June 19, 2020 Why My Next Bike Is A Specialized Bicycle
If you’re not much into swimming, and you don’t like pounding your feet on the streets with running, you may find cycling a great way to exercise.
Riding a bicycle is a great way to get your heart rate up regularly while enjoying your surroundings. There are many types and categories of bicycles. In Japan, we have the famous “Mama Chari” which is the simple, one speed bike with a basket on the front and a rack on the back. Great for getting around town and the train station, but usually something that is not fitted to the riders.
Other categories are mountain bikes for riding rough trails, road bikes with skinny tires for speed, cross bikes for riding around town (usually a straight handle bar and more of a relaxed frame). If you’re really into riding you can get triathlon or time trial bikes and spend crazy amounts of money. If you live in a major metropolis like London, Tokyo, New York, you will find a folding bike from Dahon, Birdy (of Germany), or better yet a Brompton bicycle as the best choice.
There are more bicycle manufacturers out there than you can imagine. Trek from the US, Brompton from the UK (and actually made there), Bianchi from Italy, Giant from Taiwan, Bridgestone or Yamaha from Japan, Cannondale (now Canadian owned) Cervelo (IT), Felt (US), and many many others from the Netherlands and around the world. There are so many categories and so many brands. For this rider, my next bike will be a Specialized Bicycle. Why?
As a spunky cyclist, I have a folding bicycle, cross bike, and gravel road bike. Most have parts developed by Japan’s powerhouse parts supplier, Shimano. Shimano does the brakes, the gears, the pedals and pretty much everything but the frame (they actually do that too). A bike is more than just a product or brand. Making sure that everything works and flows is key to having a good experience and getting a good work out or even for getting from point A to point B. My next bike will be a Specialized Road bike.
Specialized is committed to the market. They’ve got stores and dealers nationwide with bicycles in nearly every category. Hard core cyclists ride the top end S-Works bicycles. Different bicycles have a different feel. Only Specialized will actually measure you to fit a bike to you. Like a good suit or pair of trousers, they make sure that what you are buying matches what you want to do in one of their concept stores. We visited the stores in Ginza and Shinjuku.
Specialized was founded in 1974 by riders in Morgan Hill, California. That rider was Mark Sinyard, and he still leads the company today. They are strong with off-road ‘stump jumper’ style mountain bikes, but have also become one of the leading manufacturers of road bikes. They have cool products in road, mountain, cross, gravel, and their high end S-Works road bikes. One ride along one of Japan’s riverside will surely show you the popularity of Specialized products in Japan. There are a lot of Specialized riders on Japan roads, rivers, and mountains.
Besides making great products, Specialized make great business decisions. Specialized Japan uses CIRCLE Cloud Communications for telephones and communications with their clients and team. Specialized uses great services, so we’re happy to support them by using their great products.Looking forward to my new road bike. My next bicycle will be Specialized. Which one?
If you want one of Japan’s most popular bicycles, check out Specialized here. For Japan’s fastest growing cloud phone service, please check drop CIRCLE a line here.