Japan Let's just start by saying that Japan is a wonderful country. Hands down, they are the most polite people I've ever met. The cities are clean, the crime rate is low, the food is good, the mass transit infrastructure is very efficient and there is a beautiful landscape to back it all up. Since a good chunk of Surly's business is done in Japan, all 5 of us embarked on a trip to find out why so many like-minded people exist in a land so far away. We visited our distributor in Nagoya and bike shops in Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo. All said, we probably visited 15 bike shops. Most of what we saw was quite different from American shops, in that they had about 1/2 or 1/3 the space to work in. That meant you could stand in one spot for about 5 minutes looking at all the stuff hanging on the walls and ceiling. The amazing thing was that these shops had more old American mountain bike stuff from the early 1990's than anywhere else. When is the last time you saw brand new Mantis Flying V's (plural)? Or brand new Paul's front derailleurs (plural)? Or brand new 1st generation XTR ? The highlight of the week for me was in Kyoto, where we met about 100 messengers for an alleycat event called Chie Matsuri. For one, I'm no messenger. For two, I'm no racer. Fortunately, all it required was the ability to not get lost in a foreign city with a severe language barrier where they drive on the opposite side of the road. No problem, gimme that manifest and map. My first stop was literally about a 9-minute bike ride, had I known exactly where it was. But it took me about an hour because I was lost and riding in circles. But as long as I was going to be lost, it may as well be in a beautiful city that is very bike friendly. Eventually, I spotted a guy riding a Steamroller that I'd met earlier in the day. I flagged him down and asked by pointing at a map if he could help. He rode me straight to the location I'd been circling for the last hour and I found my marker, a pig statue water fountain. I was so happy to have found it, I offered him the last swig of real Absinthe I had in my flask. He downed it real fast and the look on his face was priceless. The rest of the day went as usual, we finished only 2 of 5 manifests, started drinking beer early, found some food, went to the afterparty, taught people to play Bear/Ninja/Cowboy, then had a memorable rain ride back to the hotel. But perhaps the best thing about the whole trip was that we met and rode with good people, who are just like American versions of our best friends. Thanks to everybody who took us into their homes and showed us the Japanese way of life. I could tell a thousand more stories, which might be better told through our 60 pages of photos found here Surly's Japan trip -----

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