairly new, it’s been around in Japan since 1948. The original Japanese version is a little different though.
On the surface there are only minor differences. The riders are paced by another bicycle instead of an electric motorbike and instead of team jerseys; they all wear bright block colours with big black numbers clearly visible to the stands. The events take place outside on tarmac velodromes instead of the indoor wooden ones they use for pro track cycling. Essentially, though, the format is the same. The real difference is in who’s watching and why.
One of the things that the world loves about Japanese sports fans is how polite and conscientious they are. Supporters of Japan’s national football team are known to leave stadiums cleaner than they found them. I’ve been to both football matches and baseball games in Japan and the atmosphere is fantastic. Everyone has fun, the energy is high but never aggressive and at the end of the game, both sets of fans exit through the same gates. They talk, slap each other’s backs, celebrate, commiserate and get the train home. I’d recommend it to anyone.
But… you won’t find those sports fans at the keirin track. To be honest, you probably won’t find any sports fans there at all. That’s because keirin is all about gambling.
The reputation of gamblers in Japan is about as bad as it gets. This is a country where men will hang around by the magazine stands in convenience stores openly reading pornography, and yet the neon-glowing glass fronts of pachinko parlors are always frosted over to protect the identities of the wretched souls inside (pachinko is like a cross between pinball and slot machines).
Gambling is actually illegal in Japan except for four special sports (pachinko gets away with it using a legal loophole). Those sports are Horse Racing, Motorcycle Racing, Power Boat Racing and, you guessed it, Track Cycling. These exceptions were introduced after World War II as a controversial way to generate revenue for reconstruction work. They’ve continued ever since as a stain on Japanese culture that makes too much money to be shut down but that upstanding citizens prefer to ignore. This may sound like an exaggeration but the next time you visit Tokyo, try asking at the front desk of your hotel where the nearest keirin track is and prepare to be met with a look of embarrassment and terror on the face of the desk clerk. Based on conversations I’ve had with Japanese friends and colleagues, keirin has a similar reputation to dog racing in the UK, only that the negative social stigma is more extreme.
When you go to the keirin track, don’t expect to see dedicated cycling fans, instead expect the company of old men chain-smoking and clutching betting slips. A lot of the punters don’t even go outside to the track for the races, preferring to watch the monitors near the betting stations. The races are also livestreamed online, so for less important races the stands can be almost empty with gamblers preferring to lose money in the comfort of their own homes.
How to Make Keirin a Great Day Out
You might think keirin is starting to sound a little bleak and you’re wondering why anyone would want to see it. In many ways, I can’t disagree, but with the right attitude you can actually have a great day out at the track. Here’s how:
1. Find an Event
There are no velodromes in central Tokyo, but there are eight in the wider Tokyo area and neighboring prefectures that are pretty accessible. Only some of the velodromes have spotlights for evening and nighttime events. My advice would be to figure out which tracks are the easiest and cheapest for you to get to and then look up what events are happening there soon. There are different grades of events from FII to GP, so the higher grade events will usually be a bit busier, with more trackside businesses open and sometimes entertainment in the intervals between races. The event listing should also say if there are women’s races, somewhat patronisingly referred to as ‘Girls Keirin’ (カールズケイリン). Below are some links to general information about keirin (in English) and the event schedules (In Japanese).
keirin.jp/pc/static/beginner/en/abcs/index.html
2. Call Up Some Friends
There isn’t much of a community atmosphere at the track, and there are fairly long gaps between races. It’s best to bring someone along to have a lazy chat with when there are no riders on the asphalt.
3. Get a Six Pack
I’ve found it hard to find any official rules on bringing alcohol into the stadium for keirin. What I can say for sure is that they don’t generally check bags on the way in and you can freely buy alcohol in cans from vending machines inside. I’d recommend grabbing a few beers or your favourite one-cup sake in the combini beforehand. Just remember to throw your cans away responsibly or take them with you.
4. Pay Pocket-Change to Get In
It really does cost almost nothing. The Keiokaku velodrome costs only ¥50 to get in. The highest basic entrance fee I’ve seen is ¥300. You can pay extra for box seats or special betting rooms but the trackside experience is more fun anyway. The reason it costs so little? Gambling! They easily make the running costs back from betting profits, so the low entry fees are to encourage as many people through the gates as possible.
5. Get Some Cheap Food
The food at the tracks tends to be very inexpensive and sometimes of a surprisingly high quality. I recently bought a curry rice set that included miso soup and salad for just ¥500. There’s plenty of time between races for a sit down meal, so you don’t have to eat out of polystyrene containers if you don’t want to.
6. Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy
Putting gambling aside, the races themselves are really fun to watch. There’s more jostling in Japanese keirin than in normal track racing and most of the riders wear padding to compensate. About a quarter of races involve some kind of crash. If you’re into strategy, cycling is far more tactical than other gambling sports like dog racing. The riders usually draft in loose teams according to various factors including region, training location and seniority. There are significant differences between riders’ styles and current form. You don’t need to know these things to enjoy a day at the track, but for cycling enthusiasts, keirin has a lot to offer as a spectator sport.
7. Lose Some Money (optional)
You can have a great time at the keirin track spending no more than the entrance fee, but for those who have aspirations of one day living alone in a single room apartment strewn with failed betting slips and lottery tickets, you can bet as little as ¥100 on each slip to get started. There are several different types of bet you can make and they’re explained here:
http://keirin.jp/pc/static/beginner/en/betting/index.html
It might be your last chance to see keirin in its current form. I have a suspicion that before long, the sport is going to change completely. Track cycling has seen a surge in popularity over the last few years and when the Tokyo 2020 Olympics hit, tourists will swarm into the city, and all those avid cycling fans will want to visit the cradle of keirin. Tokyo has hosted the Olympics before and has a history of bulldozing even the most historic sites to make way for infrastructure or to ‘clean up’ undesirable locations. Keirin may well be Tokyo’s best kept secret, and they’ll want to keep it that way.
Simple Mechanical Objects 