Japan Bike Tours: Expert Guide Shares All

Japan is best experienced on a bike tour. Join seasoned tour operator Sam Barclay as he shares all the must-see spots and off-the-beaten-path trails Shikoku has to offer.

Often overlooked by tourists, Shikoku houses both the country’s most legendary cycling path and its largest active volcano. The island is a rider’s wonderland hidden in plain view.

Whether you’re into scenic coastal routes or challenging mountain climbs, Shikoku offers something for everyone. With a healthy dose of delicacies to try, ancient villages to visit, and onsens to lounge in, it offers a complete adventure experience that’s sure to stick with you in the long run.

Ready for a ride in the Land of the Rising Sun?

In this 30-minute session, Sam Barclay teaches you how to plan an epic cycling tour of Shikoku, Japan, all the while sharing insider tips for finding the best food, rides, and scenery. By the time he’s done, you’ll be booking your ticket to the Land of the Rising Sun!

🔗 Book your Shikoku cycling adventure: https://bit.ly/463sI8j

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and I suppose we could have gone anywhere on Chicago right we could have chosen any route but why why this route so this six days of cycling kind of sums up who we are it’s our knowledge is our experience it’s our life this is a representation of who we are and what we think great travel and great cycling is basically we help people get off the Beaten Track we help people get to the places that are really inaccessible but are beautiful and somehow made more beautiful by their inaccessibility it’s like flying by bike it’s just absolutely epic let me give a bit of information we’re going to talk about [Music] today hi there I’m Sam and I’m the co-founder of hidden Japan travel and we run tours on shikaku which is the smallest of the four main islands in Japan you can see me in this photo the T our clients is uh just after finishing a cycle tour you might have noticed I’m I’m not Japanese I’m originally from the UK I moved to Japan after University and lived north of Hiroshima right in the mountains above Hiroshima I didn’t really have any images of Japan I thought it was you know I imagined Tokyo and Kyoto Osaka these big cities but I was placed in a community with 3,000 people mostly over 65 over 0 70 i’ had no idea really what to expect and you know two years later my life is different my life had changed I was absolutely in love with rural Japan and the beauties that it has to was from shiman from north of heroshima ended up finding my way down to shikoku the South Island and I lived in matama okay and that’s where in the north of shikaku in the place eim prefecture on shikaku in Matti I really found my passion which is to explore the Lesser know areas in Japan and meet the people there and you know talk about how it’s so special for me and for them that’s why Mi and I started a travel company on chikaku about five or six years ago and you can see in the the photo on the right this photo is so special to me because this is actually the cycle ride where Miho and I decided to start hidden Japan travel we were cycling over the shimanami kaido it’s this epic bridge that goes across setto Inland seat and we were cycling across it you’ve done it a few times before but we just noticed there were so few people there at that time we thought there must be a way that we can bring people to the places that we find so special the kinds of nature that we love and so it was that thought on that cycle ride that led to the birth of hidden Japan travel and that’s what we do we run outdoor and adventure travel on shikaku things like multi-day cycling tours we have some self-guided cycling tours we have seite Adventures we have some walking tours we also have some like food culture that kind of thing as well but basically we help people get off the Beaten Track we help people get to the places that are really inaccessible but are beautiful and somehow made more beautiful by their accessibility let me give you a bit of information about what we’re going to talk about today so I’m going to give you a bit of introduction to shukaku and then I’ll talk specifically about why it’s in our Paradise for cyclists then I present the root specifically and kind of talk about the different days of the tour and the inspiration behind the root then some of the logistics of coming on coming on the ride bit of advice on like the things you might want to prepare and getting ready for the ride let’s start off with shikaku so where is shikaku First of where’s Japan there you’ll see it there just south of South Korea Chicago is the fourth smallest island of the four main islands of Japan and it’s also the least visited the main island with Tokyo and Kyoto and Hiroshima that’s called honu literally means May Island Shu means Island hon is May then we have kinu in the west the northern Island Hot kaido you might have heard it’s really famous for skiing and snowboarding