Looking back, I would have loved to have had a Mama-San (i think that's the correct word ) bike to get groceries n stuff with. We lived a few km from a train station, grocery shops etc & just walked wherever. We also lived on the Tokaido line(Tokyo-Yokohama-Hiratsuka-Chigasaki-Fujisawa-Tsujido etc line) and were spoilt for shop choices around us.

I never really saw men on bikes when we lived there, it was mainly women with her sprockets n groceries.