Friday, April 18, 2008

Mama Chari (Utility Cycling) - Bicycle for mother

Japanese have one or two bicycles in a family. Depending of the family, each members have own bicycle.
We often use it for commuting from house to station or shopping. There are some parking lots for bicycle near each stations or shopping centers. A plenty of bicycles are always there. These parking lots are not enough to park all of bicycles. Since many bicycles that we can’t park are parked on the sidewalk, pedestrians can’t walk normally. And there is no space for wheelchair because of these bicycle.The holders throw away illegally or leave their bicycles for a long time. It is sometimes a social problem in Japan.
Especially Japanese mothers usually ride on the bicycle for taking a child to and from kindergarten and going to buy some foods for dinner. Therefore, we named the bicycle as “Mama chari” in Japanese. Almost of Japanese including men use bicycles of Mama chari type.This is not for road racing.
Basic Mama chari is provided a basket in front of the bicycle for putting in shopping bags. We can add the optional components depending on the purpose. Another basket on the back for putting in shopping bags. A chair with handles for small child on the back. When the child rides on, he or she must put a helmet on. And in case of two children, another small chair can be provided in front of mother. (Now bicycle driver can't ride on with more than two people.)
These optional goods are very helpful for the mothers. Sometimes they ride on it at rainy day wearing raincoat with hood for their children. They ride on Mama chari almost everyday, windy days or rainy days. Japanese mothers have a lot of vitality. Today they are riding on Mama chari with a lot of shopping bags and their child. And Mama chari is necessary for Japanese life.

This site is catalog of Bridgestone, one of Japanese wheel maker.
http://www.bscycle.co.jp/root/catalog/city.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this link!

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