Pedaling DOES Make Things Better! A New Bike Shop on Meguro Dori

Well, the shop is no longer new, it has been open more than a year, perhaps two. But it is new for me--RX Bike Sports and Fitness!

Some time ago I started passing a bike shop on Meguro Dori on the flat section between Moto Keibajo Mae Crossing and Meguro Post Office as I would head out of town for a weekend morning ride. Then last autumn I read an article in the Tokyo American Club's monthly about a club member, Takaoka-san, who had set a new world record (6 days 13 hours) for the fastest 2600km cycling journey from the southern tip of Kyushu to the northern tip of Hokkaido -- he is apparently a Keio alum, a lifetime cycle racer, an ex-finance type who left the banking scene and opened his bike shop.  I thought -- I really better check out that shop!

I usually went by before opening heading to a rendezvous, or on the opposite side of the busy street nearing home on my return at the end of a ride, so I did not actually stop by until a few months back. When I did, I was pleasantly surprised that it was not just a "Specialized" shop but seems to have a decent variety of components. They had a carbon fork with a lot of clearance for a road/gravel bike that looked like a potential replacement for the 15 yr old Reynolds Ouzo Pro fork on my titanium travel bike.

They have a full-time mechanic who looked like he knew what he was doing. And one sales staff. Upstairs, there is an exercise studio with trainer bikes all set up. And there is a framed certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records certifying his end-to-end Japan cycling record. I just checked it out and bought a tube for my tires. Last Friday I went back and bought some tires for the upcoming Okayama 1200 ride. I thought it was a lot closer to my house than, say, Nalshima, or a Y's shop, or Positivo. Again, I was pleased with the choices. They generally seemed ... like the kind of tires that would be chosen by someone who wanted to ride a long way, fast. And there were plenty I had not seen nor tried before (Challenge, Goodyear, Donnelly, and more, as well as standards such as Conti 5000). And plenty of them were marked down to a price I consider reasonable.

The Japan S-to-N record
6 days, 13 hours, 28 minutes