Tokyo After Dark by Bike: Omotesando, Roppongi and Aoyama Cemetery

Tokyo at night on a bicycle is calmer than it sounds. The traffic thins after the evening rush, the side streets empty out, and you cover ground quickly enough to string together places that feel nothing alike.

The ride leaves from Shibuya with a guide who actually lives there. Omotesando comes first — the wide zelkova avenue with its run of flagship architecture, commissioned building by building from well-known architects, and better lit and far quieter after the shops close. Roppongi follows, still busy, a district that grew into Tokyo's international nightlife quarter around the bars serving the postwar occupation, and then Tokyo Tower appears floodlit at the end of a street the way it does for residents rather than from a viewing platform.

Aoyama Cemetery is the part nobody expects. A large tree-lined burial ground in the middle of some of the most expensive land in Tokyo, opened in the 1870s as one of the city's first public cemeteries, silent at night, with cherry trees along its main avenue that draw crowds in spring and nobody at all the rest of the year. Riding through it after Roppongi's noise is a genuinely strange transition, and the group goes slowly and quietly because it remains an active burial ground.

Two hours, flat the whole way, and lights are fitted to the bikes. No fitness is needed, but you do need to ride confidently on real streets. Minimum age is generally 12 with an adult, and the ride runs in light rain, cancelled with a refund in heavy weather.