Japan Tour 2023

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  • Get them reports coming, seems like a rough start but youll get it through!

  • Had a night of fever dreams so tried to keep it easy and just do 50k with about 1500m elevation. Suffice to say at the midway point that was clearly not happening so I sacked the rest of the day off, went to the onsen, etc. Intending to get some sleep tonight then tomorrow get the summit.

    Incredibly cold up here in the mountains. I expected it to be cooler but didn't realise the "feels like" temp would be ten degrees less than the season minimum. It warms up plenty when the sun is out at least.

    The day after tomorrow I get to drop 1500m... Free kms

  • Maybe you can gets some straps to wrangle together the bags and throw them over a shoulder when moving through stations / to the train?

    The montbell bag is a good buy.

    I've had funny looks leaving my bike in the entry like that but everyone is too polite to say anything. There's often a spot within the main cabin behind the rear seat where you can just about fit a bike in. But there's quite a bit of train variation and/or lack of space so you'll be fine anyway.

    Hope you've felt good enough to get a walk around Nikko, see the main temples. Its a lovely place.

  • I'm sorry to have heard about your recent illness.. Its cold and rainy where we are to depart home from today... I hear you loud and clear about navigating the train lines with luggage, can't even imagine how much more difficult also with bike in hand.. You can take comfort knowing that the true measure of a man is not when things are easy but how you react when the winds are not in your favor. Stay safe!

  • Some pics so you guys can see that it's not all suffering...


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  • I basically lay in my tent with my eyes closed for 10 hours last night. Woke up this morning to some expected rain. Not a huge problem for me, I ride bikes in the rain all the time and today was another short planned day with an actual bed booked at the end of it so I was happy to put up with some suffering.

    Climbing the rest of the pass was hard work, but everything looked beautiful in the rain. This part of the road was also less trafficked than the part from the day before, which was filled with small racey cars and touring motorbikes (all driven extremely considerately ofc)

    Anyway I had planned to take it easy again so was slightly shocked to reach my predicted destination after only 3 hours of riding. I decided to call it again because whilst climbing in the rain is ok, 1400m descending in the rain would just result in some very numb appendages, and my hostel is booked after all.

    Anyway the fact that I took 3.5 hours to do what yesterday took me about 5 means that hopefully I'm on the mend. Thanks for all the well wishes! I am having a good time, only I have optimisation brain and can only think in terms of things I would like to improve.


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  • Man I think I was just sick the last couple of days. Today everything suddenly clicked and all I did was pedal, stop at conbini, stop to take pictures, stop to change layers, check maps, etc, until the sun went down.

    Made it to an onsen where I could get a room. Was too late for food and will leave too early for breakfast but whatever. I'll probably do some camping again in a minute...40 bucks for a shower and a hot spring and a bed is too good to pass up.

    (Camp sites not having showers makes them kind of whatever tbh. What's the idea? I'm meant to hit the sento first, get nice and clean and sleepy and then... Cycle further to the camp site? Or am I meant to be doing a flannel bath? Not showering?)


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  • I'm glad the weather turned out and you are feeling better... After reading back my previous post, I apologize for the doom and gloom tone. The pics of the scenery looks great and must be excellent motivation to finish off the tour. Keep it up, good job!

  • Glad the trip appears to have turned around, hopefully that bit of bad luck resolved allows you to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. Pictures look amazing!

  • OMG that dog! that car!

    Autumn colours look amazing.
    Rad times

  • Today's drama was that the camp site I wanted to go to was closed. Thought about camping there anyway but... It was cold and scary so I got a room again. I'm on holiday.


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  • dreamy. Love that kei van/truck thing.

  • Looks amazing <3

  • +1

    Amazing stuff.

  • those energy gels were the best part.

  • Tent is really not working very hard because it's basically too cold for my gear and uh.. accommodation is pretty cheap and plentiful here. It's not like the UK where I've had trips that just didn't happen because we couldn't get anything at a non crazy price.

