We’re pleased to present a guidebook featuring ride courses that extend beyond the Shimanami Kaido and across the entire Ehime Prefecture. “Ehime packs both sea and mountains into an incredibly compact area!”“It’s a world-class cycling destination, with climbs even higher than Alpe d’Huez!” These were just some of the impressions shared by cyclists from Australia who visited Japan to take part in a FAM (press) tour hosted by Ehime Prefecture. While Ehime is best known for the Shimanami Kaido, it also offers much more—from the Seto Inland Sea routes including the Yumeshima Kaido to the mountainous roads stretching toward Shikoku’s borders, all of which are highly regarded by internation […]

Connecting people who enjoy rides. The first guest is the freelance producer, Daisaku Kawase. The most memorable ride of his life was the scene on that mountain in Japan…

In 1856, the young French printmaker Bracquemond was shown a collection of ceramics by an acquaintance. These ceramics, imported from Japan, a country then closed to foreign relations, would likely have been rare in Western Europe. However, what captured his attention was not the ceramics themselves but their wrapping paper. It was a page from Katsushika Hokusai’s “Hokusai Manga.(Hokusai Sketch)” Impressed by the artwork, Bracquemond went on to obtain a copy of “Hokusai Manga” through great effort and introduced it to his painter friends in Paris, eventually leading to Hokusai becoming widely known across Europe from France. …Unfortunately, the story is sa […]