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Delightful Kickbike Accessory

I’ve been using my new Kickbike since it arrived from Finland last September – so about five months of wonderful, stress free exercise with the very welcome benefit of having shaved about 8 kg off my weight. I still have a long, long way to go to even get close to my target, but the Kickbike has really energized my exercise program. Instead of dreading boring sessions at the gym or on my Nordic Trak, I really look forward to jumping on the Kickbike and heading out to see what’s going on around the neighborhood. It’s a real blast. So much so that I tend to get a little down and depressed when the weather doesn’t cooperate. If it’s really windy or rainy for a few days to the point where I can’t go Kickbiking, I get frustrated and start checking the online weather report every few minutes in hopes that it will change.

That being said, what would make my Kickbiking even more enjoyable? I started pondering that about a month ago. The one major thing that came to mind was how hard it is to carry ‘stuff.’ I love kicking down to the local store to pick up some milk or minor groceries. It’s far enough away that I work up a light sweat. The problem is carrying the items I buy back home. I’ve been just hanging the plastic grocery bags on my handlebars. It’s workable, but the items tend to swing back and forth, and if they are long enough they sometimes collide with the front wheel. No accidents yet – but I could see one coming if I didn’t do something to fix the problem.

Another aspect– my office is only about a 40 minute walk from home, about 10 minutes by bicycle depending on the traffic, wind and signals. It would be fantastic to ride my Kickbike to the office on nice days, but I would have to have some way to carry the miscellaneous stuff I lug back and forth daily. Things like my PDA, digital camera (yes, I’m an addict – I take it with me almost everyplace except the shower and bathroom), some paperwork, company badge, sometimes a paperback or magazine.

With that in mind, I made the trek over to Seo Cycle at the LaLaPort shopping center near Minami Funabashi. There are two Seo Cycle outlets there. The one upstairs specializes in daily commutiing bicycles and kids bikes, but the one outside in the open mall area is a treasure trove of road and mountain bike gear. They carry everything – including some very expensive high end racing bicycle frames. After talking to the staff for a while about possible solutions to my ‘stuff’ problem, they introduced me to the Rixen & Kaul KLICKfix adapter system from Germany.

They mentioned that some clip on systems that were poorly designed had experienced problems with the bags/baskets flying off, and that had given the technology a bad name. But they have never had a problem with the KLICKfix system and use it themselves – a great testimonial since the staff are obviously avid cyclists that know their equipment.

After playing around with it in the store for a while, and asking lots of questions, I made my selection – the KLICKfix Daypack Box It comes with the mounting hardware/bracket, but I decided I want to use the same setup on my mountain bike, so I bought an extra mounting kit as well. The KLICKfix system isn’t cheap. The Daypack Box was just over 10,000 yen (roughly USD$ 100). But it appears to be extremely well engineered, rugged, and should last me for quite a while. Some of my previous bicycle bags have succumbed to weathering and UV deterioration. But with the KLICKfix I should be able to bring the bag into the house when it’s not in use which should help to extend its life.

Installation was almost a ‘piece of cake.’ The instructions were in Japanese, German, English, and French along with seven simple diagrams. Even so, I managed to get the mounting bracket on the handlebars in the wrong orientation the first time around. It wasn’t obvious until I tried putting the bag into the bracket, but then it became crystal clear. About two minute later I had reinstalled it the right way around, and was busy test riding up and down our street.

That was last weekend. Since then I’ve taken the Kickbike out for several rides, and ferried groceries back from the store. I’m happy to say that I am very pleased. The KLICKfix Daypack Box  performs exactly as advertised. Next week, assuming the weather cooperates, I’m going to start using my Kickbike to commute to the office.

Rixen & Kaul, KLICKfix Adapter System

Kickbike Dealer in Japan

The worldwide Kickbike site has been recently updated to show the latest dealer network, and includes a new dealer responsible for Japan and a new dealer in the US replacing Kickbike USA-

Japan Knickerbocker Trading House Mr. Tatsuya Watanabe 2-4-7 Minamishimizucho Sakai   590-0005 Osaka	www.knickerbocker.co.jp phone: +81-722-28-9710 fax: +81-722-27-6722 email: info@knickerbocker.co.jp
USA Kickbike America Mr. Roger Behrendt 1159 Wild Canary Lane 92024 Encinitas California USA	www.kickbikeamerica.com phone: +1-760-944-7868 fax: gsm: 760-533-1734 email:kickbike4fun@yahoo.com

Disposable Bicycles

This is the outdoor bicycle parking lot next to the local train station on a Sunday morning. The lot is almost empty and a lot of the remaining bikes have been blown over by the wind. They'll stay that way until Monday morning when their owners arrive - primarily students that live somewhere else but attend school here, and commuters that come to the area to work. By 10:00 am Monday morning the lot will be almost full, packed with bicycles used by local residents to ride the five to ten minutes to the station. Many of them will take the train, sometimes several trains and/or subways, then pick up a bicycle parked at the station closest to their office or school.

Most of the bicycles are simple - extremely functional. On sale you can pick one up for just over 5,000 yen - about USD $50. Since they are so cheap, people don't spend much money on upkeep or repairs. It's not unusual to see rusty bikes, some with almost flat tires, and to hear squeaky brakes and worn bearings. When they finally get to the point where they are unrideable they are often abandoned - usually in a bicycle parking lot like the one above, or on the sidewalk near the station.