right the famous Hokkaido powder and then my islands is shaku she means four and Kaku means country so literally it’s four countries because there are four prefectures on the island and our cycling tour goes to all of them so the thing about shikoku is that as I said is the least visited and in some ways it’s unspoiled you know there’s Tokyo and Kyoto are lovely but they can get really busy and in some ways overrun by by tourists Kyoto is particularly we don’t really have that issue on shakaku yeah it’s getting more popular and there’s a reason that it should get more popular but there’s also so many areas that you can discover have really have that sense of exploration you know we have wonderful nature and culture and I like to talk a little bit about you know why I think shikaku is a fantastic place to visit shikaku we have unspoiled mountains you know we have the highest mountain in Western Japan it’s called isii sits in the middle of shikaku then we have the shikaku mountain ranges which kind of form a band around the middle of the island and that means for our cyclists there are loads of Epic climbs there’s also great hiking and walking but there are some fantastic roads we have hidden valleys and Gorges with kind of epic history you can see this Vine Bridge stretches across one of The Valleys this is called the kazurabashi it’s in the Ia Valley we go to on our cycle and was initially built in the 12th century by the he warri and they buil this bridge they could run across it cut it from the other side and they kind of the the ons suing enemy wouldn’t be able to come across the canyon absolutely stunning so we have the Pacific Ocean in the South brilliant surfing and the north we have to the setto in L it’s bit like the Japanese Mediterranean Sea used to be occupied I suppose by by PIR by Pirates and the maritine Clans that used to charge taxes to people who coming through it but now it’s just a mecca for our cyclists and then we will have also have these wild Gorges with spectacular waterfalls so actually this photo was taken on a recent trip a private ride we did with Rachel and Craig and we were here at about 10 11:00 in the morning and I don’t think we saw a single other person but it’s kind of epically beautiful outstanding it’s kind of outrageous actually have we had the place to ourselves it’s fantastic so as well as the nature we also have the fascinating culture this picture is from uh the top of a mountain that we go to on our ride in Japan there are 12 what called Original castles built before 1850 and three of those 12 castles are on Chicago so it’s a a place that really has kind of this sense of history and tradition you can see here coochi Castle this is again from from our ride and we also have one of the great pilgrimages of the world you might have heard of the Cino in in in Spain the Cino to Santiago the compostella it’s a journey to to Santiago right or the pilgrimage to Mecca whereas on shakago we have the 88 Temple pilgrimage and the great thing about this pilgrimage is it’s a Buddhist Journey that you finish at the same place that you start so you start at Temple number one and you finish at Temple number one having to war for about 40 days normally the only thing that’s different is kind of your perspective on the world right the views are the same but you’re you’re forever changed by the by the by the tra by the journey last but certainly not least we have exceptional food I’m not going to talk about food straight away because I think if I start talking about sushi and sashimi and stuff we’ll all get hungry so I’m going to leave the food leave the food to the end but I promise you there’ll be some gorgeous photos of of local cuisine as well as being a great place to visit um in general shikaku is a you know a cycle in Paradise um and there are a bunch of reasons for that so we have really good quality roads in a really good tarmac for some of the roads I mean there are very few cars on them but they’re they’re wellmaintained and it means you’re not going to you know fall into a pothole you’re not going to run into a pothole while you’re going out the mountain you actually can have confidence at the surface is good enough so you can lift your head up and enjoy the views rather than always them to stare down and Dodge Dodge R Stones Dodge you know holes and stuff which makes a real difference actually when we’re on the bike right we also have quiet back roads I mean we do go on some main roads as well um it’s kind of unavoidable but we spend most of the time um on on these quiet back roads I think one of our guests recently in a review said it was at 80 to 85 90% at the time were on these quiet back roads and actually there’s a great story about this road that I’ll tell you a bit later on my favorite road we also have the national one of the national cycling Roots there are six cycling roots in Japan we have one other one Chicago it’s called the shimanami kaido that if you’ve heard of that if