Tokyo Road Bike Tour: Five Hours with Bike, Gear and Showers

This is aimed at people who ride at home and do not want a sightseeing bicycle. The bikes are road bikes, the pace is a riding pace, and the guide is a cyclist rather than a tour guide who happens to own bicycles.

Tokyo is better for this than its reputation suggests. It is flat, and the riverside routes — the Arakawa in particular — give long uninterrupted stretches with no traffic lights at all, which is where local riders do their training; the embankment paths run for tens of kilometres out toward the bay. The route mixes those with the Imperial Palace loop, a five-kilometre circuit around the moats and stone walls of the former Edo Castle, and the bayfront, so you get real riding and real landmarks in the same five hours.

Everything comes with it: bike, helmet, cycling gear if you did not pack yours, and the detail that makes the whole thing practical — the office has changing rooms and a shower, so you can clean up and carry on with your day instead of going back to the hotel sweating. Bring your own shoes and pedals if you ride clipless; flat pedals go on otherwise.

Guiding is in English or Italian. You are collected from the station nearest the office, which saves navigating an unfamiliar neighbourhood on a bike you have not yet been fitted to.

Season matters more here than on a walking tour. Spring and autumn are ideal, midsummer along the river is hot and exposed with almost no shade, and winter is cold but clear. It runs in light rain and is cancelled with a refund in heavy weather.