A string for a downtube?

Route: Tokyo - Kamifukuoka Silk Cycle and back
Bicycle: 77 km
Average Speed: 17.3 km/h
Total Ascent: 312 m
Riding Time: 4:28 h
Weather: Sunny and clouds but no rain, 14 C

This weekend friends wanted to go visit a very special bicycle shop... only that it looks like your totally normal neighbourhood bicycle shop... but it isn't. The owner of the shop previously worked at Giant in Japan in an important position designing bicycles. And now still designs his own bicycles. Bicycles with a cord for a downtube!

The string looks really thin and feeble, but we all tried riding the bikes and they feel surprisingly normal. Only that they were all way too small for me. 

The purpose of the rope as a downtube is obviously to be able to fold the bicycle. And yes, it gets reasonably small very quick. Not as small as a brompton... but the bikes ride much more like a normal bicycle. 

One friend was so convinced that he finally did order one... which arrived in early September. The shop owner had the frames constructed in Taiwan and then assembled them here in Japan. These bikes are also surprisingly economical for a full blown bicycle. 

On the way to the bicycle shop we passed by Riken. By the entrance and exit gate where I always got into Riken now nearly 30 years ago ! (in 1995). I hadn't been here in such a long time. 

After the visit to the cycle shop we started returning back to Tokyo... but before that one of my friends told me that it was his wife's birthday today... so after a bit of thinking I proposed to ride back to Tokyo fast and bake a cake while they would cycle at a more leisurely pace and join me in Shimokitazawa where we went for dinner... and then back to my place... where the freshly prepared cake was waiting. A big surprise... to the friend whos birthday it was. As everyone had tole her that I needed to head home quickly to get some urgent work finished... while everyone else knew what I was up to.