gauvins

Title says it all, I suppose. Emphasis on touring, i.e. 60-80k/day, ideally from/to international airports. We plan to camp, but have nothing against the occasional roof.

Current very sketchy plan would be to roll out of Narita and ride south west to fly out of Kyoto.

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Most guides assume that you travel by car, or bus/train. If you have general suggestions on how to plan a bike tour, feel free to share.

Machka 

For 2 weeks ... I'd suggest Hokkaido. Perhaps cycling around the perimeter of the island.

Type 'hokkaido cycling' into Google and have a look.

azza_333

Hokkaido is a great place for touring, although I wouldn't sugest it for a spring tour, unless you like freezing cold wind, and snow.

For just 2 weeks I would recommend Tokyo > Fuji 5 Lakes > Izu Peninsula > Nagoya > Kyoto > Nara > Osaka.

gauvins

Just purchased plane tickets. So we have to come up with some kind of itinerary

Three questions : (1) is there some kind of route planner tool for Japan? (I am familiar with the Length of Japan site)

(2) we land at Narita early PM after a loong (18hrs) flight. Option 1 is to book lodging not too far from the airport for the first night. Option 2 is to pedal right away 70kms to Tokyo proper and spend 2 days there. Option 3 is to reach Kobe or Osaka by train, spend a couple of days there before riding back to Narita over the couple of weeks that we have. Suggestions?

(3) As of today, I'd be inclined to start by the Kyoto-Gifu route, end by the Fuji river - Tokyo route and improvise a connector between Gifu and Fuji River. As this will be our first trip to Japan, I have no idea if this makes sense or not. Feel free to educate me.

azza_333

1) If you’re talking about creating a route. I can’t really help out that much, all I do is plan a rough route, made up of a list of things I want to visit, and in the order I want to visit them, I don’t really plan specific roads or anything like that. To mark all the sites I want to see I do use Garmin Base Camp, since my GPS is a Garmin. I guess you could use that to plan your route, but I have found that even loaded with the same maps, the GPS, and the PC Software, will generate slightly different routes.

2) It’s all up to you what you want. Just a piece of advice, don’t ride your bike around Tokyo to see all the sights, just leave your bike at the hotel and take the train, so parking won’t be an issue, as, I am guessing you can’t read Kanji. Cops have been known to remove bikes that are parked in the wrong spot, even though many Japanese themselves park in the wrong spots, they don’t seem to care to much out their <$100 bikes.

3) Yeah that route makes sense I guess.

gauvins

Two questions for now:

1) looks like we need bike bags to take our bikes on trains. Not entirely clear to me if this is a standard and mandatory type of bag, or if soft flight bags do qualify? (this is what we use)

2) I've been able to find a list of campsites. It looks as if most campings *require* advanced reservations, for which we are only provided with a phone number... What happens if we just show up?

azza_333

1) It will depend on what your traveling on and when your traveling. If its during peak times, one of the JR employees on the platform will stop you taking your bike on the train, and tell you to wait a couple hours until the crowds die down a bit. Outside of peak hour times I can't see any issue with your bike being taken on board in either the Rinko bag or your soft flight bag. If you are planning to take a Shinkansen, I know they are a lot more strict on luggage, but I think you still should be able to take either the Rinko or Soft flight bag on board, but don't get upset if they tell you the soft flight bag is not good enough.

To be honest as long as you are not Asian (I'm not being racist, its just that if you look Asian, they will assume you are Japanese, I have experienced this with one of my Vietnamese friends that travelled to Japan with me) They will let you get away with breaking a lot of rules, simply due to the fact that they don't want to embarrass themselves by trying to speak in English to you to explain what your doing wrong.

2) I have been to Japan a couple of dozen times now, but I have only stayed at camp sites a few times, on only one of those occasions did I show up without booking ahead. We arrived at 7pm so the office was already shut for the day, the campsite was run by the prefecture, so we didn't feel bad about just pitching our tent without booking or paying, it also helped that the campsite was almost empty. Then in the morning the office wasn't opening until 9am, so we just slipped what we guessed it cost with a note under the door and left.

manapua_man

1- you could get away with just wrapping the thing in a tarp if you have to. The main thing is that it completely covers the bike and keeps chains, tires etc. from rubbing on anyone.

