Marine
Warming-Up
- Apr 30, 2015
- 12
- 5
- Thread starter
- #21
1. That is a decent mission. I reckon you are going to want the fastest bike you can get. Dragging a heavy touring bike all that way is going to be nasty.
2. Great, so you can focus on a road bike then.
Will you be camping, or will you arrange hotels to stay in each night / have places to stay with friends or whatever?
So your boyfriend does not have a bike either? Well, I think he should follow exactly the same advice as yourself.
There is a vibe with some people that doing a bike tour (or even just going on a single ride) requires huge amounts of baggage, stuff with heavy clothes. This might be true if you are completely away from all civilisation, but with a bit of planning you can cut this right down to nearly nothing in Japan. You don't need to take all the clothes you will wear for the whole time, as you can buy them easily on the way, cheaply, then throw them away as you go. There are convenience stores that sell tshirt, pants, socks etc, the whole way. The same is true about tools, and bike spares.
With this in mind, I think you should focus on getting as light and fast a bike as you can, and travelling with the minimum amount of stuff. You can buy most of it along the way, if you plan carefully. This will make your ride a LOT more enjoyable and free feeling. Flying down mountains on fast bike and being able to ride efficiently and quickly every day is much much better than dragging a heavy slow bike around with you.
1. Yes it can be really difficult in long term, you're right the lighter will be the better. I will choose the balanced one between technical and budget.
We will be camping as much as we can then take hostels when we'll have to. We don't know anybody in Japan for the moment. I saw that there is a site of cycler's contacting to spend time with them or even a night sometimes. It will be nice, especially to meet japanese people.
No he don't, I'm searching advices for both of us.
We have planed to take the minimum of clothes and stuff with us and as you said buy it if we are in needs. I prefer wash my clothes 2 times a week and have enough place to take bike's tools. I didn't thought that it could be easy to find bike's tools on the way.
That's right ^^ I'm already enjoy to do this, Japan seems to be so amazing I already go there once but as a real tourist in doing tourist stuff arrounded by tourist, that's why I'm planning this tour !