Shikoku Bikepacking Journal

We landed in Osaka in mid May. We spent about a week and a half looking for bikes in every second hand store, then debated whether or not to buy first hand basic gravel ones or go for better second hand models but make some concessions. We decided to go for good second hand road bikes, and for Japan that was pretty sweet since everything was so well paved. Before we bought them though, we did get scammed on Facebook out of our own blindness due to sheer optimism and naivety. Generally speaking, we do not recommend Facebook Marketplace in Japan as a reliable source to look for a pair of wheels.

We wrote some tips on how to buy second hand bikes and avoid scams here.

Anyways, in the process of getting our bikes we figured out more or less the equipment necessary and suitable for us, most of which we ordered off of Amazon and arrived at our hotel at Tennoji ward within a couple of days. Later we saw the second hand shops also had good gear (arguably better) to offer for the same price as Amazon, so that could also be a way to go about it.

While we initially planned to do a route going north-west from Osaka through the alps and then east to Tokyo, we somehow decided to give Shikoku a try. We are so happy with this choice, it couldn't have been a more remarkable way to start our trip.

Shikoku, in our experience, is the least touristic area we cycled through in Japan (that includes Kyushu, central Honshu and Hokkaido). Outside of the Iya valley area, most of the tourism we saw was done by Japanese hikers or udon tourers. The island is the udon capital and birthplace, as we found out while rolling from one udon joint to the other.

Getting to Shikoku and Early Days

So, to get to Shikoku we took a ferry from Kobe to Takamatsu. Riding to Kobe was short but busy, and we found that city cycling in Japan was generally less safe than when you hop on a rural road or intercity one. We took the ferry at 1am and arrived at about 5am. We hopped off quite beat, I had a stomach bug and Y was looking after me.

Warning, these first few days will sound like a nightmare. That's because they pretty much were. But it was an old pipe type of thing, had to get the bad stuff out of the way and it was smooth from there on out.

Stomach bug and all, we started cycling short days to get a feel of the place, the roads, seeing if our route planning was good and realistic. But after about a day and a half, my rear rack broke, also bending one of the spokes on my back wheel. We took all the weight off it and found a temporary fix, but only a few kms later, my chain broke. We stopped for an extra night, ordered a new (and improved) rack off Amazon, found a local bike shop to fix the chain, and set off again. I think it was the next day that Y got a flat tire and we had no repair kit or spare. You think that's irresponsible? Don't ask about the day drinking from konbinis then.

Riding South to Kochi

We didn't have a plan, but every night we would look at the map, search for onsens in a general direction we liked and within a reasonable distance. Because we were still getting adjusted to the area and bikes, this was about 60km avg. per day during that time. We met people who were doing 120km along with some doing 40km and honestly, both are great ways to see the area. We got to Miyoshi pretty wet and five minutes after exiting the onsen it was pouring down to an extent we weren't ready for. We were pretty set on camping but that sounded a bit rough for this weather, so I told Y I booked a hotel for us for the night (I actually hadn't booked it but once I saw his reaction was happy I went ahead and booked a cheap but decent place).

The day after was still quite heavily raining, and this was the day we figured out my raincoat wasn't raincoating. We planned on camping at a site near the sento we found in Motoyama, but when we got there we met the nicest man who invited us into his home, we shared an amazing meal and a bottle of sake. He even made us breakfast, and before leaving the town we popped through the Montbell where he worked and got me a proper raincoat.

We rode south to Kochi, which was the first place we had our film photos developed. There is a chain of shops that I believe is called Camera Kitamura, which does in house development within 1-3 hours. Since the camera shop in Osaka pretty much refused to sell us the Canon AE-1 we eventually managed to buy, we weren't even sure the roll wouldn't come out completely blank. But it came out more beautiful than we could imagine, and from there on out we were (un)certified frame hunters.

In Kochi we had already realized what an amazing trip this could turn out to be, so we knew we wanted to make the route as long as we could and decided to try for Kyushu despite the weather (heat, humidity and rain) that comes along in June. So we were headed west. We cycled through Ochi, Seiyo, to Yawatahama. Everyday was finished with an onsen and the towns and locals along the way were always welcoming. This was also where we figured out that supermarket sushi in Japan was better than Omakase sushi back home. At Yawatahama we rolled onto a ferry to Beppu, Kyushu.