Japan Info Swap Blog

Japan largely missed out on the first bicycle boom of the 1880s and 1890s. However, when the bicycle became hot again in the 1960s and 1970s – mostly for recreational and fitness purposes – the country was not left on the side of the road: Japan zoomed past the United Kingdom to rank second only to the United States in the value of bicycles exported. Japanese bicycle manufacturers also shifted away from the utilitarian aspects of the human-powered vehicle to …