Shimano Bicycle Museum Review

禧玛诺自行车博物馆探访

A look at the Shimano Bike Museum with praise for its focus on bicycles over its own corporate history. For anyone in the Kansai area of Japan, perhaps visiting Kyoto or Osaka, this has a prodigious collections of machines and within a well-designed setting. 这是一篇关于禧玛诺（Shimano）自行车博物馆的探访，该馆因其将重心放在自行车本身而非企业历史而备受赞誉。对于身处日本关西地区（如造访京都或大阪）的游客来说，这里收藏了大量令人惊叹的机械杰作，且展馆设计十分精良。

The museum itself is striking, a modern building that’s glass and steel. To see pictures of it online is to imagine it might be Shimano’s head office in a prime location, and that there’s a museum inside. However it is all museum, and the surrounding area more ordinary. 博物馆建筑本身非常引人注目，是一座由玻璃和钢材构成的现代建筑。在网上看到它的照片时，你可能会以为这是位于黄金地段的禧玛诺总部，而博物馆只是其中的一部分。但事实上，整栋建筑都是博物馆，而周边地区则显得较为普通。

“In Japanese, we call a bicycle “jitensha,” which literally means “wheels rotated by oneself.” This means a bicycle is operated by the rider and that there are as many ways of enjoying cycling as there are riders.” This English text is from the welcome message written on the wall at the start of the museum tour. You might learn the word for bicycle here as you enter, by the time you leave the message of many ways to enjoy cycling will come through. The sign is of course in Japanese too and the museum is bilingual. “在日语中，我们将自行车称为‘jitensha’，字面意思是‘靠自己旋转的车轮’。这意味着自行车是由骑行者操控的，骑行乐趣的种类正如骑行者的人数一样多。”这段英文出现在博物馆参观入口处的墙上。你可能在进入时学会了这个词，而当你离开时，关于“享受骑行方式多样性”的理念定会深入人心。当然，墙上的标语也有日语版本，整座博物馆提供双语服务。

Head upstairs and you enter a large darkened room with a procession of bicycles under spotlights. These cover the chronology of the machine, from rudimentary hobby horses to the arrival of pedals, the chain, tires more evolution. This large space also doubles as an auditorium and an educational film is played at times that covers the history of the bicycle and the origins of cycle sport too, all within a wider societal context that touches on war, industrialisation and consumerism. 走上楼，你将进入一个宽敞昏暗的展厅，一排排自行车在聚光灯下依次排列。它们涵盖了自行车的发展史，从原始的“木马”（hobby horses）到踏板、链条、轮胎的出现，以及后续的各种演变。这个大空间同时也是一个礼堂，有时会播放教育短片，讲述自行车的发展史及自行车运动的起源，并将其置于战争、工业化和消费主义等更广阔的社会背景下进行探讨。

Then it’s into a bright white room where frosted glass lets in daylight and more spotlights highlight exhibits such as Freddy Maerten’s steel Flandria. You can get close to touch it – not that you would or should – but it’s not behind glass or roped off, just raised on a small stage. You can see the Ishiwata tubing decal and the Shimano Crane rear mech, the beginnings of Shimano in the pro peloton. All the other bikes are similarly accessible. 随后，你将进入一个明亮的白色展厅，磨砂玻璃引入了自然光，聚光灯照亮了诸如弗雷迪·马尔滕斯（Freddy Maerten）的钢架Flandria等展品。你可以近距离接触它们——虽然你不会也不应该去触碰——但它们并没有被玻璃罩住或用绳子围起来，只是被放置在一个小展台上。你可以清晰地看到Ishiwata管材的贴纸和禧玛诺Crane后拨，那是禧玛诺在职业车坛的起点。其他所有自行车也同样触手可及。

You can see bikes used at Paralympic games and notice the custom modifications up close. A Breezer, one of the first mountain bikes to go on sale, sits there and you can spot a Campagnolo headset and motorbike brake levers among the components on the “clunker”. As well as history there’s the humdrum. A Crescent bike in the yellow and blue of the Swedish postal service, complete with studded tires to show you can ride on ice, even with a heavy cargo. 你可以看到残奥会上使用过的自行车，并近距离观察其定制改装细节。一辆最早上市的山地车之一——Breezer就陈列在那里，你可以在这辆“老古董”的零件中发现Campagnolo碗组和摩托车刹车把手。除了历史，这里也有平凡的日常。一辆涂装为瑞典邮政黄蓝色的Crescent自行车，配备了防滑钉轮胎，展示了即使在载重情况下也能在冰面上骑行。

A very much used Cannondale is loaded with luggage, spare tires wrapped around the bags like boa constrictors, and all caked in dust, as if Tatsu Sakimoto had come in and parked it mid-way during his four year, 55,000km journey around the world. A Merida bike from the 2021 Olympics road race is there, complete with scratches galore and crash dents. The event feels like yesterday but the bike already looks ancient. Plenty of kids bikes feature too, shopping bikes and more. Everyone ought to recognise something they’ve ridden. 一辆饱经风霜的Cannondale自行车装满了行李，备用轮胎像蟒蛇一样缠绕在包上，车身布满灰尘，仿佛崎本达（Tatsu Sakimoto）在历时四年、环球骑行55,000公里的途中刚刚停下休息。旁边还有一辆2021年奥运会公路赛的Merida战车，上面布满了划痕和碰撞凹痕。那场赛事仿佛就在昨天，但车子看起来已经历尽沧桑。馆内还展出了许多儿童自行车、买菜车等。每个人都能在这里找到自己曾经骑过的车型。

