Take Cycle Sports magazine and put it with ride tracking and route mapping service Strava and you have a handy collection of cycling routes in Japan.
The website is https://www.routes-of-japan.com and it’s in Japanese only. The drop-down menus on the top of the page allow you to choose among the Routes of Japan, from mountain courses to coastal routes, or just easy courses. You can select by region. Browse for inspiration or if you know your destination, search among this.
Come for the routes, stay for the photos
Cycle Sports is one of Japan’s top cycling magazines and its helped publish an appealing website. Above all it’s alluring, full of impressive photos and suggestive rides, a great resource.
Each route is from a magazine member, a well known cyclist or just a local. There’s a URL to Strava’s website where you can download the GPS route, either a GPX or a TCX file for cycling in Japan.
Consequently these routes are refined, they can be a starting point if you want some inspiration. Ideally follow the exact route as they include detours past viewpoints, side roads to avoid traffic and so on.
Travel tips
- Routes of Japan has some great suggestions and is a slick website
- The GPS route downloads make it very practical too
- Though it’s Japanese if you don’t want to learn Japanese, stick the URL in a translation engine like Babelfish, Deepl or Google Translate and it’ll appear in your chose language
