Hello! If you can help with *any* of these questions, we would be so grateful!
Our group of 6 decided to bike the Shimanami Kaido on May 12th, starting at Onomichi and ending in Imabari. We did not discover the trail until the last minute, so understandably we are a bit frantic trying to make a plan because we all love biking! >.< We will be leaving Osaka as early as humanly possibly on May 12th to arrive at Onomichi. We are attempting to reserve 6 e-bikes for a single day trip even though it is last minute, so we understand if we aren’t able to, but our fingers are crossed, and the back up is to just get manual bikes. It seems that our options for the bigger one-way companies are gone, so we’ll likely need to go with a company that does return service through Wakka. Before you say it, I know 2 days are recommended, but as we stumbled upon this opportunity last minute, we just want to get in as much of this excursion as we can and we are pretty flexible to see how this will work for us!
My main questions are as follows:
1. For those who have biked Shimanami Kaido with an e-bike in one day, how long did it take you? The options we will have allow us to pick up the bike from Onomichi at 9 AM, and drop it off for same day return service no later than 4 PM in Imabari. We’re wondering if 7 hours with an e-bike is ridiculously impractical, or doable as long as we don’t make too many leisurely stops. Part of the reason we want the e-bikes is so we can afford to stop a little more here and there.
2. If you aren’t able to make a reservation for an e-bike, how likely is it that you will be able to find some to use the morning of? My understanding so far is that not all e-bikes are reservable in advance, so you could get them on the same day if you show up at opening. If that’s the case, we’d obviously like to try the one-way companies first to allow us more time on our journey. I’m curious to know if anyone has experienced this.
3. Similarly, how likely is it that you can get a normal, manual bike somewhere on the morning of if you did not reserve in advance?
4. If we arrive at the return service drop off point after 4 PM, are they able to still accept the bikes to return the following day?
5. Has anyone done half of the trail and turned back around to make it back to the shop the same day? What was your experience like?
6. Lastly – when you drop off your cycle at Imabari, how do you get back to Hiroshima? Our hotel for the same evening is near the peace memorial museum as we will go there the following morning (I know it’s a lot, our itinerary is mostly more relaxed than this). I’ve seen conflicting information about whether transportation needs to be booked in advance i.e. if the ferry is sold out…
Thanks!
by alpacasponge