Stands explores materials science with a comparison of steel, aluminium and titanium tubing and the chance to feel the weight of these metals yourself. Another lets you pick up racing bike to feel how light it is. But among all this educational material is the simple message that bikes can do plenty. 展台通过对比钢、铝和钛合金管材来探索材料科学，你甚至可以亲自感受这些金属的重量。另一个展台则让你拿起赛车，感受它的轻盈。但在所有这些教育素材背后，传递的是一个简单的信息：自行车能做的事情远比你想象的多。

It’s actually hard to find much about Shimano and its origins here. There’s a mention that gun blacksmiths in Sakai started repairing imported bikes in the late 19th century and soon began manufacture. For what it’s worth the city Sakai has long been a big steel production area, first for swords and then into other goods including guns and cutlery. It’s here that Shimano started too but it’s only later and in passing that you come across a small item that was Shimano’s first product: a freewheel. 事实上，在这里很难找到太多关于禧玛诺及其起源的内容。馆内提到，19世纪末，堺市的枪械铁匠开始修理进口自行车，并很快开始了制造。值得一提的是，堺市长期以来一直是重要的钢铁生产基地，最初生产刀剑，后来转向枪支和餐具等其他产品。禧玛诺也是在这里起步的，但直到参观后期，你才会偶然发现一件小展品——禧玛诺的第一款产品：飞轮。

Shozaburo Shimano founded the company to make these and one thing led to another. Including fishing freewheels and gearing can be applied inside reels and today one quarter of Shimano’s revenue coming from fishing tackle, about a billion Euros, comes from fishing but there’s not a rod nor reel in sight. Still the museum is visibly the Shimano museum in other ways. 岛野庄三郎（Shozaburo Shimano）创立公司正是为了制造飞轮，随后业务不断扩展。飞轮和齿轮技术后来被应用到渔线轮中，如今禧玛诺四分之一的收入（约10亿欧元）来自渔具，但馆内却看不到任何鱼竿或渔线轮。尽管如此，这座博物馆在其他方面依然显露出“禧玛诺”的印记。

There’s excellent stand where a racing bike has been broken into pieces, apparently there are 3,200 parts in one bike if you really count every chain pin, bolt and electronic circuit component. Of course it’s a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset in the display. Good luck finding SRAM or Campagnolo but there are a few examples, even a Mavic rear mech. 馆内有一个很棒的展台，将一辆赛车拆解成了零件。如果你仔细清点每一个链条销、螺栓和电子电路元件，一辆自行车竟然有3,200个零件。当然，展出的是禧玛诺Dura-Ace套件。想在这里找到SRAM或Campagnolo并不容易，但确实有少量展品，甚至还有一个Mavic后拨。

The top floor of the museum includes also a set of display cases for the flagship Dura-Ace and XTR groups starting with the 1973 version, then 1984, 1996, 2004, 2012, 2016, 2021, complete with four empty displays waiting to house 2027 and the rest of what the future brings. There’s also a library and behind this, a locked archive for researchers. This is valuable, the museum might house one of each type of bike but here the shelves are full of books, brochures and catalogues. A treasure of primary source material. This section marks the end of the tour but you’re free to wander rather than guided to a gift store and the exit. 博物馆顶层设有旗舰级Dura-Ace和XTR套件的展示柜，从1973年版本开始，依次是1984、1996、2004、2012、2016、2021年版本，并预留了四个空位，等待着2027年及未来的新品。此外还有一个图书馆，后面是供研究人员使用的封闭式档案馆。这非常珍贵，博物馆可能只收藏了每种自行车的一辆，但这里的书架上摆满了书籍、手册和目录，是原始资料的宝库。这一区域标志着参观的结束，但你无需被引导至礼品店或出口，可以自由漫步。

The Verdict: An enjoyable celebration of the bicycle and a good visual history of the evolution of machines. This might be the Shimano Bicycle Museum, and it is full of Shimano componentry, but this is firmly a bicycle museum with very little about corporate history and no hard sell either. If you want a Shimano t-shirt or some components you won’t find them here. It covers the history of bicycles and puts the machine first, all sorts sit under spotlights and pleasantly within reach if you want to look at any details up close, from the crinkled cast iron of early bikes to the exploded disassembly of a modern race bike down to the last component. 结论：这是一场令人愉悦的自行车盛宴，也是一部精彩的机械演变视觉史。这虽然是禧玛诺自行车博物馆，且充满了禧玛诺的零部件，但它本质上是一座自行车博物馆，几乎没有企业宣传，也没有强行推销。如果你想要一件禧玛诺T恤或某些零件，这里是买不到的。它涵盖了自行车历史，并将机械本身放在首位。各种自行车在聚光灯下陈列，如果你想近距离观察细节，它们触手可及——从早期自行车褶皱的铸铁件，到现代赛车拆解到最后一个零件的爆炸图，应有尽有。