you’re into cycling maybe you’ve heard of it it’s um kind of internationally famous it’s a series of six Bridges which go across islands and stretch about 70 kilm that is you go across a bridge down onto the island up onto the bridge down on the next Island so it’s essentially ided hopping by bike and the views outrageous absolutely spectacular you can see an example here from the last Bridge uh so this is the shim amido and we also you know cists right we love climbing we have kind of every climb you can imagine if you’re after something this bit gentle you know just a nice warmup we have those climbs if you want something that’s going to make your lung bursts lungs burst you know your legs a we also have those clients and the best thing is you get to the top and the view is spectacular just like this view here in the E Valley it makes it worth all the effort right but you get the top and you have a view like this they’re really friendly to cyclist so I say this is not just Chicago this is kind of Japan and area in general the people are generally really nice and courteous and kind I don’t know about it is where you live I people from all around the world right but my experience of cycling in the UK you know people aren’t always um aren’t always kind some people we’ be throwing I’ve had like the odd plastic bottle or can thrown as cycling along the roads people shout at you as you go past and in Japan that’s really like it just never happens I might some be might beat that horn to be like three times in 10 or 15 years so yeah it’s a great place to cycle for those reasons so let’s think specifically then about our cycling route right I’d like to spend some time and really kind of talk about this this is the core of today’s presentation as I said I think I said before it’s a six day five nights tour that goes across five prefectures so it starts on honu the main island and then we immediately go to shikaku and spend six days cycling through shikaku uh we go to some cities the cities of mats and coochi and we spend a lot of time in kind of the more rural areas the Backroads exploring mountains farming tracks uh forgit tast we also hit all kind of the must seed Des the kind of the major the major kind of draws of Chicago places like the bridge that I showed you earlier or the castle yeah we’ll go to those as well but the journey to there is as important as the destination we’ll also go to some unknown Treasures places that Vio and I found from our kind of extensive cycling our Journeys through designment I mean Vio is born and bred she’s born and raised shikaku girl so she knows the island better than anybody and I suppose we could have gone anywhere on Chicago right we could have chosen any route but why why this route so in many ways this six days of cycling kind of sums up who we are it’s it’s our knowledge it’s our experience it’s um our life if you like on the island this is a representation of who we are and what we think great travel and great cycling is so we have some fantastic climbs we have some great descents but we also make sure we hit all those those points as well those great highlights so without further Ado I think let’s talk about some of those highlights okay so we start in the city of onomichi okay onomichi and that’s in Hiroshima prefecture in Japan we call them prefectures I guess in the US you’d call them states in the UK we might them counties yeah in Japan we call them prefectures and we begin on the shimanami kaido okay so we start on a big immediately go across you know one of the great cycling routs really um apologies that this video is a bit grainy it’s uh was taken through the support band through the window of the support ban uh but hopefully you get a sense of just how spectacular it is this kind of Seascape that we spend the whole day cycling along and on the evening so before that you can see ad here’s a picture of the bridges I mentioned before yet there are I think there are six five six bridges in total and we go all we go across all but one of them on the first day of cycling wonderfully these Bridges were built just a few years ago really but as they were building them they the design is made sure to put in the cycling path as well as the kind of the M Highway if you like and it just means it’s like you’re it’s like flying by bike St any way to explain it it’s just absolutely epic here’s another picture of one of the bridges and you can see Craig in the foreground Craig and be cycling up to the bridge we also go through kind of small towns and villages on the shimanami kaido as we Traverse our way to the hotel and on that first night we’ll be staying in a family run what’s called a muku minshuku is like a family run traditional Japanese it that serves local food it’s run by locals the the lady who runs it was born on that island she spent her whole life on the island and just loves nak better than and showing people her Island also has a has a hot spring in the in the hotel so the next day we