Japan Cycle 2023 - Arriving and Preparations
Transporting sporting equipment, namely a bicycle, was certainly a new experience for me. Each airline lists a pretty strict list of rules about what and how you can pack a bike which that me stressing a fair bit before leaving.
Once the bike was boxed and ready to fly I discovered you can't book an UberXL or cargo taxi in advanced, which required just hoping one was available on the day. This of course was fine, if a tad annoying, but otherwise getting to the airport and checking the bike went smoothly. Turns out people fly with bikes every day, so dropping the bike off at oversized luggage was surprisingly painless. Arriving on the other side, Japan customs were so slow that both Ryan and I's bikes were sitting ready for us immediately once we got through. Despite their size, wheeling the bike boxes on the airport trolleys was quite easy, but our first big challenge then presented itself.
One of the best decisions we made was choosing to stay in Narita town, rather than trying to get all the way from Narita International Airport to downtown Tokyo. However, this still involved taking the train a couple of stations, and the station itself was several floors below arrivals. This in of itself wouldn't be a huge issue except we couldn't find an elevator, so instead had to fight our way through a sea of people with our huge boxes in order to take the escalators. At this time we also decided not to exchange our JR Pass tickets due to the line up. This turned out to be a mistake as when we tried to do this in Hiroshima later, the line up was about 10 times larger.
Once we got the boxes through the train, awkwardly blocking and inconveniencing people along the way, we still had to carry the boxes to our accommodation. This was when I really discovered how badly I had over packed. While we didn't have to go far, every 100 metres carried with the bike and my backpack in tow was a struggle. With Ryan offering to share the load, we made it to our little guesthouse tired but in one piece.
Once finding our room on the 2nd floor, we then decided to to lug the boxes up the stairs one by one. The next day we discovered the storage room in the back, which would have saved some effort. After which, we decided to use said storage room to unbox the bikes and bag them up for transport. Disposing of the cardboard turned out to be more difficult than we realised. At the airport we actually saw someone unbox their bike, and just leave the box at the airport. At the time this would have been unthinkable to me, but in hindsight it isn't the worst idea. We ended up flattening the boxes, then sliding them behind a shelf in the storage room. Still unclear if this was poor etiquette.
We then carried the bikes back to Narita Station and carried on to Ueno Station. Even transferring stations was difficult for me due to the combined weight of everything I was carrying. Transferring to the Shinkansen should have been smooth, but the sheer number of people at the station, and a hiccough while purchasing tickets (turned out row 16 was at the front of the train, not the back) made things a bit bumpy. The new rule of requiring purchasing the back row in order to use the oversized bag space thankfully doesn't apply to the Hokuriku line, so I was able to throw my bike in the back of the train and sit at the front without issue.
When we arrived in Kanazawa we realised how far away our accommodation was, and since I nearly died trying to carry the bike 100 metres out of the station, it was time to finally build the bikes. Things here went smoothly save for a couple screws nearly going down a drain pipe and a sore back from all the bending over. We got a few side eyes from people since we had turned the corner space outside the station into a bike garage, but overall nobody cared what we were up to. We did a lot of work that day, but it turned a painful hour walk into a smooth 5 minute ride and was a good smoke test for the bikes' performance. In Kanazawa, we stayed in a fairly upscale hotel, so I had hoped they would have some kind of storage area we could leave the bikes. Turns out no hotel in Japan seems to offer this type of service, so we immediately had to break down the bikes (not fully this time, thankfully), bag them up and store them in our hotel room. This was what we did at the vast majority of our accommodations, however, on the whole hostels turned out to be far more accommodating to bicycles than any other kind of accommodation.
The next day we were finally able to relax, explore Kanazawa, and try adjust to the time zone change. I decided to pick up a panier bag for the bike, which really helped distribute the weight. This was one of the best decisions I made all trip. However, I remained extremely back heavy the entire trip.
While rain was on the distant horizon, the next few days were forecast for nothing but sunshine. With all the preparations complete, the next day we were off for day one of our cycle from Kanazawa to Hiroshima.
