Posts

What's On in Sakurai & Minoh, March 2026

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It's March and very much feeling like spring has sprung in Sakurai. Today I went for a walk and short train ride to Ishibashi today, and it reached 17°C! There were lots of families out for walks, and the Hankyu trains were filled with people looking to be heading to Minoh. There was also a free violin concert being set up in front of Sakurai station which would have been nice to watch if I'd had time. At Ishibashi, I watched some of the trains go over the bridge with baby No1, and noticed some plum blossoms. These are always a nice precursor to the cherry blossoms that come in April, and good way to mark the end of winter. What's On In Sakurai/Minoh March 2026 March 11th. (Wed)~15th(Sun) - Art Exhibition: Magara Ayumi's Food Story Location:  Art Gallery 待夢 -TIME Price: Free Entrance This artist uses construction paper and Japanese craft paper ("washi" or 和紙) to create unique compositions. In this exhibition, she will use this medium, and the theme of food to ...

New Baby & Opening Hours For Spring 2026

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Hello, Jonathan here. It's getting towards the end of February and the weather is heating up rapidly in Minoh. The sun is firmly out, and it's no-coat day.  A nice turnaround after the snow about 2 weeks ago. Main Announcement: New Baby, Change to Opening Hours  As you might have seen on the front-page of the website, we are only running a limited number of tours during February and March. The reason for this, I can now reveal, is a baby has been born! In order to spend some time with and look after this new baby,  Im cutting down on Minoh Cycles activity. Thank you for your understanding! So no more tours for the rest of February, but we are open for bookings once a week during March. From April however, Minoh Cycles is going full time, so please book away, on any of Get Your Guide , Things To Do , Discover Osaka , Viator or of course via the amazing  form ! Up until now, Minoh Cycles has been a part time operation, so we will be gearing up to do 5 trips per week. ...

Taking Over The Internet??

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You can now book a Minoh Cycles tour in any of the following ways Directly through minohcycles.com/tours  ← This is the best way!! Although there might be some technical issues to iron out at the moment. For the moment you can use any of the others below. Viator GetYourGuide Discover Osaka Things To Do Now TripAdvisor

February in Sakurai, Minoh 2026

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 It's February, and as you might have seen on the main site, there are no tours apart from on February 15th, and each Thursday in March. More details about that to come, but today I'll share some interesting things going on, in Sakurai, Minoh. These are small but interesting events, and they're typically not publicised on the standard "things to do in Osaka/Minoh" websites. Feb 10th, 24th - Tom Yum Language School Interested in learning Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, or English? You can do any of those at these lessons! Location:  Sakurai Ichiba World Dining & Bar Price: Contact below for details. Contact: https://www.instagram.com/ryoheitobayama/ Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DT937avj2_e/?img_index=1 Feb 11th - Student's Rakugo Performance & Lunch Enjoy some authentic Japanese Rakugo, brought to you by students from Osaka Universty. Lunch also included! Location:  Sakurai Ichiba World Dining & Bar Price: 1500円 Contact:  050-7121-1195 /...

A Look Back On January

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 It's the end of January, and a month of successful tours at an interesting time of year! Today I'll look back on it and show you some pictures so you can get an idea of what Minoh is like in January. How cold is it? Too cold to cycle?  While it was cold and we had to dress accordingly, it was basically fine!  Having cycled the mountain roads in January before, remembering it as being severely cold on the descent, I was apprehensive at the start of the month. I was prepared to have to make some disappointing cancellations in case of frozen roads for safety reasons. However when it came down to it, over the total of 6 tours that ran, the road didn't freeze any of those times (despite there being some snow at the side of the roads at the top of the mountain on some days), it was basically fine, if chilly. On all apart from one of the tours, the temperature was between 4 and 7C, and only on two days did it feel really cold - and that was on the way down.   Thankful...

Welcome To The Blog

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Hello, this is Jonathan at Minoh Cycles ! This is the introductory post of the Minoh Cycles blog, thankyou for having a look!  On this blog, I will post the following type of contents. Updates about Minoh Cycles (changes to availability, new routes) "Insider" tips for visiting Minoh and Osaka Seasonal information, local events and news Tour diary and reflections Anything else To get started with a bit of "anything else", here's a picture taken from window in my my room, while recovering from gastroenteritis this weekend. Hopefully future posts will include more bikes, and more Minoh! Thanks for reading.