The Shiroishi Cycling path is impressively wide at all points, and throughout the Sapporo City portion, there are only a few road crossings that are not furnished with tunnels or bridges. For the most part, the cycle road goes over or under roads.
For those cyclists who want to ‘get away from it all’, the Shiroishi Cycling Road will not truly impress until the Kitahiroshima City border, where the urban sprawl ends, and lush forest (in summer and autumn) begins. Here, the cycling road really shines.
There is a toilet just after the Kitahiroshima border; a clean bio-toilet with solar panels. There are also toilets at the top of the climb. That is to say, coming from the Sapporo side, the cycling road is a gentle climb all the way to the top of a ‘pass’ on the Kitahiroshima side (here). That said, the Kitahiroshima section of the cycling road has to be seen to be believed. The road is wiiiiide. And smoooooth.
The cycle road ends at the Kitahiroshima JR Station, where you can either turn round and cycle back to Sapporo, or bundle bikes into bike bags and take the train back to Sapporo station.
There are plans afoot to extend the cycle road all the way to Eniwa. This would be fantastic, as it would make an almost perfect cycling road loop, connecting the Shikotsu-Chitose cycling road, Sapporo-Shikotsu cycling road, Toyohira River cycling road, and Shiroishi Cycling road. This would be an almost 150km circular route, easily done in two days with a nice camping stop at the scenic Lake Shikotsu.
1 thought on “The Sapporo-Eniwa Cycling Road”
Hi Rob,
thank you so much for suggesting this cycling road from Sapporo to Kitahiroshima. I did ride it partially yesterday and enjoyed it very much. As I had a hard time finding information on the internet about this cycle road and a map, I took some pictures of the maps that were posted along the route. If you want to upload them to your webpage, please feel free. You can find them here: https://bicycletraveljapan.blogspot.jp/2017/09/day-6-sapporo-to-kitahiroshima-and-back.html (or just let me know and I can send you the files)