Tour of Hokkaido 2009
On August 25th, Yana & Mark Ivey, Brooks Sizemore and I did a Bicycle Tour of Hokkaido (the northern-most big Island of Japan). The ride totaled 1532.3km of riding and 15,300m of climb over 18 riding days, during which we got 2 flat tires, neither of which could be attributed to the condition of Japan's roads. (All tracks were recorded by my Garmin 76CSx, and you download all the tracks in a zipped package)This is the index page with day-by-day trip reports and will collect all the photos when they show up.
The original solicitation letter got enough attention to go ahead, and due to plane ticket pricing and other timing issues, we settled on an August 25th departure.
We used the Collaborative album feature of PicasaWeb to mix all our photos together in chronological order:
- August 25-26: Prologue
- August 27: Chitose to Sapporo
- August 28: Sapporo
- August 29: Sapporo to Yubari
- August 30: Yubari to Furano
- August 31: Furano to Tokachidake Hot Springs
- September 1: Tokachidake Hot Springs to Biei "Potato" Hostel
- September 2: Biei "Potato" Hostel to Asahidake Hot Springs
- September 3: Asahidake Hot Springs to Biei "Tomato" Minshuku
- September 4: Biei "Tomato" Minshuku to Sounkyo Hot Springs
- September 5: Sounkyo Hot Springs to Bihoro
- September 6: Bihoro to Kotan
- September 7: Kotan to Utoro
- September 8: Utoro to Rausu
- September 9: Rausu to Teshikaga
- September 10: Teshikaga to Ashoro
- September 11: Ashoro to Shintoku "Drum Kan"
- September 12: Shintoku "Drum Kan" to Yubari Forest Youth Hostel
- September 13: Yubari Forest Youth Hostel to Lake Shikotsu "Lapland"
- September 14: Lake Shikotsu "Lapland" to Chitose Airport
- September 14-15: Epilogue
- Appendix A: Hokkaido Touring Tips and Resources
- Appendix B: Thoughts on Hokkaido Touring
- Appendix C: Essay - Why You should not tour like Me
Labels: cycling, japan, travel, vacation
posted by Piaw Na @ 9:50 PM
10 Comments:
Hi,
This trip looks great. Is there any chance you would be will to share you garmin tcx of gpx file of your trip?
Kindest Regards,
oldmantrout
If you click through on the little map on every entry, the GPS tracks should be readily available. Please let me know if they are not.
I just tried but I think snce they are shutting down motionbased it is not working as it should. I tried on Garmin connect but could not find them there although my search technique is not that great.
That's very strange. I just tried it and the linked work for me. This link work for you?
I get this ...
A system error occurred. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again or return to the MotionBased Home Page.
My apologies. I've uploaded all my tracks now. (See the first paragraph of this web page)
hey I really appreciate that. I have downloaded them and opened to check - all good. Once again thanks
Hi Piaw,
I wish I knew you were comming! I am a 15 year resident in Hokkaido and I cycle 5000-6000 kms every year. I know several of the routes you described. I agree that the passes are few and not comparable to the Alps. Major roads have high traffic, but the country roads are beautiful (and well kept!). Next time you come, you should cycle along the coast.
I know the wind problem. Once I was cycling from Sapporo to Soya misaki (400kms - 3 days) with a constant headwind of at least 5 m/s :-(
We did cycle along the coast to Utoro and back, but we get a lot of coast cycling here in California as well, so we thought we'd see some of the famous areas like Biei. No regrets --- Biei was really beautiful, living up to its name.
Hokkaido, it's seem beautiful and interesting. Nice post.
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