Certainly, you possibly can spend hours on the web site, which has Japanese and English variations, and the store’s social media channels. Blue Lug has very energetic Fb, Instagram, and Flickr accounts, the latter with over 139,000 images unfold throughout 1,391 pages. There’s additionally an entire set of YouTube movies of bikes being assembled up from a unadorned body to a accomplished customized construct. The movies are usually wordless and mesmerizing, following the method as a talented mechanic works. Many are over 20 minutes lengthy, and one, a 44-minute Crust construct, will get a customized paint job and a dreamy soundtrack.
The movies have a soothing, ASMR high quality, and you may be taught so much simply by watching, or get concepts to your dream bike or present journey. Even when you’re not paying that a lot consideration, a pleasing half hour may slip away.
What Blue Lug creates are usually works of magnificence that sit on the nexus between enjoyable, style, and practicality.
“They put bikes together in ways no one else has thought of. They pay attention to details,” Keating says earlier than diverting into just a little soliloquy about micro crazes the store has created for bicycle trivialities like cable hangers and top-tube protectors.
With the assistance of the store’s employees, I borrow a motorbike from one among Blue Lug’s tallest workers—thanks, Kaisei!—hop on, and journey into the town. The bike is a two-year-old All-Metropolis House Horse with a gorgeous blue shade I’ve by no means seen, good fats tires, and crisp, dialed-in shifting.
I begin off selecting little neighborhoods to go to and navigating my technique to them. That is sorta enjoyable, however a number of pulling the map out and making an attempt to determine a technique to get from one place to a different. It’s doable however fussy. However then I cease making an attempt to navigate and simply journey. The fellows on the store really useful visiting Yoyogi Park, which seems to have a devoted biking path with an indication in English that tells you to “Just enjoy it,” and I attempt to internalize {that a} bit.
After a extremely pleasing croquette sandwich from a meals truck within the park, I get again on the bike, ditch the map, and level myself in a normal route—”toward the water”—and just ride. It’s surprisingly chill. In Seattle, I say, tongue in cheek, that the drivers are quick to honk. Less jokingly, they tend to assume right of way. It leaves you on edge. In Tokyo, things felt more integrated and equal. Nobody honks. Simply following people makes opposite-side riding surprisingly easy. It’s very much about entering the flow, and there’s often a cyclist in front of you leading the way.
Considering I was on a bike that was new to me in a town that was new to me on a side of the road that was new to me, it was exhilarating and created a new way to connect with the city. You don’t really let ’er rip that often. On a ride through Tokyo on a perfect bicycle, you enjoy the flow state.