2- This really depends on the campsite. If it's spring a lot of them might not even be open.

Chris L

The perimeter of Hokkaido would take a bit longer than two weeks. I did the length of Hokkaido over two weeks in 2010, and I was covering bigger distances than the OP is planning on.

That said, if the tour was late in spring, a loop from Sapporo that takes in mountains, lakes and of course Onsen would be possible. For spring I'd suggest Kyoto to Tokyo might be a better option, with a lot of different routes available.

I know when I toured in Japan in August/September of 2010 I didn't book ahead for a campsite once. I had a couple of "official" campsites that I just showed up at and got a site dirt cheap (much cheaper than I'm used to paying in Australia), a couple of times I took more formal accommodation, other times I just winged it. Japan is an extremely safe country, and had some of the best camping I've ever seen.

DanBell

I've been on a lot of crowded trains in Japan with my bike and never been turned away or made to wait. That being said, bringing your touring bike and all your gear onto a rush hour train in the morning in Tokyo isn't a very nice thing to do for you or your fellow passengers. No other city has as congested a train system as Tokyo, so I wouldn't worry about taking the bike on the train any time of day in Osaka, for example. I don't mean to contradict azza's experience in this one, just wanted to say that I've never been turned away from getting on a train with my bike.

Any bag that covers the bike is fine. Some station staff can be sticklers for the letter of the law, that the whole bike needs to be covered, while others go with the spirit of the law, understanding only the greasy bits need to be covered. Luck of the draw on that one. Lots of people get by with garbage bags or cheap picnic tarps and tape, but I prefer not to create that much trash each time I take a train. You will have no problem using your flight bags to take your bikes on the train.

This may be hard for people who haven't lived there to get behind, but there is no need to use an official campsite in Japan. I lived in Japan and cycle toured extensively there for fifteen years and I think I paid for a campsite twice. As there is virtually no crime and no drug problem, people aren't suspicious or fearful when they see someone setting up some tents in the city park, for example. Just find a nice place that looks like public, city, or unused land and set up your tent. If you are following river paths you can pretty much camp anywhere along them. In all my years touring in Japan I have never been bothered or asked to leave. Especially in rural areas you'll be a bit of a novelty, so everyone will just want to know where you're from and how you came to be in their little corner of Japan.

gauvins

Thanks for all the feedback.

wrt trains -- Still very fluid for now, but I think that we'll take the train to get to Kyoto and then ride back to Narita.

wrt camping -- If we camp on "unofficial" campsites, is it relatively easy to have access to sanitaries (toilets, showers/baths)? I think I've read somewhere about a tourer suggesting camping near public toilets or convenience stores... For the moment the plan is to more or less shoot for an official campground while being very open to the idea of setting camp on convenient public spaces.

DanBell

As far as toilets, that all depends. The river paths usually have portable toilets spread along them, obviously more if you're closer to a town where there are usually sports field along the river as well. Public restrooms are sometimes available along the paths in and near towns too, and convenience stores are open 24 hours and all have nice clean toilets in then. If you're going to be anywhere in the stretch between Tokyo and Osaka you won't be far from an available toilet. It was only on my tours into rural areas of Shikoku, Kyushu, and northern Hokkaido that I couldn't find a campsite near a restroom on some nights. Additionally, unlike the US no restaurant or shop will stop you from using their restroom if you need to. There is no need to buy anything.

Public baths (sento) or natural hot springs (onsen) are available in many towns in Japan and usually cost 200-500 yen for a wash and a soak. Of course, you'll need too be ok with bathing with a bunch of strangers. I love the onsens and sentos though, and it's a great part of cycle touring in Japan. No matter how remote you get, you're never more than a day or two removed from a hot bath. If you can find a super sento on your route you've really hit the jackpot but these are becoming increasingly rare for some reason.

