Freewheeling Japan: Cycling the Back Streets

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Akihabara News Editor-in-Chief Michael Penn interviewed Brad Bennett, owner and founder of the Tokyo bike tour company Freewheeling Japan.

Originally from the Seattle area of the United States, he has been in Tokyo for 28 years. The first time Bennett visited Japan was in 1990, when he picked up a part time job for six months with a friend offering bike tours in the city. Bennett fell in love with the country and he flew home, sold all his belongings in the States, and bought a one-way ticket back to Tokyo.

Freewheeling differs from other tours of the capital city by offering a biking introduction to Tokyo for everyday people. The overarching theme of these tours is to show people the backstreets and local areas, to give them a sense of how and where the people of Tokyo live.

The company grew organically with Brad showing his friends on tours, but he decided to get serious and begin a company due to anticipation for the Olympics and increasing tourism. With Bennett’s twenty years of experience living in Tokyo, he has gained vast knowledge of the city from English newspapers, Japanese friends, and local governments. Bennett would purposefully get lost in order to discover the back roads and his way around the city.

Watch our interview below and learn more at the Freewheeling Japan website.

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