Japan Tour 2023

I have 3 weeks off and a return ticket to Tokyo booked.

The plan thus far is to take my Croix de Fer and cycle from Tokyo to Kyoto, mostly camping for accommodation, basically following the route from japancycling.org. I'm hoping to do that in 2 weeks to give me an extra 3 days either end chilling in Tokyo.

I've never been to Japan or flown with a bike or done much camping before, so I'm hoping to organise my thoughts a bit here and maybe get some advice from the hive mind.

1 Attachment

what time of year you going?

I'm planning to take my Croix de Fer, but it'll need a couple of modifications I think.

Firstly I'll need bigger gearing, I think the easiest solution for this is that spa cycles touring crankset. It's square taper but all the hollowtech 2 options seem a bit specialist.

I've also got a metal fork that I'll attach so I can run front panniers. I've got a set of Carradice Super C front and back in the shed which should work. Not sure if I'll need all that capacity, but it's always nice to have spare. I think if I could get it down to just front carradice + the big super C saddlebag I have in the picture I might try that, but I'll need to do some trial runs to see what it's like.

1 Attachment

Camping stuff I have:

Cumulus 350 quilt (pending)
Decathlon pad
Six Moons Design Lunar Trekker + some poles.

I'm sure this isn't perfect "dialled" gear but I'm hoping it should be "good enough"

I think it'll probably behove me to get some kind of stove system. I've only ever messed around with can stoves before but I think I would like to have the ability to cook relatively "proper" meals as my daily mileage should be pretty chill and it should help keep costs down. Not sure whether I should get a butane or alcohol stove. Something like an MSR pocket rocket or a trangia seem like they would both work. Currently leaning towards a trangia (but maybe a swishy titanium one instead of the standard army surplus guy)

October! I asked lots of people and none of them told me the same thing so I just booked it.

Right now for better or worse I'm planning to cardboard box the bike and fly out, assemble it on the tarmac and cycle away. I'll be staying with some friends at the beginning and the end, but I don't think they'll have enough space to store a hard case, and I don't own one, and I cba to rent one. Bit stressed about boxing the bike etc but it seems like the most straightforward option...

Could still be pretty warm during the daytime with plenty of sun but will get cold at night.
Camping is pretty big out there so don't feel you have to buy everything here first.
The Yen is pretty weak v pound at the mo too.
Haven't done any cycling out there (other than on a "mama chariot") so can't advise

October in Kyoto was absolutely gorgeous, great choice!
Boxing the bike is not difficult, just time-consuming, it's a necessary chore.

Some friends did a tour across Japan a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1W-vhbU7GQ

They planned to camp most nights but ended up with hotels more than planned due to the heat, humidity & the size the insects!

Looks like a great trip though!

It is at least something I can practice at home before going to give myself some degree of confidence. I'm relatively sure of my bike building skills so hopefully it shouldn't be too bad or terrible. Will have to look into this when I get closer to the time and have the bike in its final form.

I'm not really 100% sure of the route but I'm not thinking too hard about it right now, in the end I can work all that out on the ground, what I'm mostly thinking of is prepping the bike and my body.

In terms of bike fitness, the most I've done on the bike is lightly loaded short tours in Holland. I was pretty comfortable being in the saddle all day but obviously the fitness required to cycle over mt fuji loaded is going to be quite different. I don't really have time on inclination for strucured training rides, so I've just been going for runs at lunch time, and I go to the gym most days for strength training anyway. It would be good to do a couple of longer rides in the UK before I go though, preferably with camping equipment etc.

Yes I did watch this when it came out! I should give it a rewatch...

What about shimano triples like they put on trekking bikes? Alivo or whatever.

Hey I did the same route with minor deviations a few years ago but continued on south to Nagasaki. The route is fine but definitely has some less scenic sections and there are some parts that are steep enough to warrant walking but I’m talking tiny stretches. I camped every night with just a bivvy bag apart from in major cities and found no problem finding good spots. The amount of small public shelters in Japan was crazy and I would often find amenities like outdoor showers as well. Konbini’s are everywhere so finding a bathroom and filling up on water is never an issue. PM if you have any more questions I might be able to help with!

