This blog is about travelling through Japan on a bicycle. Initially on a foldable bicycle (Brompton) and more recently mostly by road bike (Spezialized)... but also by train, ferry, plane, bus or any other transport, if sea, weather, mountains or the like come between me and my desire to ride.
I have tried to summarise information that could be potentially helpful also for other bicycle travellers through Japan, such as list of bicycle roads, helpful web pages etc.

Friday, 30 June 2017

Planning - best web pages for routes

Here some notes on those web pages I have found most helpful for tour planning. See also this blog post about cycling roads.

Worldwide:

 Japan everywhere: 

Long distant routes:
Shizuoka
Toyama
Kansai:
Fukui
Shimane
Shikoku
Hiroshima
Yamaguchi


Practical information
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Aomori - possible routes (including Hakodate in Hokkaido)

Route Oma - Osorezan - Hachinohe ⇒ 4 days, 182 km
  • Day 3 & 4: Osorezan to Hachinohe, 136 km
    • See Garmin AOM Osorezan - Hachinohe
    • Attractions:
      • Mutsu Bay, Pacific & Lakes
    • Access: Shinkansen from Hachinohe, also a train arrives until Mutsu, at the foot of Osorezan. 

Route along the Japanese Sea and the Gono Line from Goshogawara to Lake Jusanko and then down the coast to Noshiro ⇒ 3 days, 172 km (or less, as along the entire coast line one can hop on the Gono train line)






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Hokkaido - possible routes

Route Wakkanai - Rumoi ⇒ 4 days, 180 km
  • Flight to Wakkanai
  • Ride bicycle to Rumoi, 180 km, flat, along the coast
  • Accommodation:
    • Hotels available in Teshio (70 km, totally flat) , Shosanbetsu (40 km, some up and down), Tomamae (30 km, up and down), Rumoi (40 km, flat)
    • Toho yado are specially recommended. There are 4 along this route. 
  • Attractions: Along the sea
  • Train from Rumoi to Sapporo (2:30 h)
    • If instead one wants to continue to Sapporo from Fukagawa to Sunagawa there is a cycle road and then again one from Ishikari River along Toyohira River to Sapporo.
Here the link to the actual ride from Wakkanai to Rumoi. It took 4.5 days.


 Route Sapporo - Furano ⇒ 2 days, 115 km
  • Ride bicycle from Sapporo through Takikawa to Furano
    • See Garmin HOK Sapporo - Furano
      • Note cycle road along Toyohira River out of Sapporo
    • Flat until Akabira (90 km from Sapporo), then slightly rising until a hight of about 120 m
    • Over the montain by train
      • Train from Nokana to Furano (20 min)
  • Accommodation:
    • Many hotels available until Takikawa and also some in Furano
  • Attractions: 

Route Furano - Asahikawa ⇒ 1 - 2 days, 60 km
  • Ride bicycle from Furano through Biei to Asahikawa
  • Accommodation: 
    • Furano, Biei, Asahikawa
  • Attractions:

Route Chitose Airport - Sapporo - Otaru ⇒ 1 + 1 day, 60 km bicycle + train
  • Flight to Chitose
  • Ride bicycle from Chitose to Sapporo, through Kaitaku open air museum and then maybe by train from Sapporo to Otaru
    • Note Shiroshi cycling road from Sapporo to Kitahiroshima (see also pictures below)
    • See Garmin HOK Chitose - Sapporo 
      • 60 km, flat, but once up to 100 m
    • See Garmin HOK Sapporo - Otaru
      • 35 km, from 0 m to 100 m , plus one spike at 200 m, but road could potentially quite full of traffic and there are no alternatives
      • Maybe better to take a train, which goes right on the seaside, ca 50 min
  • Accomodation
    • Sapporo and Otaru
  • Attractions:
I did ride a part of the Sapporo - Kitahiroshima bicycle lane. You can find the description of the ride here, and below the images of the maps:

Entire map from Sapporo to Atsubetsu Minami Green Space (see below for detailed pictures)

Sapporo to Minoru Park

Minoru Park to Sapporo Shindo

Sapporo Shindo to Atsubetsu Minami Green Space






Route Chitose - Shikotsu Lake and back  ⇒ 1 - 2 days, 80 km (total) bicycle 

 Special accommodation in Hokkaido:

Alternative routes
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Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Overview Map

Here an overview map of the planned journey, due to limitations of layers in Google maps, divided in a Northern ...



