Cycling Japan: Northern Honshu and Hokkaido // World Bicycle Touring Episode 45

After leaving Matsumoto, we continued across the Japanese Alps and arrived on the west coast. We mostly followed the coastline of the Sea of Japan as we traveled north through Honshu before taking a ferry to Hokkaido. We took our time exploring some national parks in Hokkaido before ending our bike tour of Japan in Sapporo.

Apart from some intense traffic during Golden Week, this part of our route featured lots of idyllic riding and beautiful scenery. We spent a little over two months in Japan and had a fantastic time – there is so much to discover and we’d love to return for more bike touring someday!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rollingexistence

Bicycle gear list below. We’re running a mix of traditional panniers and bikepacking bags.
– 2020 Surly Ogres
– 36h Rohloff Speedhubs
– 36h Son 28 Dynamo hubs
– Ryde Andra 40 rims
– Marathon GT365 29×2.0 tires
– Avid BB7 brakes, 200mm front, 160mm rear
– Sinewave Cycles Beacon headlight/USB charger
– Ergon SMC Core (Andrew) Terry Butterfly Century (Jenny) saddles
– Rogue Panda custom frame bags
– Ortlieb Back Rollers Plus rear panniers
– Bedrock Bags Hermosa front panniers
– Tubus Cargo rear rack (Andrew), Tubus Logo Classic (Jenny)
– Planet Bike AL fenders

Camera Gear:
– Fuji X-T4
– Fujinon 16-80 mm f/4- Fujinon 23 mm f/2 prime
– GoPro Hero 8 Black w/Media Mod + DIY windscreen
– Rode VideoMic Pro
– Mavic Mini 1 drone

Music Credits:
Elijah Lee – Our Hideaway
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/KvklK9R3LpU?si=ErYUQSYs5MrKdwYb

jhove – After Hours
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/HV3gIomgFF8?si=djVvJk2yK4K4WL0t

jhove – Far Away
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/LiAYOGLdPIg?si=AbBk0rG4UYFGcTkw

jhove – You
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/HEeOAwe3WHA?si=4oA4_GWOaG6jUT7D

jhove – Above Clouds
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/MwZ60IA92Kk?si=cqsC6WpWgei2YdPV

Laffey – Home
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/GGjN82cIhDc?si=M6BUV_nRXt1VJ9us

Kanisan – Left Alone
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/0Rns8hAoszw?si=KRqXb5XoIVNaVGRj

Kanisan – Sorrow
Provided by Lofi Records
Watch: https://youtu.be/ApctR39ZnFU?si=Mcl6hhjG2Wq5-_uW

Okay [Applause] This little section of riding we’re doing to avoid the Nago urban area uh is going to require like 6,500 ft of climbing over 30 miles there’s a fly on my GoPro so uh yeah spending all day slow slowly pedaling Uphill well we kind of messed up and ended up riding through National Park on uh one of the busiest days of the year the first day of uh golden week huge climbing to get up here and it’s just completely Jem with people the traffic is pretty wild uh we probably wouldn’t have come

Here had we known it was so busy but H oh well Finishing up a long day I think it’s going to be a 64 4 Mile day or something now that we’re out of the mountains it’s easy to make good progress pretty much flat with a very slight sail wind we’re still headed to Hokkaido I think we uh

We’re going to make it by our deadline so trying to get there fast and maybe get to explore a little bit of the island we’ll see we had a long day something like 6 4 miles found a campsite right here on the beach and we get to listen to the sounds

Of the ocean all night Jenny’s uh finishing up getting set up in the Tent Today and yesterday have been probably the worst days of riding so far in Japan uh we were on a Scenic coastal route during golden week really bad decision no shoulder no sidewalk and uh lots of tunnels steady stream of cars people passing close and just agitated on vacation uh really not enjoyable riding

It’s kind of our fault for being here right now uh we should have been somewhere less uh Scenic and popular for a big national holiday we’re under the sea Crossing into nigata there’s a nice uh bikes and pedestrians only tunnel under the Ocean deing with an all day rain today first time it’s really rained in quite a few days so uh we were kind of due luckily the traffic has calmed down here on the coast it’s kind of fun to ride in the rain sometimes I don’t know today kind of uh just handling

