*This [Thoughts] updates every morning at 8 a.m.
Good morning to all of you in the thick of middle age.
The greatest mystery of the 20th century? Ueno Motorcycle Street.
If you’ve been riding motorcycles, you’ve probably visited it at least once. A street of dreams and hope for motorcycles.
The aggressive sales approach was also charming in its own way, I think… Nostalgic~(*’ω’*)
Back in the day, motorcycle mass-market retailers weren’t really established, and in Tokyo, if you went to Ueno, it felt like you could get all the motorcycle parts you needed. *Though I wasn’t that knowledgeable back then either…
When buying a helmet, the variety was really abundant, and the price could differ by several thousand yen between neighboring shops… That happened too. As a high school student, a difference of 500 or 1,000 yen was really significant.
I’d agonize over which shop to buy an Arai helmet from.
Back then, a group called Korin (光輪) was operating on a large scale throughout the motorcycle street.
The selection was extremely abundant, and looking at the display cases was exciting.
They really sold all kinds of parts.
The aggressive solicitation from nearby motorcycle shops was intense, as I recall.
You might think, “Sell a motorcycle through solicitation?” That seems impossible… but basically, people who come to look at motorcycle frames are prospective buyers, so there’s a real chance.
The key for salespeople was perhaps how much excitement, dreams, and hope they could inspire in customers about the bikes currently lined up.
With used vehicles, registration and setup fees, custom accessories, and loan financing (interest rates were crazy high back then), a single sale could bring in several hundred thousand yen. In a way, it might have been the golden age of motorcycles.
About 20 years ago, I was still surprised to see a Suzuki production racer RGB500 being sold there.