I don't know why people don't just use Alvio triples tbh, I'm sure someone will come along and explain it.

I can't really cope with entering the low gearing -> full path less pedaled letter bomb SRAM HQ youtube pipeline so I'm hoping that the spa crankset is set and forget.

Are there any specific bits you think would be worth detouring around? I'm not in a hurry.

I think you sent me a spreadsheet originally which helped me believe it was all doable so thank you for that. I'm sure I'll have some questions...

We went to Japan in late Oct/early Nov. It was lovely, warm, only rained once in the 10 days we were there. We kind of did much the same route you're doing, except on the train - I'd love to do it on a bike though.

Lol exactly it’s even hollowtech and you can easy convert a triple to double

Did a similar route but went onwards through Osaka to Hiroshima. Took us 2 weeks with a 3 day break in the middle as my girlfriend had a bad knee. Neither of us were particularly fit and managed it fine (caveat, she's Japanese so all i had to do was motivate her and block the wind).

Definitely do cardboard box instead of travel case. We had squishy Evoc's and planned on putting them in there amazing airport postal service but they were a few cm's out and we had to struggle into Tokyo to loose them. Use paper packing tape as they're rightly finnicky about recycling and you'll spend hours unsticking plastic tape.

Not sure where we're at in terms of roaming charges these days but you can get a portable wifi hub in the airport to take with you. Can't remember if we ordered it to be collected it there or it was an in house service but i can check if you want me to.

There'll be times you'll need/want to use the train. Your bike needs to be in a bag for this. We had two lightweight covers that packed down to tennis ball size that did the job perfectly. If i can find ours you're welcome to borrow them. You might want to think about getting the train/shuttle to Yokohama when you arrive to avoid the worst of the traffic.

In land the hills can be massive and take a really long time. Coming back down is a lot of fun but be mindful of how fast you can go coming back down. We headed to the coast to avoid some of the hills and occasionally got battered by the winds so again took a lot of time.

We mostly stayed in hostels and i'd say the only downside to our trip was having to always reach our destination in time. That meant some long days in the saddle where we had to push on and missed out on hanging out with the people we met along the way (although i did manage to have dinner with a skateboarding monk who let me hit his big bell...). If we ever did it again we'd plan on staying where ever we could find each night but appreciate that's more easily done with a native speaker.

Get a triple and make a sub-compact with it.

Sounds like a fun trip. I will be there as well October 6-15th... My trip will be limited to mainly site seeing in Tokyo province. I purchased a keirin track frame online that I plan to bring home with me to Canada. Good luck on the tour and Safe Journeys.

Where did you get your covers from? I would be interested in borrowing one if it's to hand..

I appreciate the steer on the cardboard box! That settles things on that front for me. One less thing to stress about..

A new cardboard box is around £20 from Amazon if there are no lbs’s with them.

Why not the Faran? It’s ready for front loading, you’ve got the dynamo on it already and a sun-compact?

Also on the crankset front: if you take 165mm I have a 6603 you can do the amey/ lolo special on. I even have the 30/ 46/ chain guard rings for it.

Those aside: amazing trip to have planned, very jealous

Great question. I guess it seems easier to swap the fork and cranks on the cdf than to swap tyres and add guards to the faran. Plus a subcompact doesn't seem small enough for loaded touring in hills, 30-36 is not even 20 gear inches and I was hoping to go below that with a 26 or maybe even 24 small ring, though I'm sure the ratio police will burst in at any moment and tell me that's too low and I may as well walk.

I want to have a nice holiday, carrying as much as I like and being able to spin up any incline without bother, hence my target.

If I had the fantastical "spare 700c wheelset" with 35c tyres ready to go I would be more inclined to take the faran. Does feel kind of dumb that I bought it and never ride it but oh well.