Japan Cycling

[Susan Otcenas]

Bring your bike.

I lived in Japan for 2 years.

Imabari-shi, Ehime-ken, Shikoku. Bike touring is awesome in Japan. I toured on every island except Hokkaido. Even Okinawa!

Get a mamachari (black, 3-speed city bike) for day to day stuff, though.

Susan

[mountainchick]

http://www.kancycling.com/index.html

http://www.bikely.com/
(search for Japan)

http://www.mlit.go.jp/road/road/bicycle/road/index.html
(this one is in Japanese)-I don't know if any for Osaka area...

Let me know when you get here, Osaka is about 5 hours from me and I'm always up for a weekend road trip! Its easy since I've got a car that fits my bike.

[SalsaMTB]

Hey all!

There is an extremely high possibility that I'll be sent to Japan from the end of this month/beg of July to Oct 31st. I'll be staying in Aiko Ishida (near Machida). I really want to do some road and off road riding during my stay. If any of your girls are in this area and want to meet up to ride, please let me know. I'm thinking of purchasing a mountain bike while I'm there, I'm not sure if there are road bike rentals, if not, I figured the mountain bike is more multi purpose, it will just be slow on the road.

I'm hoping to get confirmation of my trip in the next week or two. It's for work, so it's never finalized until the flight is booked, but it's looking extremely likely.

Jenn

Edit: OK, I just realized this post is quite old....Anyone still in Japan??

[Susan Otcenas]

If you can bring your own bike, do it. Decent bikes are VERY expensive there, and can actually be quite hard to find unless you will be in a reasonably large city. Most bike shops just have the mamachari variety (3 speed town bikes).

Susan

[mountainchick]

Don't buy a bike here....I just ordered a new FS Santa Cruz online because they were 2-3x more expensive here.

I'm fairly close to Machida so shoot me a message when you're around and we'll go riding!

**And depending on what size you ride you can borrow my husbands road bike, he won't be around. I think his is a 54...he's about 5'9 I think.

[SalsaMTB]

Susan, MountainChick

Thanks for the feedback on how expensive bikes are there. I was hoping to get a bike I couldn't get in the US as a memory, but maybe I'll look for a jersey instead while I'm there

MountainChick,

I'll DEFINITELY hit you up when I get there. I'm actually 5'8 so maybe your husband's bike would work. I'll have to look start looking in to shipping my mountain bike.

[mountainchick]

He actually has a hardtail/FS/road bike so any and all are up for your use. I'm hoping my new FS comes in the mail sometime soon. If so you and I will go riding. If you have some free time we'll go up to the Nagano area, I've got some Aussie friends that run a little hotel/B&B and know some tracks. There are also some Kiwis that know some good areas as well. I haven't been yet here in Japan so it'll be nice to try them out, I've only been road biking.