09/01/2026
Why do we live Japanese city bikes? These single speeds, more popularly known as Mamacharis, have a specific ratio which we love to term as a "walking" ratio. Simply put, it's an "easy spinning" single gear set-up that requires roughly as much effort as walking, which makes for a very comfortable ride on flats and is not too hard to pedal uphill. More info on this link:
What is the actual gear ratio of a mamachari(Japanese city bike) single? | yajinblog
Since the bike makers (Bridgestone, Miyata, Maruishi) don’t list gear ratios on their websites, I actually looked up the gear ratios of mama-chari singles (in the 10,000 to 20,000 yen range) to see what they were. I counted the number of teeth of front and rear gears at a bicycle shop. Only three ...