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Join the conversation
PollDonDon MorMortton
on posposes a tt hhis
is aapa
par ttmen t inin Tokyo. GIANNI SIMONEDon Morton raises a mug to bicycles andcold beerTokyo club cycles and chugs in hot pursuit ofmediocrity
By GIANNI SIMONE
Special to The Japan Times

Film buffs may know American Don Morton for the reviews he writes
for Metropolis magazine. During a recent interview in his apartment,
though, he mostly talked about bicycles. In fact the 67-year-old
native of San Francisco is the founder of the Tokyo-based Half-Fast
cycling club.
Morton shares his living
space with two
bicycles. "The orange
one lives in the genkan(entrance)," he sayscasually, as if talking
about a person, "while
this one takes pride ofplace in the livingroom," he adds while
patting his black Trek
as if it was a prizedthoroughbred.
M eem b e r s o f tth ee HHa l ff - FFaasst c yyc lli n g ccl uub eennjjo
oyy t h e c h e r r yMorton's road bikes are blossoms du rin g on
onee of tth eir
eir c ycyclin gg ttou
ours in Tokyo
Tokyo tthhis
iss p r i n g . COURTESY OF HALF-FAST CYCLING CLUBneither persons noranimals, but they certainly are among his best friends. The 27-speed,carbon-fiber Trek cost around ¥300,000 and it goes very fast. That's
the one he uses for his club outings.
The orange one cost about ¥60,000. "It carries a lot of baggage andgets me around. It's my faithful workhorse," he adds with a grin.
Morton has been a bicycle enthusiast since the mid-1970s. "Until thenI was on the edge," he says. "I'd had many bikes, starting with the red

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Schwinn my dad gave me when I was 7 or 8, but I wasn't entirely intoit. Then, when I got out of the military in 1971 after coming backfrom Vietnam, I decided to bicycle around Europe with my girlfriend
and we took it very seriously. We even took a weekly class on bike
repair. We saved money for more than one year and then we went on
a 14-month tour of Europe."
Five years later Morton started a solo round-the-world tour. He leftfrom San Francisco and headed north to Alaska. Then he flew to HongKong.
"I cycled around Southeast Asia and went as far as India, but once
there I ran out of money. So I sold my cameras and other stuff andcame back to Tokyo, planning to work for six months, earn a quick
buck and resume my journey. That was in March 1981.
"I had already spent one year and a half in Japan during the Vietnam
War, and I found the place too expensive so I didn't want to stay. But
once here I met a girl and soon after I was offered the editorial job at
the just-born Tokyo Journal, so I ended up staying for good. For metrue freedom is being able to change your mind, and anyway I had
nothing to prove cycling-wise."This of course didn't mean the end of Morton's love for cycling as hebegan exploring the city on two wheels. "People move to Tokyo andwant to ride around town, but they feel intimidated because it looks alittle scary. It's not, actually. Tokyo is arguably the only megacity inthe world where you can bicycle with any degree of safety andawareness. Here the taxi drivers do not try to hit you. If you arecareful you can get around town quite easily."
According to Morton, the best strategy to tackle any sort of traffic is
to go as fast as you can.
"Not slowly on the side. You have to get out in the lane and go withthe flow. In Tokyo it's very easy. You will actually pass many cars
because you go faster. Your biggest danger is automatic taxi doors.
That's where most accidents happen."
In 2003, Metropolis asked Morton to write about his rides. "Iintroduced some of my favorite routes, and at the end of the article I
wrote something like 'call me up and let's meet at a certain place next
weekend and we will ride together.' A bunch of people showed up. So I
kept putting an ad in Metropolis, and the rest is history."
Half-Fast might be a bicycle club, but cycling per se is not Morton'sgoal. "We are not an extremist group. There are clubs out there
whose members train for races or for triathlon. Take, for example, theTokyo Cycling Club. They don't do anything less than 100 km. We are
not like that."
Morton never fails to make people notice that his club's name, HalfFast, is also a pun. "You see, it also sounds like "half-assed," whichmeans mediocre. I'm determined to preserve the mediocrity because
after all there are many people who like to cycle around Tokyo but
don't want to go 100 or 200 km. This does not mean we are notathletes. We are noncompetitive athletes — who love beer."Now, what about the beer? "We call ourselves a bicycle club because
cycling is what we do, but in a sense we are more like a social club; agroup of regulars at a bar except the bar is always in a different place
every week and the regulars are a little more fit because they have tocycle 30 to 50 km to get there."
The sense of what Morton and friends do is clearly spelled around thecollar of their colorful club jerseys — "Cervicia et Birote," Latin for"beer and bicycles" ("We actually made up the bike bit . . . they
hadn't been invented when Latin was spoken") — and in their funny
and informative website: "Q: Why do you bicycle from beer machine
to beer machine? A: Because it's faster than walking.""What's wrong with that anyway?" Morton asks. "Riding 50 km anddrinking three beers is better than sitting on a couch and drinking
three beers. We earn them!"

Unlike some other clubs, Half-Fast is a pretty loose bunch of people
with a core of regulars and others who join once in a while. "There areother sports clubs where you have presidents, and elections, and theyare always fighting! At Half-Fast we don't have these problems. I'm
the dictator for life, period," Morton says with a wink, "andeverybody's happy with that! We don't have any rules, actually, apartfrom wearing a helmet and bringing a spare tube to fix your bike."
Jokes aside, members are encouraged to become leaders and come up
with different ride ideas.
"They research the courses and how to reach the starting point; findwhere the beer machines are; and lead the ride, which means making
sure that everybody is equipped and healthy and ready to go, andthat nobody gets left behind — because it's a terrible thing when you
lose a rider," Morton adds with roaring laughter.
The club organizes different rides for different people. There are 30to 40-km beginner rides to Haneda and Odaiba; 60- to 80-km medium
level rides like the ones along the Tama and Arakawa rivers; and longer
rides all the way up to 150 km. Beginner rides are on Saturdays andattract between six and 25 people, and you don't have to sign up inorder to join. Just check their website for dates and other details andshow up on time — usually 11 to 11:20 a.m. in Azabu.
"We are civilized, you know. Why don't we start at 8 o'clock? Because
most of our members have just finished throwing up at that time!"
After all these years, Morton is still very much in love with bicycles.
"The road bike is one of the best inventions of the 20th century,
that's for sure. One of the things I like about cycling is, you can take itinto your old age. That's not something you can do with many othersports. Even running will ruin your knees after a while. But cycling isrotary; it's fast and it's fun. I started when I was in my 20s, havecycled through 24 countries, and now I'm 67 and I'm planning mynext 40-km ride this weekend. You can be happier and healthier if you
take up cycling."
Then of course there is the social element. "Lifelong friendships havebeen made at Half-Fast. A couple even got married after meeting at
one of our rides! Among other things, we have social meetings at thePink Cow in Shibuya on the second Wednesday of every month. Theyare like parties: We bring a laptop, show pictures of our recent
bicycles trips, and have fun. It's very laid-back and open toeverybody."

For more information on Half-Fast and how to buy their club jerseys,
go to halffastcycling.com
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