If you’re going to take a train or bus somewhere in Japan, keep in mind that to take a train with your bicycle, you’ll need to pack it into a “rinko bag”. On my last cycling tour of Hokkaido , I flew into Sapporo with my bicycle in a heavy duty bicycle bag and left it there. Before I got on my way, cycling around Hokkaido, I constructed a simple rinko bag from a bicycle rain cover. It was light and packed into a small pouch, easy to slip over my bicycle once I had prepared it for getting it into the rain cover converted into a rink bag. That entails strapping your front wheel to the frame; you leave your back wheel as is. I take about 20 minutes to get my rinko bag ready to go. Unless you have a shoulder strap as part of your rinko bag, hand-carry it by the top tube. Find the platform your train departs from. If it’s anywhere near to about 20 minutes to departure, there will be already people lined up along clearly marked lines on the platform that coincide with doorways of respective carriages where people want to enter the train. Should you have a seat reservation? I recommend you travel without and book a non-reserved seat carriage because you may need to attend to your bicycle inside the carriage, leaving it in the limited space area in between carriage doorway and the short corridor that connects to another carriage. When I traveled, I was the only one in my non-reserved seat carriage with a bicycle, so it was easy to position my bike in the space available. The last carriage, usually number four in Hokkaido, is marked as “non-reserved seats”. Best enter it at the very end of the train, rather than the opposite end; you will have more space and much less passenger traffic passing by than on the opposite side where people walk from one carriage to another. Another reason to buy your ticket to destination in the non-reserved seat carriage is you can sit where you wish. Typically, the trains in Hokkaido are rarely full; if it were to be crowded, you’d have to stand by your bike, anyway. Beware, the carriages can rock and sway, thus make sure your bicycle will not fall down if you wish to take a seat inside the carriage. I used a bungee cord to attach it by the seat post or top tube to a hand railing.