... a Western ... :




...  a Shikoku ...:




... and a Kyushu part:




This is only an overview, the streets are not accurately plotted, but just what Google sensei did choose. More detailed plotted routes are available in the planning notes, linked below and the actual route will be in the summary of the ride.

On the above maps I have added:
  • in green major sightseeing spots that I hope to visit
  • in yellow places that seem interesting, but I am yet unsure if I will have time to visit
  • in pink those places that seem very interesting, but not with a bicycle. At least for me...
    • But there is a reason why this blog is called "Japan by bike (train, bus, ship and plane)
If you are interested to see, what of the above plan has been actually carried out, have a look in the  "Rides" section. Or for overview, here the links to the summaries of some regions:


 Planning notes on each section of the travel can be found in separate blog posts, see links to them below or use the drop down in "Plan". However blog posts to each region, including actual travel can be found through the labels or the drop down in "Rides".

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Monday, 19 June 2017

How to find a nice route

So far essentially I have been using the following resources to plan my bicycle tours:
  1. Find a river in Google maps and check if it seems to have a small road running alongside. 
  2. Surf around the internet and try to find an actual bicycle road, described by someone else already. In many cases this will be again along a river. But there are some others, like Tsukuba Rin Rin Road, the cycle lane heading West from Enoshima or the ones the MLIT published on their web page. 
  3. Check out the routes in the Jitensha Sanpo (自転車散歩) series of books. You need to be able to read some Japanese, but they have maps, elevation profiles and pictures, so many things are quite self-explanatory. 
  4. Well, and since I have my little Garmin, I also just simply check out on Google maps a location that would possibly interest me (and be flat enough for me to handle) and see what Garmin comes up as a route. I haven't yet found a way to let my Garmin know that I prefer the really small streets. So it always goes for the bigger ones, so I then manually drag the route over to smaller ones. Sometimes this however makes that I end up in non asphalted streets, which isn't good either and ofter a reason to change the route along the way. 
  5. Or use Komoot for the same purpose. Komoot is definitely coming up with better routes, however it doesn't come for free. (I haven't used komoot at all during my 2 months trip through Japan, as I only discovered it later in the Netherlands and really only started using it in 2019).
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Sunday, 18 June 2017

Bicycle Roads in Japan

I really only know about Tokyo and surroundings, but at least here, the best places where to find cycling roads are rivers. Rivers in Japan are practically all heavily built up (supposedly with the exception of Shimanto gawa in Shikoku), with dikes and the like, but this also means that there is often a small asphalted road on top of the dike. Which is used by bicycles, pedestrians ..., but not cars and motorcycles.

Around Tokyo at least the following rivers have bicycle lanes. Some of them easier to navigate some of them less so, simply because they have a lot of crossing roads where one needs to get off or wind through bollards every few hundred meters. But still they are nice and quiet roads.

In Tokyo:
  • Kanda-gawa (at least from around Waseda University out through Shinjuku and on to Kichijoji). Ending in the nice park in Kichijoji
    • Ride to Kichijoji
    • From there one can then also continue on the cycle roads described below: Tamagawa Josui canal and Sayama / Tama lake
  • Zenpukuji River (this splits off the cycle lane along Kanda-gawa somewhat after Shinjuku and goes nearly parallel to the Kanda-gawa river, through some really nice parks along the river, up to a an other very nice park with a small lake, Zenpukuji park. At some point in between there is no longer a lane along the river, but coming to the final park really repays for it. 
  • Meguro-gawa (approx. from Shibuya down to Shinagawa)
  • No gawa (starting on Tamagawa at Futakotamagawa and going up to Kokubunji)
    • If you can, stop at the onsen in Chofu, one of the nicest in Tokyo
  • Arakawa (very long from approximately Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture down to the sea, a bit boring in Tokyo area, more like a bicycle highway)
  • Edogawa (also very long and even more to the east than Arakawa cycling road)
  • Tokyo Rivers

 Outside of Tokyo to the West (Kanagawa / Tokyo):

  • Tamagawa (quite long from the sea in Kawazaki up to nearly Tachikawa)
  • Tsurumi river (from somewhere beyond Tsurukawa - just have a look at Google maps, it trails out at some point in the middle of nowhere of Machida - down to the sea in Yokohama. It actually goes right through Shin-Yokohama)
  • Sakai river (from about Aihara down to the sea at Enoshima, quite a long ride).
  • Sagami river (parallel to the East to Sakai river. It is also okay, but I prefer Sakai river. I think the river is just nicer as it is less built up, and there are also less industrial plants)
  • Along the beach from Enoshima in direction Odawara. Actually there is a real cycle lane right on the beach, for maybe about 10 - 15 km. Afterwards on to Odawara there is only the normal street, with quite some traffic. But the part right on the beach, which starts right in Enoshima, is very nice.
  • Sakawa river in Odawara, and one can also make a round and come back to Odawara along the Kari river.

