The Third Way
Getting a good deal on a used bike can be difficult no matter where you live, but there are a few extra obstacles in Japan that can make the process that little bit harder. Before I get into it though, I think I should warn you that getting a good bike that you’re happy with will likely take time, patience and some head scratching. If that doesn’t sound like you, then I’d suggest you reconsider the first two options in my previous post.
Some potential difficulties
Language barrier
Buying a used bike often requires a little more negotiation than buying a new one. You may have simple questions that you want to ask about a bike that become very difficult if you have to ask them in Japanese. This shouldn’t stop you though, there are lots of resources to help you, particularly if you make use of technology. You can also try sourcing your bike from other English speakers, which I’ll get into later.
Limited second-hand market
You would think that in a country with so many bicycles, there would also be a thriving trade in second-hand bikes. Unfortunately, while used bikes are available, the second-hand market isn’t as robust in Japan as you might expect. Japan has a complicated relationship with re-using things. The cultural principle of “Mottainai” (not wasting things) comes up against a national obsession with hygene, overpackaging and consumerism. What this means in practice is that many Japanese people won’t consider going to a recycle shop to buy a bicycle, prefering to buy new, but there is a good chance that they’ll ride that bicycle until it falls apart from wear. If you know where to look, though, there are some good deals to be had.
Bike Registration
All bicycles in Japan should be registered to their owners. This is a relatively simple process if you buy a bike from a shop, as they’ll do this for you. It can be more difficult if you buy directly from another person or if you buy online. There are procedures for transfering registration from one person to another but they are often complicated, outdated or unpracticable. In practice, however, many bike shops seem to know that the registration process is flawed and will often register your bike for a small fee with minimal proof that you bought it legally. I’ve tried this approach with two seperate bikes in two seperate bike shops and it worked both times without a hitch. Try to keep as much paperwork or records of sale as you can to show the shop.
Taking these difficulties into account, here’s some advice on three different ways to get a used bike in Japan:
Shops
There are some big benefits to buying from a shop. Most importantly you know that the bike has been checked over by a professional and you get to see and potentially try out a bike before you buy it. Bring something you can leave with the owner if they seem reluctant to let you try a bike. I’ve found a residency card (zaryu/gaijin card) is usually the best bet. It’s only really valuable to you but gives the owner your details if you were to try to make away with the bike. Another benefit to buying from a shop is that they are guaranteed to register your bike for you. They may also give you a discount on any work that needs doing to the bike down the line. Unfortunately these benefits do come at a price. Second-hand shops will be more expensive than the other methods listed in this post. It’s still much cheaper than buying a new bike, though.
Second-hand shops in Japan are known as recycle shops. Most of them sell a mixture of electrical goods, clothes, furniture, nic-nacs and white goods. Some general purpose recycle shops do sell bikes, but mostly mamacharis. They also often suffer from the same issues as department stores in that the staff are generally not trained mechanics. There are also, however, a number of second-hand bike shops often run by owner operators with years of mechanical experience. Some sell only used bikes while some sell a mixture of new and used. Most of these shops are very local operations, and their stock varies a lot. The exception is Cycly, a chain of used bike stores with locations throughout Japan. The great thing about Cycly is that they list which bikes they have in which stores. Each bike has a picture and short description on their webpage. The information is in Japanese, but you can always apply google translate to the pages.
Don’t forget about those local, privately owned bike shops though. One of my favorite used bike shops in Tokyo is a place called Team C.C.Y. in Kita Ward, near where I work. The owner is very experienced and has a great, varied stock of used bikes from functional hybrids to classic steel-frame track bikes. I almost found my bike there but unfortunately most of his bikes were too small for me. It can be hard finding these shops in your local area. My most successful method so far has been to make a local search for ‘bicycle store’ in English or ‘自転車屋’ in Japanese on google maps (other mapping applications are available). This will bring up a variety of bike shops. I then search through the pictures for each shop to see if they have any used stock. Alternatively, just take a walk around your local neighborhood. Some of these bike shops aren’t on any mapping sites. Instead they trade on word of mouth and repeat custom built up over many years. If you’re lucky enough to have colleagues or friends who live in your local area, ask them if they have any recommendations.
Silver Jinzai
Silver Jinzai centers provide human resources services to older (otherwise retired) individuals. There are centers all over Japan that find various paid placements for elderly workers. It’s a government run scheme that lies somewhere between a regular job agency and a social welfare institution.
Luckily for bike hunters, one of the public services that some of the centers run is to sell-on reconditioned bicycles. The bikes are those that have been ‘abandoned’ at stations or in other public places. After a period of time without being claimed these bikes are turned over to the centers to either be fixed up or broken up for parts. Often they are bikes that were parked outside of designated areas and were seized by the local authority. The fines for recovering these bikes can be quite high (¥1000-¥6000) and so many people choose not to pay and simply get another bike instead.
