Shikoku Island Cycling

A Morning on the Shikoku Circuit

When Priya from our BugBitten team clipped into her pedals at the base of Temple 1 — Ryōzen-ji, a modest compound tucked into the outskirts of Naruto in Tokushima Prefecture — she had one clear thought: the map looks nothing like the road. On paper, 1,200 kilometres forms a tidy loop around Japan's fourth-largest island. In practice, the first significant climb arrives before your legs have warmed properly, the tarmac narrows without warning, and a white-robed ohenro pilgrim on foot gives you a courteous nod that somehow makes you feel like the amateur in the room.

She'd been riding for twenty minutes before the first rain came. Not a downpour — the soft, persistent drizzle that Tokushima does in April — and in that grey morning light, with cedar trees pressing in on either side of the road and incense smoke drifting out from a gate she'd passed too quickly to identify, it occurred to her that this route does something unusual. It doesn't perform for you. It simply continues, in all weather, at whatever pace you can manage, and asks you to keep showing up.

That quality — unshowy, repetitive, quietly profound — is what makes cycling Shikoku's 88-temple pilgrimage circuit one of the more rewarding multi-week rides available to an Australian traveller willing to get on a plane and put in the kilometres.

What Makes This Route Worth Your Time

Most long-distance cycling routes sell themselves on scenery. Shikoku has scenery, but that's not the actual product on offer here. What you're really signing up for is a 1,200-kilometre study in sustained attention.

The pilgrimage circuit — known as the Shikoku Henro — traces a path established over centuries in the footsteps of the Buddhist monk Kōbō Daishi, who is said to have meditated at each of the 88 temples during the 9th century. The route crosses all four prefectures: Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime, and Kagawa. Each has its own personality, its own terrain, its own relationship with the coastal and mountain geography of the island. You ride through all of them. You feel the transitions physically — in your legs on the climbs, in the salt on your lips near the Pacific, in the sudden warmth when a valley opens and the citrus groves start.

For a cyclist, the practical appeal stacks up quickly. Roads across Shikoku are predominantly sealed and in genuinely good condition — Japan maintains its rural tarmac with a seriousness that Australian country roads rarely benefit from. Traffic on the inland sections is light, sometimes startlingly so. You will ride for stretches of an hour through forested mountain corridors and pass two cars. Accommodation is spaced sensibly; you rarely need to plan more than a day ahead. Convenience stores — Lawson, FamilyMart, 7-Eleven — appear at intervals that align almost suspiciously well with the moments you need a rice ball and a can of cold coffee.

But the deeper appeal is harder to rationalise. The act of riding from temple to temple, bowing at gates, watching other pilgrims at various stages of their own journeys — some walking, some in tour buses, some who have been doing this for months — gives the cycling a context it wouldn't otherwise have. You are not just covering distance. You are participating in something that has been happening, in various forms, for over a thousand years.

How the Island Feels Beneath Your Wheels

Shikoku is a physically varied island in a way that maps undersell. The cumulative elevation across the full circuit runs into the thousands of metres — conservative estimates sit around 17,000 metres total, which is a number worth sitting with before you commit.

Tokushima Prefecture, where you begin (most cyclists ride anticlockwise, and for good reason — the prevailing Pacific winds favour this direction on Kōchi's exposed coast), is hilly in an immediate, unforgiving way. The temples here are scattered across forested terrain, linked by roads that climb and descend constantly. You earn the early kilometres.

Kōchi is the longest prefecture by distance and arguably the most dramatic. The Pacific coastline stretches for hours — enormous headlands, fishing villages clinging to slopes, the open ocean pushing a consistent wind. On a good day, riding anticlockwise with that wind at your back, the Kōchi coast is as close to effortless cycling as this route gets. On a bad day, when the wind reverses or a weather system rolls in, it becomes something else entirely. Priya hit one afternoon on the Cape Muroto section where she averaged barely 12 kilometres per hour into a headwind and arrived at her guesthouse having eaten everything in both panniers.

