Why Cycle Japan?

Here are a few excerpts from an article I wrote on cycling in Japan:

Tired of the city? Practically everybody is, sooner or later. At such times, you wish you had a magic carpet that would whisk you away at high speed and let you zoom along, say, a beautiful seacoast road or a mountain path, through little fishing villages or farming communities, waterfalls and spectacular scenery.

Magic carpets are still in short supply. Luckily, however, for only a small investment, you can purchase the next best thing: a bicycle and a bikebag.

When used with a bikebag, a bicycle combines the speed and convenience of travel by mass transit with the freedom of travel by car - and it's also great exercise. There is no hassle about carrying a bagged bike on trains, and on ferries you aren't socked with a vehicle charge (as you might be on some routes if you wheel it on board).

Biking and bagging it takes care of the major problem associated with traveling by car (or motorcycle, for that matter): no matter where you go, you've got to drive back. No matter if you're tired, or you're running late, or you know there will be a hundred-kilometer traffic jam the whole way. At that point, you have no options left.

But with a bicycle, as soon as you get tired or run out of time, you simply cycle to the nearest train station, pack up the bike, hop on the train and relax with your favorite alcoholic beverage on the way home.

OK, so I've convinced you. To see how it works, check out the other sub-categories in this section, beginning with Using Bikebags.