wake up and uh jump in the van usually depending on the time and and go to the top of a mountain yeah we’ve taken this view from what’s called kidol San one of like just the most spectacular views of the the shimanami kaida and here we can see the 6 km bridge this is the final bridge that goes onto shikaku proper this is called the kushima Kao bridge and the view from this side is lovely but if you turn around and look at the other side it’s equally spectacular and just offers this kind of splendent view of the shim hi kaido of the set in ly so we’ll cross the bridge uh to begin with and then make our way down uh south from the of the bridge because IM to the city of mattiel we’ll get there by going through kind of Rolling Hills along small paths and cycling tracks hopefully if it’s if you come during rice planting season sorry when the rice Harvest is almost ready this is September it’s a fantastic time to be there really lovely views and then we make our way into the city of matama G through back roads and we arrive at the hotel which is in a hot spring area there’s one really famous hot spring area in mats called Doo I don’t know if anyone’s been there but Doo hotring is known as the the mo the oldest hot spring in Japan and here you can see what the building looks like and the hotel you st in this night is a modern hotel but it’s right next to this onen so in the evening walk around this kind of onen the onen hot hot spring in Japan in Japanese so you walk around this hot spring area and kind of take in the the atmosphere the next day yeah it’s a good day on on the bikes so I should say the first day is about 65k on the bike couple of Hills second day is again about 65k third day is a bit longer about 70k and we have one n climb it’s just the first day of kind of climbing as we leave mat behind we’ll start at with v Drome go along the cycle path you can see here go along the cycle path and then we kick uphill and we climb for about elevation gate of about 800 meters over 12 kilometers so it’s a decent climb nothing too crazy in terms of gradient it get about 6% six 7% it’s just a really nice kind of Rhythm climb and we take some back RS like you can see in the left hand photo but we get to the top and the views are just outrageous again as we look look back across the city of Matti you can even see all the way shim to the set Inland Sea on the other side from the top the good news the rest of the day is all downhill as we head down through the mountains following a beautiful river called the Oro rup you can see here some photos of what it looks like in nice weather the first one was a bit rough right this one here is a bit little bit rough in heavy rain but uh here we have what it looks like in glorious sunshine and this river is really famous for this kind of deep green or kind of when it gets a bit shallow this kind of Aur blue so yeah that day we have about 70 kmers of cycling as I said it’s a really nice day some pretty one really nice climb then we’ll be staying at a hotel at the base of a really wild remote Gorge it’s really lovely Onsen hotel in the morning of day four wake up and go for a walk into the gorge about an hour usually an hour hike up into the gorge and we’ll be following rivers that look like this unfortunately we can’t swim because the waters are kind of sacred they’re spiritual and so um yeah no one’s about to swimming them but just looking at them is kind of enough yeah it’s spectacular and then we leave the the waters behind we leave The Gorge behind and we against cycle downhill day four is actually all downhill it’s about 60k and we end up in coachi city but as I said there are absolutely no climbs on day four kind of active rest day suppose you could describe it following these small roads again if it’s R season have the rice to our left sometimes we have the river to our right we cycle along across one of these Bridges I think you can just make out there are people in the middle of it it’s kind of a long way away right this is thing called it kabashi this is one of the highlights of this day aqin kabashi is a sub submersible Bridge so they had a problem way back in the day that these Bridges kept on collapsing when the waters got too heavy they’re being destroyed so they came on this really neat solution of just getting rid of all the railings and making them strong but submersible so when the river comes up you just can’t cross river goes down it’s totally fine they they’re really nice yeah they’re really interesting to cross we go across here one of these submersible brid just one be kabashi as we make our way to coochi city and coochi is wonderful yeah has this real earthy culture to it and we go to ining we’ll go to a place called The hi ichiba the hi Food Market you can see here a lovely photo of the hi Market I some people in the chat may even be day five we get up and day five is challenge day okay so we leave coochi City behind cycle along a river and then kick up hill and we have two pretty