Ehime softens the whole experience considerably. Inland valleys, citrus orchards, quieter roads, and the approach to Matsuyama — the island's largest city and a useful resupply point — provide something close to relief after Kōchi's exposure. The final prefecture, Kagawa, is the flattest and shortest of the four. Some cyclists treat it as a victory lap. Others, by that point several weeks in, treat every flat road as a profound personal mercy.

What to Actually Do Beyond the Cycling

The temptation is to ride hard and tick temples. Resist it, at least occasionally.

Engage with the temple ritual, even minimally

You don't need to be Buddhist, or religious in any sense, to participate appropriately at each temple. The standard practice involves lighting incense and a candle, reciting sutras (printed in nōkyōchō booklets available at Temple 1), and getting your temple book stamped by the priest. The full ritual takes around 20 to 30 minutes per temple. Many cyclists skip significant portions of this; a few observe every step. Find your own calibration, but do stop. Walking the inner courtyards, watching the smoke rise, listening to the soundscape of each temple compound — these are the moments that accumulate into something you'll talk about for years.

Use the rest days properly

Matsuyama is your obvious mid-circuit city stop. Dōgo Onsen, one of Japan's oldest hot spring bathhouses and reportedly an inspiration for the bathhouse in the film Spirited Away, sits within easy cycling distance of the city centre. Your legs will thank you. Matsuyama Castle is compact, genuinely historic, and accessible by ropeway. A full rest day here costs you nothing in terms of the overall itinerary and repays the investment significantly.

Eat locally and eat often

Kōchi Prefecture is famous for katsuo no tataki — lightly seared bonito fish, served with ginger and garlic, often flambéed with a rice straw flame at the table. It is exceptional, and the caloric reality of cycling 80 kilometres a day means you have full permission to eat it twice. Ehime produces some of the country's best citrus; roadside stalls sell mikan (mandarins) by the bag. In Kagawa, sanuki udon is the regional obsession — thick, chewy wheat noodles in a simple dashi broth. You will eat more udon in Kagawa than you thought possible and feel entirely fine about this.

For broader context on what the Japan National Tourism Organization recommends for first-time visitors to Shikoku's pilgrimage route, their Japan National Tourism Organization site has practical entry on the henro trail including temple-by-temple listings and regional access information.

When to Go — and When to Absolutely Not

April and October are the consensus choices, and the consensus is correct.

April delivers mild temperatures across most of the island — comfortable for sustained cycling effort — along with the cherry blossom period in the early weeks. The mountain passes may still hold overnight cold, so packing a lightweight thermal layer is sensible. Rain is possible throughout April but rarely sustained. The island feels alive in April without being crowded in the way that Japan's more famous destinations are during hanami season.

October is arguably more reliable. Post-typhoon season (typhoons typically tail off after mid-September, though this is not guaranteed), the weather settles into warm days and cooler nights. The forested mountain sections take on autumn colour — particularly the climbs in Tokushima and Kōchi — which makes the harder passes more bearable aesthetically if not physically.

Summer — June through August — is where you need to be honest with yourself. Humidity across Shikoku in July and August is punishing. Temperatures regularly exceed 35 degrees Celsius with humidity that makes that figure feel conservative. Cyclists do complete the circuit in summer, but they tend to start at 5 AM, stop by midday, and spend afternoons horizontal under a fan. Typhoon risk is real and can interrupt consecutive days of riding without warning.

Winter is cold in the mountain sections, some mountain roads see limited services, and shorter daylight hours compress your riding window. Not impossible, but demanding in ways that stack on top of the already demanding circuit.

How to Get There and Nearby Stops

Getting to Shikoku

Fly into Tokushima (if you want to start at Temple 1), Matsuyama (good for a mid-circuit start), or — most practically for international arrivals — into Osaka or Kansai International Airport and take the train. The JR network connects to Shikoku via the Ōnaruto Bridge route; the journey from Shin-Osaka to Tokushima by train and bus takes roughly two to two and a half hours. A JR Pass covers much of this if you've purchased one before entry.

