Outdoor life, usually from central Japan. Cycling, bike-packing, hiking, and photography.
One of the frustrations of riding a mountain bike in Japan is the lack of long distance trails. For so many years now I’ve headed down a newly discovered promising gravel track only for it to abruptly end 200m or so later. There are trails out there but they are often difficult to find and […]
You may or may not have noticed that there hasn’t been that many posts in 2018. While I’ve been spending more time than ever outdoors in the countryside cycling, bike packing, mountain biking, hiking, and photographing in Japanese mountains, the Australian countryside, or back ‘home’ in the U.K., the name Bike Packing Japan has often […]
Mt. Norikura (乗鞍) is considered a right of passage for many cyclists in Japan. It’s the highest road in the country and only bicycles, taxis, and official buses are allowed up. It’s sometimes called Japan’s version of Alpe d’ Huez with plenty of switchbacks, 1200m of elevation gain from the Norikura Heights car park, and […]
Fukui prefecture (福井県) seems to be a fairly unexplored region of Japan for cyclists and as a region along the Sea of Japan coast it used to be considered an isolated region before modernization. It’s northeast of Gifu prefecture and getting there from Aichi (愛知県) by riding through Gujo Hachiman (郡上八幡) in central Gifu (岐阜県) […]
I’ve just returned from Australia after spending two weeks cycling in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. In May/June I also took my annual trip back to the U.K. and cycled on the roads of my childhood as well as in central Snowdonia, Wales. And of course I’ve ridden plenty of times in Japan. So […]
If anyone based in Japan or with extensive knowledge of riding in Japan and would like to write a guest post please get in touch by leaving a comment of emailing me.
I did a short trip from Agematsu (上松) on the Nakasendo (中山道) to Mt. Ontake (御嶽山) recently, catching the late afternoon train from Kachigawa (勝川) north of Nagoya to Nakatsugawa, where I changed trains to Agematsu. Altogether about two hours of travel. From there I rode just under 40kms or so west towards Kaida Kogen […]
