Our 67-mile ride today began about 100 miles from Tokyo. The
entire region we travelled through is very built up and heavily populated, with
busy roads. What could have been a dreadful biking day – sharing the roads with
cars and trucks whizzing by at close quarters – was instead a delightful day
spent mostly on bike paths. There were paths adjacent to highways, paths along
rivers and canals, paths on bridges (and even one bridge just for bikes,
adjacent to the bridge for motorized vehicles), and paths through fields and
woods. [As an aside: it's too bad that Americans, with their anti-tax obsession,
choose to largely forego the pleasures of community amenities that improve the
quality of life, such as bike paths, as well as more important benefits such as
good universal health care.]
On our trip overall, the vast majority of our riding has
been on roads, but bike paths have been very helpful when we've been in or
close to urban areas. We're very grateful to Thomas Holvoet of
Japan Biking, who charted out a great route for our entire trip. His knowledge
of biking in Japan allowed him to find the best roads and bike paths everywhere
we went.
On our ride, we were impressed by the numerous athletic
facilities that we passed, most of which were full of activity. We rode by
multiple baseball fields, golf courses, golf driving ranges, and fields used
for a game that looked like a cross between croquet and par-3 golf.
The endpoint of our ride was Kawagoe, a bustling city of
350,000 located 30 miles from Tokyo. Kawagoe is a popular tourist destination
because of its proximity to Tokyo and its many historic buildings of the
so-called Kurazukuri ("warehouse") style that were originally built
for wealthy merchants.
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| Bike path beside a highway |
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| Bike path parallel to a highway |
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| Bike path on a bridge |
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| Cyclists get their own bridge, adjacent to the bridge for cars and trucks |
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| Bike path in a city |
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| Bike path in the woods |
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| Bike path adjacent to a golf course |
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| Baseball diamond along our route |
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| Field for croquet/golf game |
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| Biking in Kawagoe along a street with traditional Kurazukuri architecture |
