Hey everyone! I am back from Japan and I did the Shimanami Kaido indeed. It was a fantastic experience.
First of all I would like to thank you all for posting your tips and links, which were of great help.
I will try to help writing about my experience. Please feel free to ask more specific questions, I will try to answer them.
- We did the North-South route.
- As I stated earlier, the Shimanami Kaido was a (welcome) modification in our original travel plans. Instead of going to the original destination for the day, we booked one night at Urbain Executive Hiroshima Hotel, which is near the train station. Since we were coming back to the same hotel two days later to visit Hiroshima they gently let us leave our bags at the hotel, so we didn't have to spend with lockers or with luggage forwarding. We left early on the following morning and got the train to Onomichi.
- We managed to arrive early in Onomichi (around 09:XX). The bike rental is close to the station. Here is the location in Google Maps (you can see the bikes in street view):
https://goo.gl/maps/zMB8r- I expected worse bikes. Sure, there were the pretty basic ones, but there were very decent mountain bikes with a lot of gears. Out of curiosity I chose a Bridgestone Ordina with road tires, belt and a Shimano Nexus 8 internal gear set. Good bike.
- We followed the (official) recommendation to skip the first bridge and used the ferry to get to Mukaishima. It's really cheap and close to the bike rental. It's a short trip, too.
- The route is indeed very safe and has really picturesque spots. Sometimes it was a little difficult to decide whether to keep the pace or to stop for some photos. :-)
- As planned, we carried only a change of clothes. The islands have good resources, so you can always count on finding a public restroom and a Lawson or automatic vending machine to buy some food and water. :-)
- We booked one night at Setoda Private Hostel (
http://ww7.enjoy.ne.jp/~ymdymd777/eshimanami.html), in Ikuchi Island. We chose it because it's located fairly in the middle of the route and there were some references on the web.
- Setoda Private Hostel probably has seen better days. You can see the place isn't renovated for a long time already. But most importantly, the room (with a nice view front view to Sunset Beach), futons and blankets were clean. The toilet, unfortunately, could be better. The place is family owned, you can choose to also have dinner and breakfast there. The meals were traditional and good.
- But the highlight is the onsen. Contrasting with the rest of the facilities, it looks new, and in fact it's very nice, with rocks and everything. The owner let us bath there after the dinner and it was a great and relaxing experience after a day of cycling.
- I recommend spending two days on route so you can experience everything at a more leisurely pace. If you only have one day maybe it's a good idea to catch a ferry to Ikuchi Island and start cycling from there. I say this because the second half of the route is definitely more beautiful (the first one has some industrial installations) and the bridges are more impressive.
- For the same reason I recommend doing the N-S route, so you can leave the best to the end. :-)
- We in fact had some opposing wind, but I really wouldn't change the direction with this in mind. When cycling the wind always seems to be against you anyway. :-)
- It's really near impossible to get lost. There are signs everywhere along the route.
- The route as whole is, in short, awesome. I've never seen this kind of care with cyclists. The bike slopes are always gentle, there are bike exclusive access ramps... it's amazing. Kudos for all the involved in this project.
- The final bridge from Oshima Island to Imabari is really amazing.
- I can't stress enough that you make this tour in good weather. Otherwise you won't be able to really appreciate what the route has to offer. We found the weather forecast to be very accurate while in Japan, so maybe use this in you favor. We were lucky and had good weather, especially on the second day.
- I've seen a lot of references about using buses to resume the trip after completing the Shimanami Kaido, but we decided to use the train since we had JR passes. Fortunately there's a bike rental/return point close to the Imabari train station. You will have to cycle around 20-30 minutes more after crossing the bridge. Here's an approximate location using Google Maps. I think they haven't built it yet at the time Google mapped the Street View:
https://goo.gl/maps/LinPI- Then we got a train back to Hiroshima and resumed our Japan trip. :-)
Wow, long text. But as I said, feel free to ask questions if you think I can be of any help. Thanks!