As I said I have almost no experience with actual campgrounds in Japan, but neither of the two I stayed in had showers.

DanBell

Regarding your itinerary, cycling from Kyoto back to Tokyo is fine, but if you follow the coast you will be cycling along the busiest corridor in the country, connecting Tokyo to Osaka and everything in between. Of that stretch, the only parts I'd really recommend are the Izu peninsula and the Fuji Five Lakes area as someone mentioned earlier. I suppose Hakone is pretty nice too. The lakes and Hakone do get really busy with car traffic on the weekend and during vacation time in the summer. For a lot of that ride you're going to be in major urban and industrial sprawl.

Taking the train to Kyoto then riding to Osaka then down around Wakayama and over to Mie along the coast would be cool. You could finish in Nagoya and take the train back from there. Alternatively go north from Kyoto along Lake Biwa and through Fukui and Kanazawa (both really nice cities) and loop around the Noto Peninsula. You can get the shinkansen back from Toyama (also a really nice town) or continue on to Joetsu which also has a shinkansen connection to Tokyo. In fact, Joetsu is only about a three day, mostly flat ride back to Tokyo, about 80℅ of which can be done on river paths. I don't know what the total distance would be on that ride though.

gauvins

Still in flux, but very unlikely to be the coastal route. Looks like leaving Kyoto along the south shore of lake Biwa, Northeast to Gifu. Then east to Tsumago. Southeast to Shizuoka. Five Lakes area. Tokyo. Narita.

This being said, I'll consider your suggestion. (so much to do, so little time...)

Will eventually post the itinerary.

Thanks again

DanBell

That sounds good. I think the worst option would be cycling the coast along that stretch, so doing anything other than that will be much more interesting/pleasant.

If you're a history buff, you could also cover some sections of the Nakasendo Trail, the old mountain route that linked Kyoto and Tokyo, back when you had to walk it. There are a number of inns along the route that have been in operation, sometimes by the same family, for hundreds of years. I'm not sure exactly where it lies, but at least sections of it should be in the neighborhood of your planned route. I always wanted to hike it but never found the time.

Anyway, I'm sure you have plenty to think about! Let me know if you have any more questions.

DropBarFan

Read about a certain high school or college in Tokyo (IIRC) prohibited students from parking bikes at the school...a privilege reserved for teachers/staff! Seen photos of crowded bike parking at Japanese commuter trains, some stations have huge bike parking garages: I wonder if they get filled up in daytime?

Crime is low--can one forgo using a bike lock? Anyway trip sounds fun.

azza_333

You're right crime is low in Japan, but bike theft still happens there, so lock up your bike regardless.

manapua_man

Bike theft is still quite common, so I wouldn't leave mine out without at least some kind of lock.

DropBarFan

Makes sense, if bike is unlocked a thief can stroll away without passersby even knowing the bike is being stolen.

Also, I've read that bike commuters/shoppers in Tokyo often use sidewalks to avoid traffic & these bikers (texting, holding umbrellas etc) can be quite oblivious so bike tourists are advised to use the roadway instead.

POSITIVO ESPRESSO: Tokyo: Road, Signs, Rules

Japan is mountainous, for an extended tour incl rural areas wouldn't one need to be fairly fit?

azza_333

If you are young and fit, pick a big gear, and grind up those hills, if you unfit, use a low gear and take it slow. Fitness doesn't really matter all that much if you have a low enough gear

manapua_man

You really don't need to be *that* fit, but riding in the mountains could be a problem for someone who is really out of shape. If you think it might be an issue, try packing light enough that train/bus hopping wouldn't be a problem. I run a folding MTB for all my shorter trips in case I need to get home quickly, and you could pack a regular bike to allow for the same thing.

And regarding sidewalks- officially you're supposed to use the roadway. Realistically, it depends on what conditions are like. Use common sense- I've seen cops scolding people for trying to ride on busier roads and not taking the sidewalk and vice versa.