It we’re very lethargic on rainy mornings like this taking a little break from riding to check out this uh weird Coastline we still haven’t quite figured out what the deal with these big uh like cow trop things are um obviously some sort of like Breakwater erosion control flood

Protection thing but uh there’s a lot of them there’s like millions of them along the coastline of Japan [Applause] We had a pretty rough day of constant rain and we weren’t really looking forward to setting up camp but we found this abandoned tunnel that doesn’t seem to be used anymore so hopefully it doesn’t collapse on us in the night and we’re pretty happy to have some shelter [Applause] Doing some sidewalk riding on our way through aita as usual the sidewalk is uh a little more comfortable than the road other than the uh mini curbs we hit every time there’s a side Street We’re leaving our wild camp this morning right off this bike path next to the ocean we’re getting pretty close tokaido and it’s gotten quite a lot cooler as we’ve moved North and we are looking forward to checking out haido before heading to Tokyo and onto Alaska We’re getting fairly close to the northern tip of honu we’ve got about 90 Mi left before we’re going to catch our ferry to Hokkaido uh we’re going to head east towards Amore shortly uh but right now we’re following the western coast traffic is thinned out as well as the

Population it’s uh 25 miles between convenience stores up here which is uh a change We Can’t Stop every five miles and pig out at lawon her family Mart seagulls and family mark Today is our last day riding on honu it’s been really cool to see the landscape changing so much as we move north going from the Japanese Alps to all the different geology on the coastline and we are excited to see what hi kaido’s like we’re we’re crossing the

Mountains to get to amori where we’re going to take a ferry to haido but the road we chose which is a bigger Road uh we came up to this gate partway up the pass uh there weren’t any signs warning about it but the road appears totally

Closed so we have to go all the way back and take a different Road and probably miss the ferry we were trying to take but there’s not much we can do so we’ll just get a later one well our nice quiet Mountain route was closed and so we’re finishing up the

Last few miles in honu on a pretty uh tedious highway it’s a bummer we’re probably going to make the ferry we’re rushing now but uh yeah just the way it goes sometimes you get up uh up to a closed Road you got to turn around and go a different way [Applause] We have arrived on haido as usual last one’s off the boat going to find our way to uh the hotel we booked here in hakodate and then uh take a rest day Somewhere over the Window we are headed out of hakodate it’s a huge urban area so it’s just like hours of riding on sidewalks uh we can’t wait to get out into the natury part of haido this is the normal uh Japan Urban riding of sidewalks and stoplights for hours We’ve had a good first day of riding here on a kaido uh a little bit of a light rain kind of chilly this far north in uh miday still worked our way through hakodate town and uh hit the coastline and now we are crossing this little

Peninsula uh over towards the uh Sea of Japan side and uh then we’re going to head north from there tell us your thoughts on the Tulip well I love tulips obviously uh and there are a lot on haido so far and a bunch of the cute little ground

Flowers the purple ones there’s a big field of those so yes it’s springtime again it’s nice it’s our first night camping in hikido we’re kind of up in the hills so it was pretty easy to find a spot next to this little stream so Andrew was catching

Some very tiny fish last night and it rained most of the night but now it stopped so lucky Us We’ve been in Japan for a month and a half now and we started out on kushu then headed to shikoku and then honu and now Hokkaido and it’s been fun to kind of see the small cultural and uh landscape shifts as we’ve headed north haido so far is similar to

Northern honu but still quite a bit different uh just more wild feeling less uh manipulated a lot of Japan uh there’s a ton of erosion control and flood control all the rivers are very uh damned frequently and uh it’s nice to be here in haido where everything is just a little bit more

Untamed there are brown bears in this area too which uh we’re going to have to get used to in Alaska and Canada and the northern Rocky where we’re headed Next this is our go-to in Japan eating food outside the convenience store this is how we have dinner most nights it’s just so much easier than cooking and it tastes better we were on a little island it required us to go up 168 steps but it was a really beautiful campsite just a

Free campground bathrooms and everything so uh Hokkaido is like shikoku and it’s got in that it’s got free Campgrounds Jenny had some bike maintenance to do that we were putting off for a little while so we decided to stop early today and uh set up camp have a bottle of wine and a campfire which we don’t normally do but every once in a while it’s nice