significant climbs on day five this is again this is challenge day right the first climb is about six kilometers long 500 meters and then we kick up on the second climb we have a bit downhill we kick back up again and we have about 9 10 kilometer climb about elevation gain about one 900 meters the whole climbing in this day is about 14 1500 meters great fun and here you can see some examples of the kinds of Roads we we take uh you can see these kind of narrow back roads we take up with climbs and actually the one of the right I told I was going to tell you a story about this right so this road Miho and I searched for days to find Weeks actually to find this road there’s one big road that leads out coachi and we just wanted to do we wanted to avoid using this big road because you know no one likes cinic trucks that going past you right and deler trucks and that kind of thing so uh we looked at to look at Google Maps we look at ryber GPS all these other tools to try and find good roads and then we just jumped on our bikes and we searched every road possible to get out of coochi and what would happen is cycle up into the mountains and then there would be you know the forest would have be would be overgrown and we couldn’t cycle any further we go somewhere up we go up somewhere and the cliffs had collapsed onto the road so we couldn’t go up and finally we found the one road that allowed us to cycle up the top of the hill up the top of the mountain and that’s the road you can see on the right hand side and we couldn’t be happier it’s absolutely epic we go past this really rural kind of overgrown Shrine on the way it’s yeah it’s something out like a studio ji uh film we just love it and then we end that day at the I said the ear Valley with the Gorges yeah sorry The Gorge with the the kazab ASI the famous spine bridge and you’ll be seeing views like this right just out into the mountains it makes those those climbs all worthwhile so that’s day five day six we leave The Gorge behind we leave ear behind there about 80 km on the bike day six the last day one final climb but day six is descent day have two epic descents one as we leave the valley and then we go up hill a bit and come down and then we come down the other side and into the city of kotoha and kotoha is known for having a Mountainside Shrine has these 700 stair steps that lead up to a shrine on mountain side if you’ve got any power in your left in your legs any strength left after six days of cycling It’s a Wonderful end to the journey so you can see here we’ve got The Descent this is um Miho I think she’s is leading a trip coming down the the road on the left we’ll be following this River the ear River and going past some pretty great views along the way as we make our final stop in Cota and we waiting there with some a glass of sake a glass of beer to to campai six days of cycling and then from there we after hopefully after you’ve seen the shrine after we’ve had lunch together had a drink some people want to want to stay and spend the night in Cita and absolutely we can help arrange that other people want to make their way back uh to the main Island and enjoy Japan a little bit more and we drive them to the train station and that’s where we we say goodbye and hopefully leave people with lifelong memories so that’s the six days that’s the cycling hopefully you think it’s interesting I think it’s fantastic and every time Miho and I do the tour every time we cycle it we kind of fall more fall farther and father in love with it you know we love it to bit so in terms of accommodation we have a mixture of traditional ins and modern Japanese hotels just going to show a couple of photos of the traditional ins here you can see one from the first night this is the family run laku I mentioned earlier and then this is from the last night this is in Ido it’s a a half inside so you have the fire pit in midd we all sit around it there isn’t a better place to to toast five or almost completing the tour right this is the penultimate day so we’re pretty much there by this point so the accommodation is really special and it’s places that miow and I know we know the owners and we’ve worked with them for years and we trust them to bits and we um we’re just so happy to share our local knowledge with you regard in terms of support we have an english- speaking guide often that’s me it’s not always me um we have other guides as well who work we also have a support van you can see here um and that takes care of kind of luggage transfer and that also helps out with our Aid stops every day we have at least one Aid stop um where we can refill water take on some electrolytes some carbohydrates that kind of thing but we also will have local local sweets and local snacks there like Miho might she knows a farmer who sells watermelon so she goes and buys the watermelon from the from the local farmer and we have that as a snack for example and actually the aid stops are one of the one of the highlights