Getting There

As usual, overnight train is one of your better options - though if you're not used to mountains, you should spend the night in Nagano rather than try to cycle up to these elevations with no sleep. Overnight kyuko and tokkyu trains leave Osaka at nine or ten p.m., stop in Nagoya at one a.m. and arrive Nagano early in the morning. On my trip, we took a train from Osaka early in the morning and still got to Nagano by around noon (and managed the climb to Manza). Check your train schedule for special seasonal trains. From Tokyo, things are much easier: tokkyu trains leave from Ueno around 7:30 or 8:00 and get to Nagano before 11. More to the point, the bullet train goes from central Tokyo to Nagano in less than two hours. @@@

Accommodations

During the holiday season or autumn weekends, you should make reservations if possible, since youth hostels and even minshuku will fill up. Manza has a number of fine inexpensive minshuku, and Nozawa is even more packed with places to stay. There are youth hostels at the Zenkoji temple in Nagano City (Zenkoji Kyoju-in, 0262-32-2768); at Kusatsu Kogen, just south of the pass (Kusatsu-Kogen YH, 0279-88-3895) and at Lake Nojiri (Nojiri-ko YH, 0262-58-2501). The Kusatsu Kogen YH is one of the few to rate four stars in the Japanese YH guide; note that it is at 1,100 meters and thus a sharp drop from the 2,138m pass, so don't plan on staying here if you want to go back up the mountain (and also note that it closes for about a week in June and November). For minshuku, arrange reservations in advance during the busy seasons; most travel offices will do this for you free of charge. There is also a kokumin shukusha at Shiga Kogen (Shigakogen-so, 0269-34-2131) and a "cycling terminal" in Nagano city.

Sights

The sights on this route are covered pretty well in the Story section. Since you're climbing up into the mountains, you have spectacular winter-wonderland scenery at practically any time of the year. Once you come down from the mountains, by all means arrange to stop at some of the many hot springs at Yudanaka, in an area known as "Jigokudani" (valley of hell). One of these is the famous "monkey spa" where monkeys keep warm in winter; note that it’s a hike up a steep hillside, so you’ll have to leave your bike down at the bottom (and lock it, of course). The tiny one-street towns here are very picturesque as well. There are an entire cluster of hot springs here; check out as many as you have time for. At the western end of the hot springs community is the right turn you should make to go to Nozawa on a road that curves just west of the mountains; a more level route follows the river up all the way as well. Once again, offroaders traveling in the warm months should consider going on the Oku-Shiga rindo (forest road), a 50 km route that is supposed to be one of the finest in Japan; it skirts Yudanaka and the monkey spas but fortunately goes straight to Nozawa.

Getting Away

Once you get to Nagano, you can go back by afternoon or overnight train the same way you came. If you don't want to cycle all the way back to NaGano, you can board from Iiyama, NaKano or some other point on the branch line that joins up with the main line just before Nagano. If you're doing a side-trip to Lake Nojiri, Kurohime station on the main line is right at the west end of that lake. For other options, see Alternatives.