And there’s a million bugs here so the smoke is scaring them off so Jenny’s doing uh bike maintenance using some leaves to protect her chain how’s it how’s it coming it’s going well uh got to put in some new brake pads so that’ll be nice to have breakes again because right now

I do not apparently there are about 10,000 brown bears on haido and there are a bunch of these really intense signs warning you about them but we haven’t seen any yet Is so many tunnels today we’ve gone through miles of tunnel the longest one so far about a mile and a half but uh this one’s about a mile we’re headed into luckily there’s not much traffic we’ve seen quite a few foxes on haido they’re kind of weird they just

Like stare at us until we get pretty close and then they hide but they’re very curious about us we finally climbed up away from the coast and went Inland uh we’re on a huge Plateau right now uh lots of interesting vegetation quite a bit different than anywhere we’ve been

In Japan so far uh unfortunately it’s an extremely hazy day for some reason not sure if there’s a wildfire somewhere or if it’s just pollution but uh we probably have a great view of these mountains if it weren’t so uh bad visibility such bad visibility Many of the towns we passed through on haido have been seemingly deserted just kind of shuttered up uh not sure if they’re more seasonal or uh just people move into cities or what’s going on but it’s it’s very interesting how many of these towns just feel very Deserted He we’ve been riding with a view of Mount yoai a 6200 ft strata volcano pretty much all day today it’s been uh a lot clearer today than in the last few days which has been awesome cuz we’ve gotten really fantastic views uh we passed the mountain on our left and

Now we’re heading away from it towards a large Crater Lake I [Applause] think we’re pretty close to saporo now we could uh be there in maybe two days if we went directly there but we’re kind of just winding our way through some national parks checking out some sites and going

Slow we’ basically made it to our end destination at this point so now we just get to relax and uh do some fishing and exploring maybe do a hike or something after two months in Japan getting a little bit uh ansy to be on to the next thing especially considering

What we have next it’s going to be a massive change and we’ll be going back to the United States for the first time in uh just about 2 years so kind of looking forward to be being back uh kind of a little bit sad to be leaving Asia Something wrong with this Tanuki he’s coming right for us oh there he goes pretty long climb today started at 200 ft heading up to about 3,000 so we’ve been been uh grinding uphill for an hour and a half now getting a little bit close to the

Top most of the time not much of a view but this uh spot here opened up finally uh We’ve made it to the top of the pass been climbing for what feels like 2 3 hours uh it’s like winter up here trees haven’t uh leafed out pretty chilly but

We’re very which is going to make The Descent a little Cold we’re at a uh natural steam foot bath thing and Jenny’s putting her feet in there how is it feels very nice after a long day of biking we set up camp here last night it’s basically in the town of norab betsu uh nice uh little private spot still

Though unfortunately it started raining in the middle of the night and it’s uh hasn’t let up so we had to pack up all our gear in the rain it’s always very unpleasant uh water ends up getting in pretty much everything but uh we’re going to go hang out at a convenience

Store and drink some coffee and have a slow start to this kind of miserable day how are you doing Jenny doing great I’m not doing great I’m not very happy well after our rainy morning we decided to spend 3 hours hanging out in this this a convenience store drinking

Coffee three coffees each rain has mostly stopped now so we’re going to go do some hiking well the rain was supposed to stop at 4: today has not stopped it’s gotten worse we’re on the side of a road busy road the song is playing meaning it’s the end of the

Day and uh we got to get dinner and find somewhere to Camp so we’re having dinner outside of this Lawson and I was like standing over by my phone while I was charging my bike is over here and I had all my uh breakfast food just sitting on

Top of it and out of nowhere a raven just came and stole a whole croissant from right next to us flew off with one of these guys the whole package and everything yeah it was insane uh so now got to go and buy some more breakfast food

Today is our final day of riding in Japan we’re on uh Lake shotu and we’re headed towards saporo going to be a short day only about uh 50 km 30 Mi big big pass to climb though and uh it’s like the clearest day we’ve had in all of Japan

We’ve made it into seoro riding the last few miles on a nice uh bike path along a stream uh letting us avoid all the traffic on the way into the city That’s where they p Beginning our trip to Alaska with a bike box carry through Shinjuku station at morning Rush Hour have fun kind of my nightmare but it’s really not as bad as I thought all