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.

Showing posts with label Tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tools. Show all posts

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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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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Saturday, 17 June 2017

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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