of the whole ride one of our Riders recently described the whole journey as kind of a picnic around shikaku so let’s think about the gear so we provide Cross Bikes and helmets um sometimes Cross Bikes are called hybrid bikes this is included in the price we use quality Cross Bikes so uh specialized Giants Marin bikes depending on the size uh like it’s impossible to get Giant Bikes in extra large sizes for example in Japan so our large bikes tend to be specialized and we like Cross Bikes this tour we can organize I’ll talk about a bit later but we can organize rentals with other types of bikes as well but briefly I mean if you’re not familiar with the cross bike it’s all the flat handle bar at the front you can see in this picture and that just means that you’re kind of more upright if you have the drop handle bars tends to be much more aggressive position and just some of our Riders aren’t used to that and so it might hurt their back if they’re cycling too long it means you’re offing your heads down whereas actually a crossbite with the geometry means your bodies up and you can kind of just be around and look enjoy the views a little bit more and other said we also have a helmet rental as well and our bikes come with flat pedals which means if you’re not used to riding with cleats or clipless pedals it’s no problem some often people are kind of nervous the first time they do that they like fall off the bike because your feet don’t kind of detach they’re bound into the bikes but if you’d like to bring your own clipless pedals and you want to bring your own cleats your own bike shoes by all means do we can just change out the pedals to the start we advise you to bring the following things Widing so two bike shorts at Shamy two cycling jerseys depending on the time we’ve there might be long sleeve short sleeve maybe one long sleeve one short sleeve get a bit chilly up in the mountains and spring or or Autumn so one pair of Cy gloves and then wet or cold weather gear yeah depending on the season so if it’s November it might get a bit of chili so it might be good to bring like a gilea if it’s June late June uh sorry late May June sometimes it’s rainy season so we might get some weather so it might be good to bring like waterproof but just get in touch with us and we can we can let you know about um yeah more specifics depending on the time of year you’re going to come so as the gear and the hotels let’s get to the main point the most important thing which is the food I’m joking so for us food is super important because we know that everyone assciated Japan and right we have some fantastic Cuisine here but we don’t just focus on the food we have food location and people we try and bring those three things together so you know what’s better than a beautiful Bento Box well it’s a beautiful bento box with local produce when you and eating that on top of a mountain at a temple somehow it just adds to the occasion right adds to the makes makes the food more delicious and we really like to highlight the local Cuisine and the local specialities of the island so here you can see the seared Bonito thing called katso tataki you can just make out in the photo on the left maybe the guy’s he’s roasting if you like he’s searing this Bonito Bonito chuna over over a fire of hay or straw and this is a real speciality in coaches absolutely unbelievable last time I was here there were guys sat next so last time I was here last time I was at the uh this this place we were having katsuaki in the guys next to us had traveled for 18 hours they driven for 18 hours just to have this and they were leaving the next day they were literally in coaching for like 9 hours just to eat this and they left and they couldn’t be happier with their decision to do that I mean for me that sounds a bit crazy but they loved it and shimanami kaido is really welln fish so in the North in day one I mean the fish on Chicago is absolutely spectacular partly because the setto Inland sea in the north has really fast Waters I mean some of the fastest Waters in Japan and that means the fish have to really try hard to swim against the C swim against the current and it just means they’re really meaty and really uh really really flavorful here you can see seab bream which is kind of the fish of the shimanami kaida and the great thing about it is you were eating the fish that was caught about 100 meters from the hotel you know it’s all really local you can also see on this photo some sea snails yeah you might just make that in the bottom I don’t know what you guys think about sea snails for me they’re a bit of a challenge so you know we like to get people people out of their comfort zones a little bit and even me having lived in Japan for a long long time I’m pushed out my comfor zone frequently uh as well but worth trying I promise you we also have lots of kind of regional noodles mountains particular are very famous for noodles in Japan and these are the udon noodles and if you’ve heard