Ambling around

I see bikes like this fairly regularly around Tokyo. As far as I can tell it's a TW200 with a lot of modifications to make it look as bare as possible, and then the swingarm has been changed to a longer one.
I've seen hotted up bikes in the US with long swingarms (stupid looking imho), dunno if this is anything to do with that. Only reason I can think of to have a long swingarm like this (apart from trying to look different) would be to help ...

I stopped by the Shinonome Ricoland today, my wife was picking up some frame sliders for the SV. Ricoland, standing for 'riders community land' is a chain of stores selling all kinds of stuff for bikes. They sell all kinds of clothing, boots, helmets, accessories (covers, locks, GPS gizmos, intercoms etc), commonly upgraded things (mufflers, suspension, brakes, lights etc), and of course consumable like ...

Ahh, the cub. These bikes are all over the place here. Not quite so common for pizza delivery (those 3 wheel 'bikes' are mostly used for that) but for anything else it's often a cub - mail, newspapers, ramen, sushi... this is one that I snapped on my way to get my lunch (no, not sushi) today. It's looking particularly rusty in the carry-rack area but still does the job.
Actually now that I think about it, it's odd that cubs are barely used ...

I bought a bike on yahoo auctions last week. This is the first time I have bought without seeing and test-riding first, so I hope it's a good deal. It should be alright though because valuation of vehicles is much fussier here than it is in NZ. Even small blemishes are often considered big issues, and the idea that some part of the vehicle would be missing or not working is a foreign concept. eg. in NZ if you are advertising a bike and the rev counter ...