Timeline
Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 9, 2026
May 10 - Koga to Hotel Nikko Narita
A flat day. Really sunny and high UV index. The cycle paths along the Tone River are easy to follow and well maintained. Great network of trails. A bit boring to ride flat all day. Winds picked up around noon again. It’s amazing how we can ride almost right to…
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 9, 2026
May 9 - Annaka to Koga
Gale force gusts again today, but luckily mainly from behind! Easy riding on bike paths. Some of them are in amazing shape and a few need some TLC. They seem to have a ton of bike paths next to rivers but they often aren’t contiguous but appear to be connected…
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 7, 2026
May 8 - Nagano to Annaka
A great way to get to Annaka from Nagano. Not a ton of climbing. More urbanized than expected but Komoot did a pretty good job keeping us off the busier roads. The ride down from Usiu Pass is great. Unfortunately it had just rained so we had to take the…
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 5, 2026
May 6 - Kashiwazaki to Nagano
Excellent day in the saddle thanks to great weather and finally some tailwinds! Some roads were busy but drivers were respectful. The coastline road was beautiful, not as busy as yesterday and the tunnels totally manageable. Most major roads had a decent cycle path next to it. Could have taken…
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 4, 2026
May 5 - Niigata to Kashiwazaki
Beautiful ride along the coastline. The route was very busy with traffic. There was often a bike lane/sidewalk on the side, but this was often neglected, overgrown and felt more like gravel riding - which was fine for us as we preferred this to being on the road. The numerous…
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 3, 2026
Option 2 - May 3 - Yonezawa to Aizubange
Really buggy on the climb up. Tons of ?blackflies that did bite. The original Komoot route had us on a closed road that we attempted but it was very quickly totally overgrown with another 7.6km to go so we turned back and stuck to the state roads.
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
May 1, 2026
May 1 Kaminoyama to Takamiya Ryokan
Short and easy day - which was what we needed as it rained all day. Some of the bike paths are lined on both sides with cherry trees which would have been in full bloom 1-2 weeks ago.
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
April 30, 2026
April 30 - Bike ride to top of Zao Echo Line
A great climb to the top. There’s an extra climb up to the Okama Centre but it costs money even on a bike to get there!
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
April 29, 2026
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Frank P Ackermann went for a bike ride
April 28, 2026
Day 7 - Urabandai to Fukushima City - Iizaka-Onsen
A beautiful ride. The first 1/3 was pretty remote with macaque monkeys on the road! I had an issue with my crank and had to go into Fukushima City to get it and my BB replaced. The bike stores were all great. Both Yoshina and Ishida Cycle stores helped me…
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April 30, 2026
A section of this trip was on a closed road which made fo awesome cycling. I suspect that road is closed in the winter. The road on the south side of the water reservoir was also awesome and we saw some monkeys there. No traffic there.