How to say ‘ride’ as in bicycle?

Hi,

I'm struggling to work out how to say "I will ride my my bicycle" and "I want to ride my bicycle". The various exercise books I have don't seem to cover 'riding' and my dictionary seems to relate riding only to horses. Can someone please type these for me in either romaji or hiragana?

Also, is a bicycle kust a bicycle in Japanese or are there ways of differentiating between a road bike (racer) and a mountain bike?

Cheers

Phil

I think you are trying to translate too literally; whereas English has a special verb for bicycles, Japanese uses the verb 'suru' which usually gets translated as 'to do'. I think what you are looking for is 'jitensha o suru' and 'jitensha o shitai'

"I will ride my my bicycle"
Watashi wa jitensha ni noru.

"I will ride a horse"
Watashi wa uma ni noru.

"I will ride a train"
Watashi wa densha ni noru.

"I want to ride my my bicycle"
Watashi wa jitensha ni noritai.

If you want to say various types of bikes.
put the type, then no, then bike.

ie. yama no jitensha
or michi no jitensha

There are 4 basic ways of saying doing - for now riding, it is the simplest - usually with itte (doing) or imasu on the end or in the sentence denotes the simpler present. For riding it would be specifically, with noru does must refer to the horse. ..uma ni wa norenai (for not). Japanese is very specific. No just riding, either doing it well, or not, with the important endings to convey time & action.

One must mention a horse or vehicle, with a thinking approach to everything.

While others versions of actions with time are longer - conveying past, ..mashita/deshita (at the end), not with past tense, imasen deshita (did not) gets a bit complicated.

A bit busy at the moment to think this through,

Just remember uma is horse, so include it. jitensha is bisycle, so include it. And think about adding extra endings if it is past or negative such as nai or ikimasen, ikimashita, and with the verb in front, either for doing or for riding.

Rhubarb, I think you are making this a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

I will ride my bicycle:

Jitensha ni noru/ norimasu

I want to ride my bicycle:

Jitensha ni noritai

The same verb is used to mean ride with both bikes and horses- we also use the same verb for both in English, right? So that's not unusual.

"Yama no jitensha" is too literal- usually in Japan mountain bike is "maunten baiku" (マウンテン　バイク)- just "mountain bike" in katakana.

The usual bikes in cities and towns are "mama chari"- kind of old-fashioned looking bikes with no gears that you see mothers riding to go to the supermarket or pick up their children from school. Actually almost everyone rides them, but they are still called "mama chari".

Those answers have really helped. I was always under the impression that Japanese is very vague, so in turn quite simple and flexible. I also should have guessed that 'mountain bike' would be katakana. I assume 'racing bike' will be too? Are racing bikes (ala Tour de France style) popular in Japan?