of that before udon is thick thicker noodles and this is from a place called sanuki in the north of shikaku so this is what we might have on our last day and again people travel from all over Japan just to have this food so we have cycled for six days will earn those noodles and so I’ve mentioned kind of the food but also the people are really important so one of our restaurants I don’t have a photo of her because she doesn’t like to have a photo kind of publicly available she’s 96 and she’s been making one dish for her whole life and it’s just amazing place to go this lady’s not quite 96 actually nowhere near 96 that’s but she she’s been making this dish which isomaki if you’ve heard of that before economaki it’s been like a pancake with cabbage and then kind of batter and eggs and stuff and bacon and lots of lovely think she’s been making economy Aki for 37 years and is really passionate about it and kind of sharing her love of it and so that’s one of the reasons why we go there it’s not just delicious it’s also kind of an education right can you do this tour I think if you can ride a bike and you’re fit then you’ll do absolutely fine with a bit of preparation again it’s the obvious thing to say but you know the fitter you are the better your experience will be and partly that’s because you know the hills won’t seem quite as steep now it won’t seem quite as as tough you be able to have your head up and kind of enjoy the the spectacular scenery and also be less susceptible to injury legs your knees and less like to hurt the back kind so talking about that on a typical day then we would cycle around about 65 kilometers the longest day is 80 kilometers um and generally we have one climb per day of varying lengths and gradients so let me just Define varying lengths and gradients sometimes we have some pretty steep climes but they’re short so like on day one we have have a 23k climb at 133% which is pretty steep gets you breathing for sure other days we have much longer climbs but the gradient is less steep so like 12 kilometers at six s% so we just you know our bikes have plenty of Gears take it easy you know use a bailout gear if you have sometimes they’re called a granny gear Right Use the easy gears and just spin you Way to the Top find a good Rhythm and get to the top in terms of skill level and fitness I’ve already mentioned if you could ride a bike basically you have ni skill right uh the key point is you need to be comfortable cycling for six days in a row you know we hear from people who who cycle one day maybe 65 col in one day and then just you know can’t move the next day clearly on a six day cycling toour that’s not great so even if you don’t do 65k a day in terms of preparing just try and cycle every day if you can even if it’s just 15 20 30 minutes makes a world of difference is just kind of build up that stamina right I think it’s useful if you could be comfortable in and out of the saddle you know as I said we have enough we have enough gears by bikes are pretty well geared but it is useful if you you know if you’re comfortable standing up and throwing the bike from left to right and dancing your way to the tops you don’t have to that’s not that’s not a must but I do think a must is you need a good level of Fitness now what is good you know you don’t have to be tal Pacha right you don’t have to be you’re iner guard you’re not in the pet on of the tour to France as long as you can cycle let’s say 30 40 kilometers for multiple days in a row I think you can probably push it up to 60 that should be fine so I’ve mentioned that we have Cross Bikes the cross bikes are included in the price as our helmets if you’d like to rent you can rent ebikes is an optional extra and they start from 40,000 Yen that sounds like a massive amount of money it’s got $250 okay sies are limited we have like a fleet of ebikes and the reason it says from is because we have our ebikes and we rent them out at discount whereas if we have to rent them because we don’t have the size um the price might be a bit little bit more expensive if he’s never used an eBay before they’re unbelievable you know you feel guilty if you haven’t used one before until you get to the first Hill and then you just feel smug because you’re cruising to the top so ebikes are a wonderful option and actually many of our guests love using ebikes we can also hire road bikes so we again there’s an additional charge here and the price of the road bike will depend on the grade we use uh where we start there’s a giant bike shop Giant and there’s a giant rental shop right next door and they have premium carbon bikes like altegra group sets carbon bikes aluminium bikes they have a couple of discs bikes with disc brakes as well so there kind of lots of options here I guess the prices are going to depend on the grade that you want yeah so just get in touch with us and we can give you some more information we’ll put you onto the place so you can look yourself if you want to bring your