The centers sell these bikes at a hefty discount when compared to used bike shops and recycle shops. Generally the prices are set at various tiers depending on which basic components the bike has. For example, these prices are taken from the well-known Suginami Green Cycle scheme:
¥6,700: General bicycle (basic mamachari)
¥7,700: With a dynamo light
¥8,200: With additional gears
¥9,300: Dynamo light and gears
¥10,300 ~¥13,400: Cross (hybrid) bike etc.
Other centers have similar tiers but prices can vary. As you might expect, most of the bikes tend to be low value shopping bikes. After all, if your expensive road bike were seized by the local authority you probably wouldn’t hesitate to pay a few thousand yen to get it back. Sometimes, however, the centers will turn up surprisingly nice bikes from mid-range hybrids to older single discipline bikes that may have been abandoned due to mechanical faults or missing parts. If you want a real high-performance bike then the Silver Jinzai center is probably not the place to go but if your aspirations are more recreational than sporting then you may well get lucky with a bit of patience.
As with shops, you get to see (and usually straddle) the bikes before buying. They’ll also register the bike at the center, usually free of charge. Don’t expect a test ride though, it’s a fast process and there’s often competition. Some centers settle multiple claims on the same bike by janken (rock paper scissors).
The centers often only open for a few days every month or sometimes one day a week. The system is designed to sell off as many bikes as possible in a short time so go as early on as you can. I tried to visit Suginami Green Cycle when I first arrived in Japan near the end of the second day of sales for that month. They had just begun turning people away because all of the bikes had been sold.
NOTE: I realized in researching this section that there is very little good information in English available on the internet about Silver Jinzai bicycles. Searching in Japanese revealed dozens of centers that offer the service but only a couple in Tokyo have been written about in English. I’ve decided to write a guide to Silver Jinzai in the near future which I’ll post separately, so watch this space for a link.
For now, I’ll just include this link, which details in Japanese which centers in each part of the country have bicycle related services (note that some of these centers do not sell reconditioned bicycles, but instead offer bicycle repair services)
Online
Ah, the internet, the wild west of used bike trading. If you’ve ever bought a used bike online before then you’ll likely already know about the potential pitfalls. It can be difficult enough resolving disputes over online auctions in your native language, and it certainly won’t be any easier for you in Japan unless your Japanese language skills are really on point. In general, there are two roads to go down for foreigners looking for bikes online in Japan.
The fist way is to source your bike from the English speaking community. This may sound like limiting your pool a little too much but if you live in a major city like Tokyo there are going to be plenty of foreigners around. Besides, other than sidestepping the language barrier, there are several other advantages to finding a bike this way. Firstly, many foreigners in Japan stay for a limited time only. An English teacher like me will often stay for 2 to 5 years or so before selling up and moving on. That also means that they’ll have a whole load of stuff that they’ve accumulated in Japan and need to get rid of quickly, a great recipe for a bargain. If the owner is selling because they’re moving away, that’s also a good omen for the condition of the bike, making it less likely that they’re unloading it because of a mechanical issue or excessive wear. Secondly, in my experience, foreigners are more likely to be riding sports bikes in Japan than the Japanese, so you likely won’t have as many mamacharis to sift through to find what you want. If you’re taller than the Japanese average then you might also have more luck searching English listings.
Check out Sayounara Sale, Tokyo Craigslist and Gaijinpot Classifieds. I also personally recommend looking at the classifieds on the Tokyo Cycling Club forum. Members don’t post whole bikes in the classifieds quite as regularly as on the other sites I’ve listed but the quality tends to be high and for reasonable prices.
So all that leaves are the Japanese online auction sites. Ebay never got much of a foothold in Japan. Instead, Yahoo Auctions is the site to go to. Despite the many benefits of using other methods to get yourself a used bike, online auctions still offer the greatest choice, if not the easiest buying experience.
Hindsight
After exhausting other options I bought my road bike from Yahoo Auctions. The whole process was in Japanese and at the time my Japanese language skills were effectively zero. I managed to get a great bike through a combination of google translate, careful scrutiny of pictures, research and blind luck. It’s possible to look for listings of bikes in your local area that are available for collection, which may eliminate some of the chance element associated with online shopping. I had my bike sent to me by courier, and was able to pay the courier in cash not only for delivery but also for the bike itself. It’s a classic steel frame bike with a horizontal crossbar which made me confident that the sizing was correct for me. The listing itself was detailed, including a list of most major components and an appraisal of damages and wear.
Generally I wouldn’t advise buying blind in the way I did unless you know exactly what you’re looking for and have all the information you need. Even then I was very relieved when my bike turned up as described in good working order. The seller even threw in a cheap foldable maintenance stand for free!
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.
Simple Mechanical Objects 