I just noticed this after reading it a couple of times. :lolol

Anybody noticed that ever since Kamen Rider 1 movie, Ichigo himself never appears again (not even Chou Super Hero Taisen, not that it matters), thus painting a mystery whether his Power Up form is a permanent upgrade or not.

In some ways Gaim did used their bikes quite occassionally, especially when they have other vehicles to utilize as well. As for Drive, I feel like that's what a Rider show needs to be: have the bike onscreen even if they are not using it for stunts. IDK maybe they want to save gas :lolol

All the more reason to make Ride Striker it's control!

Drive also had the bikes owned by its non-main Riders appear an awful lot. I can scarcely remember an episode where Chaser didn't show up on his bike; which is funny because I always found that ironic when it was very clearly designed for Mashin Chaser...

Regardless, I think what really helps Drive's case is that even if the car doesn't appear and doesn't get used quite that much, it's still integrated into the theme of the show. Drive is 100% based on cars in every single one of his forms; his tires are all shot out from the Tridoron; and his final form is literally him wearing the Tridoron. Even when it's not there (and, really, I could have done with a few more of those signature kicks...) its presence is always felt and it's always embedded into the show in a way no other Rider Machine since Kuuga's is. It's actually important and relevant to the show and the rider rather than just being a prerequisite somehow crammed into the gimmick toy.

What they ought to do one of these days is have the the bike be a sentient character and be the main character's most trusted partner. Granted Ex-Aid kinda did that but then they killed him off, which was uh, oh well.

A bit more on-topic for the thread, but it's taken me so long to figure out that Grease's signature pose is meant to be a direct opposite to Build's. They're both doing the L-shape with their thumb and index finger; but while Build holds his out to his side with his palm showing, Grease holds his in his opponent's direction with his knuckles showing. Oh, and he does it before his henshin while Build does his after!

https://i.imgur.com/YEE2pYh.png

Black and Black RX tried to pull that out of nowhere, and uh, it didn't quite work.

Anyway, on the topic of the bikes, correct me if I'm wrong here, as I've only seen two Neo-Heisei shows so far, but I also think that part of the problem(which I guess you could say is an extension of the merchandise cycle thing), is that bikes don't get upgrades anymore.

Like, the reason the bikes are part of the finishers for Ryuki and Wing Knight are because Survive Mode explicitly upgrades them, and while Kuuga never rode his bike in Ultimate Form, not only was it another way for Kuuga to be unique at the time, but he did still ride it when TryChaser got upgraded into BeatChaser when he was in almost all his other forms beforehand.

It helped, but it was hardly like Agito, Blade or Den-O eventually abandoned their bikes just because they didn't get cool new toys. It's really just to do with modern rider having a LOT of cool new toys to sell at any one time, and who cares about the stuff in Wave 1

Given how much more money the Tridoron likely cost compared to a bike it makes a lot of sense that it got so much screen time.

Makes me wonder where Tridoron (the actual car) is today...

Sometimes I wonder if the Taisen movies exist just so they could keep the engines on the Rider Machines running and not go out of commission :lol