    Last day in the mountains today. For those interested the norikura skyline has been closed since 2022. I took a different pass to get out of there just as the weather closed in. By the time I got into takayama it was really raining. So glad I didn't have to do that descent in the rain. Feel completely spent now though. Going to rest up tonight and see about a train to lake biwa tomorrow. The riding into, through and out of Gifu looks rubbish if my previous experiences are anything to go by...


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  • Hotel/hostel bike packing seems like just the best.

  • Love your pictures, thanks for sharing<3

  • Bought some ski straps and removes pedals to make lugging this stuff a bit easier.

    Going to post my camping stuff home once I get to Kyoto.


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  • Just caught up with the last two months, really envious. I guess that optimization brain is good as long as you're trying to optimize the right things. It sounds like sending home your camping gear will make the trip more enjoyable and as you say, it's a vacation.

  • Rode along lake biwa and into kyoto today. It's honestly insane the distances you can cover on a bike sometimes. Blows my mind.

    Might try a day trip to Osaka, maybe Nara, but will be based here for a bit before returning to Tokyo.


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  • incredible photographs

  • Rode into Osaka today. Easy ride along the river. I will say I've ridden plenty of terrible roads around here. The ways into and out of cities are always mind numbingly boring and slow, whilst also being dangerous if you're in the road because of all the cars parked up in the painted bike lane with their hazards on. Even plenty of the mountain roads were pretty busy, especially on the weekends. This path was pretty good though.


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  • Tour done, back in the office. Recommend the trip if you can do it. My advice is:

    If you're going up into the mountains in October it'll be pretty cold and hard to find places to camp, so I wouldn't bother with camping kit, just stay in hostels, ryokans, minishuku, whatever. You can't book them all online so you'll have to walk in and use google translate to communicate. Also make sure you always have I dunno, 150 pounds in cash because they don't take card in the country.

    Contrary to what most people said I didn't find loads of places where I could wild camp, and half the time when I did I was a couple clicks away from a hostel which would cost I dunno, 20 pounds a night? No brainer for me, your budget may vary.

    Even as a veg finding food was fine. I couldn't just walk into any establishment, but with a bit of google maps research it was normally OK. Plus conbini food depending on how long you can eat the same things for. I was sick of onigiri + undressed salads + tofu bars by the end of the trip but if you could stay strong on just eating those you could do the whole thing as a vegan. I would take 1-2 dehydrated meals for emergencies, but I wouldn't bother with a stove. I think as a strict vegan it would be harder but still doable. You'll just have to talk to a lot of people.

    You CAN bring your bike on all trains as a rinko, but if you've got lots of stuff and a bike with racks and guards it's pretty annoying and not that much fun. Either travel light or only catch a train if you have to. Give yourself lots of time to case the joint, work out where to disassemble the bike, etc.

    Other than being heavy as fuck the bike was great. 35mm tyres and whatever gearing setup I said I had was ideal. The front shifting wasn't perfect and jammed a couple of times when trying to shift under load, but I guess that can always happen.

    Bag setup was a bit lacking. Not sure anyone really needs front and rear panniers anymore. Carradice bags are also sort of annoying given they aren't waterproof and weigh a tonne.

    To clarify on the route I did this one http://www.japancycling.org/v2/cguide/part1/ in reverse from Nikko to Osaka but taking a train from Takayama to Maibara instead of riding it. Dunno if it would have been that much better doing it the right way round. I'm glad I did this one instead of the "Tokaido" route that is also popular. I thought this route had enough big roads and annoying suburban drags, and I heard the Tokaido route has lots of that kind of thing.

    Fly BA not JAL as JAL excess baggage cost is 30000 yen which is about 160 pounds. Haneda is a great airport to cycle to and from, but to cut down on the amount of bike dismantling it might have been better to just fly home from Osaka/Kyoto.

    Overall: Very good trip.

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Japan Tour 2023

Posted by Avatar for Belagerent @Belagerent

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