If you're building a broader Japan itinerary, it's worth noting that combining Shikoku with time in the Kansai region or a visit to the Japanese Alps works naturally. The Kyoto City Official Travel Guide is useful for planning a Kyoto stopover either before or after the circuit — Kyoto connects to the Shikoku access points without significant backtracking. For travellers exploring Japan more widely, BugBitten's coverage of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park offers another contrast to the Shikoku experience — more dramatic volcanic scenery versus the island's intimate rural character.

Bike hire and logistics

Matsuyama and Tokushima both have bike hire options. Be specific when booking: you want a touring-capable road bike or a loaded touring bike with rack mounts, not a city hybrid. The mountain passes — particularly the climbs between temples 11 and 12 in Tokushima, or the approach to temple 45 in Kōchi — will expose any inadequacy in your gearing very quickly. If hiring, confirm the gear range before you commit. If bringing your own bike, standard airline baggage handling applies; most cyclists pack their bike in a hard or soft case and reassemble at the airport.

For other things to do on the island beyond the cycling circuit, our more places in Shikoku page collects additional recommendations across the four prefectures.

The Not-So-Good Bits

Honest talk, because you deserve it before you book flights.

The elevation is not well-advertised. The route is listed as "moderate" across most resources, and in terms of daily distance, that's fair. But 17,000-plus metres of climbing over 1,200 kilometres is not moderate by most Australian cycling benchmarks. If your regular riding is flat coastal paths or mostly urban commuting, the mountain sections in Tokushima and Kōchi will be a reckoning. A fitness block of at least 8 weeks prior, including regular climbing, is genuinely recommended rather than aspirationally suggested.

Language access is limited outside cities. English signage on the pilgrimage route is patchy. Most guesthouse owners and temple staff will have minimal English. This is manageable — the route is well-marked with red arrows and stickers, and translation apps handle the essential communication — but it adds cognitive load on tired days. Learning twenty or so Japanese phrases before you go is not optional; it's basic courtesy and practical necessity.

The mental grind is real. Three to four weeks is a long time to spend covering the same circuit. Around week two, many cyclists hit a wall that has nothing to do with physical fitness — it's a flatness, a sense of repetition, an absence of novelty. This passes, generally around temple 50 or 60, and the final approach through Kagawa often brings a genuine emotional lift. But you should know it's coming.

Some sections are narrow and traffic is unpredictable. The farm roads in inland Kōchi and certain coastal passes in Tokushima narrow to a single lane shared with agricultural vehicles. Japanese drivers are generally courteous, but the combination of narrow road, blind corner, and a loaded touring bike requires consistent attention.

Final Word from the BugBitten Team

When Priya finished the circuit — back at Ryōzen-ji, 23 days after she'd clipped in there the first time — she sat on a low wall in the temple garden and ate a convenience store onigiri. Not a celebration meal. Not a ceremonial moment. Just a person eating a rice ball at the end of a long project.

That's the Shikoku circuit in miniature. It doesn't reward you with a dramatic summit or a beach arrival. It rewards you by finishing, and by the accumulated texture of everything between the start and the finish — the rain on the Tokushima climbs, the wind off Cape Muroto, the hot spring in Matsuyama, the udon in Kagawa, the thousand small bowings at a thousand temple gates.

If you have three to four weeks, a reasonable level of cycling fitness, and the appetite for a journey that is both physically demanding and genuinely unlike any other ride in the Asia-Pacific region, this is where to spend them. Japan's main island attractions — the Mount Fuji experience, the bullet train corridors, the famous urban centres — are spectacular and worth your time. But Shikoku offers something those places cannot: days and days of unhurried movement through an island that has been welcoming travellers on foot and now on bicycle for more than a thousand years, and that will continue doing so long after any of us have put the bike away.

Pack rain gear. Bring your legs. Start anticlockwise. Bow at the gates.