Despite being a keen cyclist, charged with delivering this substantial feast, I’m pretty sure that within seconds of setting off, each and every dish would have been strewn all over the street. This fella, on the other hand, was bombing along not the least bit concerned by the weight, road signals and incredibly impressed bystanders.
DavidT says
Wow I’m impressed. It should be an event in the Tokyo Olympics! 😉
Lee says
Haha, it’d certainly be entertaining to watch!
YTSL says
His expression says “No big deal”. The rest of us disagree!
Lee says
It really does. As nonchalant as can be. Clearly something he’s been doing for a very long time indeed.
Tobias says
“Bombing along“ is now part of my vocabulary, thanks! 😀
Lee says
You are very welcome! Definitely an expression I like. Fits situations like this perfectly.
cdilla says
Lovely photograph. And nice to see a familar face. I’m sure I’ve seen this guy on TV (Japanology Plus probably) but I’m pretty sure he has passed in front of your lens before. If he is a different guy they surely share a bike and an expression 🙂 https://tinyurl.com/y4tsmc2o
I also came across a 1960s article reporting that the police said they would not enforce the new sticter traffic law that would effectively ban this sort of riding, with an eye-watering, for the time, £30 fine too.
They said, “To ride on a bicycle with piles of “soba” bowls on your shoulder is dangerous. It must be prohibited from the viewpoint of road traffic safety. But we will not place any stricter curb as they will lose more than half their customers”
Almost 50 years on and they are presumably still overlooking that particular law.
Lee says
Thanks. And very well remembered. I’d forgotten about that photo, but yeah, seems like the same fella, doesn’t it?
That’s fascinating. The cost of the fine back in the day, but perhaps even more so that the police chose to ignore it. Long may they continue to do so.
Linda says
Saw this last night and the post below this morning. apparently it’s the season to tweet about soba delivery by bike 🙂
https://soranews24.com/2019/08/19/old-japanese-photos-show-the-awesome-skill-of-soba-delivery-workers-in-the-showa-era/
Lee says
It clearly is!
Definitely worth the coverage as it’s genuinely amazing to see, but compared to current day practitioners, those fellas back in the day really were the true masters!
john says
I’d love to see him do hand signals (right hand style)! Not sure anyone bothers with them now?
On looking at these sober soba cyclists I started picking up on that rather that mechanical intro to Roxette (Dr Feelgood) .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPagtwMaGB8
Sadly Wilko’s version in Tokyo just doesn’t quite have that ‘approach from a distance’ effect.
Lee says
Now that really would be something!
Does match the images nicely. Maybe he has that playing in his head when heading out on a delivery.
cdilla says
Not very related, but the first live band I ever saw, of many hundreds, was Lew Lewis, the day after I started university. Some of Dr Feelgood were in the band, and the man himself was ligging in the bar. Whilst my ears had been properly schooled in Wilko’s work by Alan Freeman, I didn’t know him to look at until someone pointed him out. What was weird was that I’d seen him earlier in the day in a popular local discount department store called Woolco. Anyway, onto the tenuous link to the post, a few years later Lew was jailed for armed (fake gun) robbery, and his vehilcle of choice for his escape… a bicycle.
john says
What a strange way to be reminded! :O).
Lee says
I like how that photo and song brought back those memories, but what I like even more is that you saw WIlko in Woolco!
john says
A touch of the Cartier-Bresson in the timing; the central positioning, the sign on the right and the white line leading into the bottom corner. Neat!
Lee says
Thank you very much, those are incredibly kind words indeed!