Lake Towada | Tohoku Region | Bike Questions

Hi and happy new new to all!

Me and 2 other friends are planning to go on a cycling tour around the Tohoku region. On one of the days, we're planning to go visiting the Lake Towada region, however we were thinking to go by bus from Hachinohe to Towada Lake using the JR Bus Tohoku Company services.

Does anyone know if bikes are allowed to be transported (assembled/disassembled) on the buses?
Furthermore, can anyone tell me the expected timetable/frequency of the buses for June 2024 (I saw on the JR Bus Tohoku website (they only had English for the main page - the other pages were only in Japanese so I had to use Google Translator - that I know that is not the proper way to translate Japanese) that they currently have a timetable/frequency for winter, so I suppose that there will be another timetable/frequency in June - if there isn't any timetable/frequency available yet for June 2024, does anyone know the previous timetable for June 2023?

Finally, I believe that we can use our JR railway passes on the bus, is that right? Do we have to book the seats in advance, or we just have to show up? And in case bikes are allowed, do we have to previouly warn in advance as well?

Many thanks for your help!

Best Regards,
Tiago

This is not my personal experience, but the below blog is about the bicycle transfer by JR bus, originally in Japanese and google-translated.

https://x.gd/4m4RQ

As for summer schedule, I am afraid JR has not announced it for 2024. I found a very old one (2016), but it may help.

https://www.jrbustohoku.co.jp/pdf_data/hachinohe_towada.pdf

There seems to be 3 buses, starting at 8:00, 9:35 and 13:20 from Hachinohe station west exit.

I don�ft know for this specific bus, but the bicycle for sure must be in a bag. There are different bag options on Japan. Removing only front wheel or both.
Also if you plan to take the bike on a train it must be in a bag. There are only very few trains in Japan that allow �gnaked�h bikes.

frog1954 and LikeBike, many thanks for your responses.

frog1954 that timetable was very useful, I managed to try to google in japanese the title of the pdf that you sent and found this link:

https://jrbustohoku.co.jp/uploads/files/2023%E5%B9%B44%E6%9C%8822%E6%9...

Do you think is the most recent Summer timetable?

Google gives me this translation for the : "Hachinohe, Aomori, Hakkoda/Towada Gold Line timetable Operation period April 22, 2023 - November 5, 2023"

Would you confirm this translation is more or less correct and if you think this might be actually the timetable from last year? If you, it would give me a sight of what I can expect for this year.

Again, many thanks for your help, much appreciated!

Regards

Would you confirm this translation is more or less correct and if you think this might be actually the timetable from last year?

Yes. This timetable is for both from Aomori-Sin Aomori side and Hachinohe side. If you are going from Hachinohe, you should see the column painted in gray.