Posted by SI Tokyo Studio in Uncategorized
Getting your custom ride registered in Japan (shakken) presents a unique series of challenges. In a country with automotive manufacture and vehicle ‘consumption’ as a corner stone of its financial stability, the difference in level of difficulty in registering an up to five year old bike versus a 20 plus year old bike (with modifications) is vast, with it often appearing as being in everyone’s best interests but your own to have your aging machine off the road so you’ll go and line up for shiny new Honda.
With a burgeoning auto maintenance industry to also support, the urban myth going around is that it is all just far too complicated for Joe Public to handle for themselves, seeing most people pay the equivalent of US$600 dollars or more for having someone else go stand in line and run the gauntlet to register anything over 250cc.
To muddy the waters even more is Japan’s heightened view that bureaucratic time wasting equals thoroughness, one that would do any government clerk the world over proud, resulting in a complex combination of largely benign but mandatory paperwork. In addition, at the Tokyo Samezu registration center they know important rider fitness is to on-bike performance and have kindly spread the process out over four buildings and 26000 square meters of land, Speedtractor forgot the stepometer on this last visit but suffice to say there was enough sweaty trekking over hot bitumen to see us go home a few kilos lighter for our troubles.
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