Day 2 — Narita to Sapporo - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

September 4, 2025

Day 2 — Narita to Sapporo

Today’s mission was to get back to Narita, rescue the bikes and bags from storage in Terminal 1, get everything to Terminal 3, fly to New Chitose (Sapporo’s airport, 50 km away from the city), assemble the bikes, and bike to our hotel in Sapporo.

It turns out that was a tall order.

Airport hotels are like purgatory on Earth.

Getting surprisingly good coffee at the Lawson’s

Jet lag had us up super early, so we were on the airport shuttle and back at Narita in good time. After we got the bikes and bags out of storage we had to lug them on to the terminal shuttle, then through terminal 3 in search of the check in counter. After a meal of beef teriyaki with soft boiled egg (which required several attempts on my part to navigate the automated ticket machine — there was English, but the instruction buttons were in Japanese), we located the checkin counter where we were charged an eye watering sum to load all our gear. Oh well.

Our plan to bike into Sapporo was premised on arriving in New Chitose and getting the bikes assembled by maybe 4 pm. 50 km on a loaded bike is about 3 hours, which would get us to Sapporo before it got too dark. So naturally the plane was delayed for over an hour, and we wouldn’t arrive until after 3:30, meaning for sure we’d be riding some of this in the dark. At least we’d brought the bike lights.

We arrived at New Chitose and found a quiet corner and started to assemble the bikes. A maintenance guy found us and gruffly let us know we couldn’t do that there. Then a more official looking woman in uniform followed and ushered us out of the terminal … and to a dedicated bike assembly area! Amazing. I then began my speed run reassembling the bikes, glancing at the sun low in the sky to the west and accompanied by the roar of jet fighters taking off. By the time we were set to go it was nearly 6. Oh well.

It even provided cycling directions out of the airport.

Finally we started the ride into Sapporo, though it was clear we didn’t have much daylight left. Leaving the airport was confusing, as these things tend to be, made all the more so by traffic being on the right. The Garmin led us to some traffic free walk/bike paths for a bit, then dipsy doodled us through some backstreets to avoid busy streets, which was nice but slow. After a while we ended up on some country lanes which was very pleasant, and we were feeling glad to be outside and on the bikes again. This was until the Garmin told us to turn onto a road that was a rough footpath on the top of a dike with a barrier and pylon in front of it, and we ended up having to backtrack a lot of it. Oh well.

It was now fully dark, so the priority was just getting into town quickly and safely. Thankfully Japanese road design came to the rescue, as the busier streets had raised asphalt sidewalks/bike lanes. These were a bit rough, but kept us out of traffic, and I improvised a more direct route into Sapporo. The Garmin would occasionally bleat insistently that I needed to turn around to get back to the more bucolic, and now completely dark, route it had prepared, but that was not happening. After a while it gave up and sullenly kept letting me know what the next cross street was, sometimes in Japanese.

We eventually filtered over to the main highway between New Chitose and Sapporo. It sounds terrible, but it wasn’t that bad. The side lane was bumpy but navigable, and was mostly somewhat lit. We plugged along, and eventually got to our hotel into Sapporo a little after 9, hungry but none the worse for wear. After a quick shower we headed out into the streets of Susinko, Sapporo’s bar and restaurant district, where things were hopping! We wandered dazedly for a bit, enjoying the lights and noise and people, happy we had made it this far. We then settled into a bustling Ramen shop had a couple beers and some butter corn and burnt miso ramen which really hit the spot (oishi des!), then staggered exhaustedly back to the hotel.

It wasn’t maybe the most ideal first day’s cycling, but it was fairly typical for us.

The bikes, with pride of place in the hotel lobby

52 km, 264 m elevation gain. There is a much nicer route than this I’m sure

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 52 km (32 miles)

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