Shimanami & Tobishima Island Bike Tour

Yes, on the flatter routes. JNTO, the national tourism board, calls the Shimanami Kaido "a great starting point for beginners".

The hard part is the hills. Lesser-used back roads can be narrow, steep and winding, so take an e-bike if long climbs put you off.

Each tour page rates the riding on our five activity levels. Send us a recent ride, with its distance and climbing, and we'll say which tour fits.

No guide comes along. You leave each morning when you are ready and follow the route on our app, with a digital guidebook for every day. On the Shimanami Kaido, a blue line painted on the road also marks the way.

We book the stays, the bikes and the bag transfers before you land.

For the app and everything else, bring an eSIM or rent a pocket Wi-Fi router, online or at the airport. Hotels, stations and tourist areas usually have English. Village shops often don't, so keep a translation app on your phone.

Spring and autumn suit most riders: March to May, and October to November. JNTO suggests the south in spring or autumn and the north in the hottest months.

The rainy season, tsuyu, runs from about 6 June to 19 July in Kansai and around the Seto Inland Sea. Those are the Japan Meteorological Agency's averages, and single years can start or end weeks earlier.

Typhoons come from July to October. About three a year make landfall, most in August and September. If one is forecast for a riding day, call our support line, listed in your guidebook.

Both, depending on the route: town hotels, minshuku, which are small family inns, and ryokan. Our tours come with breakfast as standard. For everything else, the restaurants, cafés, grocery and convenience stores along the way are marked in the guidebook we send you.

A ryokan is a traditional inn with tatami floors, futon beds and a cotton robe, the yukata, to wear indoors. Shoes stay at the entrance. Many ryokan serve a multi-course dinner, and the tour page shows which dinners we include. Some small inns share a bathroom, and the tour page says which nights.

Your main bag goes ahead to your next stay, one per person. You ride with a day bag for water, snacks and a rain layer.

Japan is good at this. Counters that forward bags carry an official "Hands-Free Travel" sign, and JNTO explains how they work. Inn rooms are small, and couriers measure bags by size, so a soft duffel bag travels best.

Yes to both. When you book, choose one of our bikes or e-bikes, or bring your own. An e-bike from home must have no throttle: in Japan, a throttle makes it a motor vehicle, which needs a licence and a number plate.

Fly into Kansai airport, near Osaka, or into Tokyo, then take the shinkansen, Japan's bullet train. Every ride starts in a town with a railway station, with a local train or bus for the last stretch where needed. The tour page lists the trains for your first and last day.

Call the support number in your guidebook if something goes wrong. That covers a puncture or a broken bike, a missing bag, a room problem or a change of plan.

In an emergency, dial:

• 110 for the police

• 119 for fire and ambulance

• 050-3816-2787 for JNTO's Visitor Hotline, in English, at any hour