own bike that’s absolutely possible yeah I know people particularly coming from the US the air companies are pretty generous with their uh the weight allowance and often you can take your own bike for free on plane flights just bring it in a bike box or a bike bag depending the bike right and if you leave the bike box or bike bag with us we’ll either take it in the van depending on the number of people will’ll send it to the hotel or somewhere on the last day and we can pick it up um at the end of the tour if you’re coming from Europe elsewhere in the world there is a charge associated with bringing our bike that sometimes it’s just you know it’s nice to know that there’s a bike that fits you right and you sometimes were really comfortable their own bike so if you want to do that that’s absolutely possible group sizes are typically around we’d like to have four six sometimes eight people is fine but we can handle groups is any size so if you’re at a cyan club for example you want to come in a group of 20 just get in touch we can do actually there’s one van and there’s one there’s one big bus and they’ve got rid of all the seats from the back of the bus in order to put bikes in the back and we’ve always wanted to rent it so we’d love to hear from you if you’re recycling cover with 20 people give us an excuse to rent that bus other things that are good to know is how to get to the start of the tour so getting to onomichi you can fly to Japan fly to any of the major cities so Tokyo Osaka NAA Su kuok that’s where kind of the city the main um in main entrances to Japan if you like and then from there you can take internal flights to hirosima hirosima is the closest airport to the start of the right you need to take a train to onomichi from the airport and probably stay the night before we’d like to start on the first day at around about 10:00 9 10:00 depending on where people are going to be the night the day before if they’re all going to be onami we can start at her you can also take a shin Canen to the city of fukiyama fukiyama is right next to onami and then take a local train from there say if you wanted to come on the morning of the trip let’s say you were in Osaka or kyota and you wanted to come on the morning that would be possible in terms of getting away from the end of the trip Kota again we can book we can help you book accommodation in Cota we can also help you book accommodation on lichi by but you can take a train to honi and then jump on the shin Canen and that can take you to Tokyo or Osaka or whatever and actually we’ve had people who finished the tour in CA and made it to Tokyo for dinner they had they had a dinner reservation in Tokyo so I mean that’s that’s pretty extreme I think most people like to get a bit you know be a bit calmer take their time a little bit more if you did want to fly you could take a bus to takamatsu airport that’s the nearest airport to K it’s really close and then just jump on an internal fly and that’ll take you to Hokkaido Okinawa Tokyo wherever you’d like to go but just before I finish I’d like to just leave you with some of the voices of our guests and to us they are our guests they’re not customers or clients they’re people who we feel privileged to to share our home with really here we have Travis and his lovely wife who came with us recently but actually this was their first trip together as a married couple absolutely privileged to show them the island and here we have um slightly younger couple um from Denver Colorado Carl and Rachel again on a private tour did the six day cycle ride with us and uh just had the best time I mean when we get people from the Rockies right people from Colorado telling us that the mountains are pretty epic we know we know we’re on to some pain from Craig and Nick father and son out of the US this is actually the first time the dad had left America for 35 years again what a privilege to for us to him to trust us with his holiday right for that experience the first time they had traveled together as father and son he sent us a message recently saying that he still thinks about this tour hourly he said and it still makes him smile when he does it the wonderful thing about shikaku for me is not just not just the roads not just the cycling and not just the nature and all those things in the culture basically it’s the people right and there’s that lovely expression that comes from ancient Greeks which is buildings don’t make a Town people make a Town and in some ways building buildings buildings in Chicago are beautiful but it’s the people that make it so special for me and one of the things that we strive to do in in Japan and one of the things that we do on this tour is to just is to introduce you to the people as well as the the culture and locations to to show you the the people of the island who make it so special and uh they bring it to life right they’re the ones who who help us make lifelong memories so yeah we’ll hopefully see you on [Music] Chicago