Famous and lesser-known cycling routes across Japan
Take the JR Joban Line out of Tokyo Station, change at Tsuchiura, and you can be on the Ring Ring Road in under 70 minutes, bike rolling, signs in English, the whole 180 km network laid out in front of…
Forty kilometres in, the road bends inland near Aki-Tsu and the noise drops off all at once. The articulated lorries that have been thumping past your left elbow on Route 185 since Mihara are gone for a stretch, the oyster…
The mistake people make on Kibi-no-michi is starting at Okayama Station. The bike-rental desk is hard to walk past, the platform exit feels like the obvious launchpad, and the next thing you know you’re four kilometres into urban traffic on…
At first light the Togetsukyo Bridge in Arashiyama is empty enough to ride down the middle of. The painted blue chevron on the tarmac points south, and within three kilometres central Kyoto is behind you. Pretty soon you’re on the…
Sixty-six thousand five hundred yen. That’s what one careful Japanese cyclist spent riding from Kyoto to Tokyo over seven days in April: ¥16,000 on transport, ¥41,500 on lodging, ¥9,000 on food, every receipt added up. The same trip booked through…
The official Furano-Biei cycling network is 256 kilometres long. It runs through six towns, every kilometre is numbered in paint on the asphalt, and almost no foreign cyclist has heard of it. Most people who ride here do the flat…
“Doing 150 kilometres of Awaichi in a day is brutal for first-timers.” That’s the warning Cyclism Awaji’s rental staff put at the top of their own beginner’s guide, and it’s rare to see a Japanese rental shop talk down its…
If you’ve cycled the Shimanami Kaido once and you’re trying to decide where to ride next in Japan, here is my advice: don’t go back. Go to the Tobishima Kaido instead. It’s an hour west, the bridges are smaller, the…
Shiga Prefecture’s tourism board plans Biwaichi at an average speed of 12 km/h, breaks included. That’s not a typo. The official daily-distance recommendations on biwako1.jp assume you’ll cover roughly 75 to 96 kilometres in a touring day, and they get…
The blue line wobbles ahead of you and the sound through the railings is half wind, half sea. A complete route guide to Japan most famous cycling route, with realistic timings, the bridges in order, and what to skip.
