Why you should invest in some wheels

My first couple of months in Hiroshima, I couldn’t stop thinking to myself how I felt like Rick Moranis in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Everything seemed so far away! It took a couple of months to realize that Hiroshima is a small town where everyone knows each other and almost everything is within striking range of a bicycle. A bicycle… this was the missing link.

In Hiroshima, you will see all walks of life cruising around town on a bike. Pedal pumping senior citizens, salary men and women late for work, mothers hauling kids in bicycle baskets on both sides and even the police patrolling the area. As the old saying goes, “do as the locals do,” and in Hiroshima, that means investing in a bicycle.

Here are our five reasons to invest in a bicycle.

1. Save money

Transportation costs add up. Let’s say I take five round trip rides (300 yen a pop) on the local tram a week. This adds up to 1,500 yen a week, 6,000 yen a month and 72,000 yen a year. I could sign up for Netflix and Hulu for myself and two other friends for that price! Investing in a bike has literally and effortlessly saved me thousands of dollars over the years.

2. Save time

In Hiroshima, the mighty bicycle is King. Hiroshima downtown busses and trains are like watching a herd of turtles swimming through a sea of peanut butter… Okay, they’re not that slow, but a bicycle is definitely the speedier option. If you are within a 5 kilometer radius of the Hiroshima Central Ward, bicycles are the fastest way to get around (depending on how you bike, they can be faster than taxis). Most of the time, my decision to travel by bicycle has been triggered by my impatience rather than my desire to save money.

  3. Get some exercise

No need explaining the obvious, exercise is good for you. So why waste a free opportunity to get the blood pumping. It feels great and your body will thank you.

4. Safe

There is safety in numbers and in Hiroshima there are a lot of bicycles. In my experience drivers are accustomed to looking out for cyclists and the city itself has a lot of bike paths to keep you out of harm’s way.

5. Very little fear of bike theft

Being from Los Angeles, the consistent fear of getting your bicycle stolen is real. People steal your bicycle, sell it on Craigslist and you being low on funds (that’s why you were riding a bike to begin with!) are forced to buy a used bike on Craigslist. The cycle continues as you feed the system for incentivized people to steal bicycles.

This doesn’t exist in Japan. I almost never see bikes locked to another object. The majority of Japanese people lock the back tire, mildly inconveniencing any potential bike thieves.

Tldr: Buy a bike and your calendar, wallet and body will thank you.

-Attempting the life of a Hiroshima salary man one day at a time.