Outside of Tokyo to the North (Tokyo):

  • Tamagawa Josui canal. This is a canal that runs from Tamagawa - approximately from Tachikawa - to Kichijoiji). Technically speaking there isn't a cycling road, but rather on one side of the canal a very quiet neighbourhood road. While on the other side there is road number 7. It can also be nicely combined with the ride along Kanda-gawa (see above) or the ride out to Sayama / Tama lake (see below). It's also nicely in the shadows of big trees for most of the ride. 
  • Kichijoiji Sayama /Tama lake. A long cycling road starting a little bit after Kichijoji, just north of the Edo Tatemono Museum park and running all the way up to Tama and Sayama lake, partially in Saitama. 
  • Minami Asa river (from Takao to Hachioji), where one can link on to the Tamagawa route described above

Outside of Tokyo to the East (Ibaraki, Chiba):
  • Tone gawa (aparently one could start in Gunma prefecture and ride down to the sea. I think a real cycling road is only from about Sekiyado down to the pacific, but that is still quite a long track)
    • Also some rivers flowing into Tone gawa have their own cycling roads, like for example Kinu river, flowing into Tone gawa at Moriya
  • Tsukuba rin rin road (actually not along a river but on an out of use rail way track. From Iwase to the Kasumigaura lake. From there one can link up to a cycle road around the lake)
  • Around the Kasumigaura Lake (this could also be easily linked with the Tone river

These are just a few I know about. But remember, in general a river is a good bet for a cycle road. 

By the way, in case you wondered "gawa" or also "kawa" 川 in Japanese means river.
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Night Pedal Cruising - June 2017

Tonight some Night Pedal Cruising in Tokyo with the team: http://nightpedalcruising.com/

Not very long tonight: Aoyama - Tokyo Palace - Tokyo Station - Shibakoen. We were also not as many as in other occasions and no one wanted to go for dinner afterwards, so back home early. At least some time to test more this blog ;-)

And here the video:






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Location: Tokyo, Japan

Saturday, 17 June 2017

Navigation

In  order to use  the Garmin device for navigation, sometimes one needs the coordinates of a place. It is surprisingly difficult to find coordinates Google maps. But doable.

  1. Go to Google maps and drop a pin on the place where you want to go.
  2. This will show you a lengthy number at the bottom of Google maps.
  3. Now surprisingly that number are NOT the coordinates that you need to enter into Garmin.
  4. Instead type in those numbers in Google maps for searching the location.
  5. Which will then finally give you the actual coordinates of the place in Google maps at the bottom of the screen.
  6. Now go to your Garmin in the "Where to?" menu, select "search" and "coordinates", and then enter your coordinates from the above screen in Google maps. Press ok and "ride" and your little Garmin will search for a way how to go to that place.
Not easy and straightforward, but doable. I guess there are other much better ways how to do it out there, but that's what I found. And most importantly, it works!



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The plan

Having a plan is always good...

So what's the plan?
Traveling across Japan from North (Hokkaido) to South (Kyushu ? Okinawa ?) on my bicycle. But without any stress. If there is a mountain in the way, to grab it and hop on a train / bus / rental car and get on. If weather gets bad for a considerable number of days, hop on a train / ferry / plane and continue traveling elsewhere in Japan. Japan is long, so there should always be parts where weather is fine. I hope.

  • Attitude: just see what happens. No stress. 
  • Sport factor: riding a bike is about getting from A to B and to enjoy all the parts in between.
  • Bicycle: my beloved Brompton (also my only bicycle).
  • Bicycle repair: no idea. If I get stuck, just hope for the next bicycle repairman
  • Travel factor: this is about traveling, sightseeing, enjoying the small & big sights of Japan. This is not about achieving distance / elevation / speed on the bike
  • Luggage: Trying to keep it minimal. No backpack (hate those), just the Brompton T-bag.
  • Accommodation: No camping! Hotel, Minshuku, Airbnb...

Start in September for about 2 - 3 months, the season with the best weather in Japan (per my experience).



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Ride to Sayama Lake

Last weekend I went to Sayama Lake, a lake between Tokyo and Saitama prefecture. A wonderful cycling road leads to it, starting not too far from Kichijoji train station.



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Location: Kichijoji, Tokyo, Japan
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