As far as bikepacking goes, we aren’t inexperienced with facing difficult challenges on the bike in places unknown to ourselves and Japan was nothing less than incredible on every level you can imagine.

Some words to describe this trip would be: Hot. Wet. Friendly. Steep. Convenient. Delicious. Calm. Until the Typhoon turned up anyway.

We decided to film our trip mainly because when we came to researching the landscape, we couldn’t find much about what it is like to ride across Japan’s less travelled roads between Osaka and Tokyo, particularly Mount Norikura, our feature detour between the two large cities.

We thought it would be a good way to document our trip, but also to show people how a few friends can travel to and across a country without knowing the native language, flora, fauna or landscape and have a great time doing it. Ideally, we’d like to inspire people to step out of their comfort zones and discover some beautiful parts of the world.

For shooting I used a Sony RX100 MK3, a Mavic Air Drone and a Gopro. A golden triangle of portable cameras that deliver amazing results for their designated uses. The Sony was kept in a 100% waterproof Tech Bag, the drone in a dry-bag in a Large Rando Bag and the Gopro was attached to either Joseph or Jon’s handlebars at all times.

Our full kit-list was tried and tested across four 200 mile weekends to make sure that we were happy with our equipment choices and had the opportunity to make tweaks. We were all riding in Cafe du Cycliste’s Mathilde Bib Shorts due to their comfort over long days in the saddle, quite a pricey investment but none of us had ever known comfort quite like it day-after-day.

I chose to wear a Marina merino wool jersey because of its quick drying properties after rain, sweaty climbs and river-washes, Joe chose the Monique, Jon the Mathilde Bib Shorts to match his bibs and Nathan chose Fleurette. We were also really impressed with the cycling caps, Nathan and myself don’t often wear them but Jon and Joe couldn’t speak more highly of the Sardine Caps.

In regards to bags, we all steered towards the Carry Everything range from Restrap for waterproofness and low weight for the more unforgiving climbing days, however Nathan wanted to test out the Large Rando Bag and Pelago Front Rack before it went into production.

There isn't much else to say about the trip otherwise there will be no point of watching the film but what we can say is that we'll definitely be going back to explore more of the beautiful country. I hope you enjoy what we have created and it inspires you to plan some adventures in places you never imagined you’d end up.

Words: Alex Dyson
Images: Alex Dyson and Jon Hicken

And massive thanks to Restrap for sharing this story