One of the world’s most spectacular rides is surprisingly easy

All Lycra-clad and hairless legged, cycling’s adherents pedal the belief that it is one of the world’s coolest pastimes and, as my electric bike and I glide almost effortlessly across Japan’s Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge, I can only concur.

I’m cycling outside the peak seasons, and it’s not merely cool but rather cold as I cross three suspension bridges with a total length of 4.1 kilometres – longer than the Sydney Harbour and West Gate bridges combined – which span the four kilometre-wide, island-dotted Kurushima Strait.

But if anything, here on the Shimanami Kaido, one of the most spectacularly scenic cycling routes in Japan, if not the world, the big chill only adds to the pure exhilaration of this ride across the bridge.

It’s a sparkling blue day – bluer than even the painted blue line that guides the Shimanami Kaido from start to finish – blue on either side, and for that matter, below, with the Inland Sea dividing Honshu from Shikoku, respectively the biggest and fourth-largest of the islands that comprise the nation of Japan.

Hang the Lycra and exposed shaved appendages, I’m wearing more layers on this day than a billionaire’s wedding cake, with virtually the whole dedicated cycle lane, safely separated from the stream of vehicles beside me, to myself.

Here in Japan on the penultimate day of a week-long visit to Ehime, one of the four largely under-visited prefectures, or provinces, of Shikoku, I’ve allowed a day and two nights to ride 30 kilometres of the total 70-kilometre length of the Shimanami Kaido.

The name of the route translates rather wonderfully, and entirely accurately, as “island-studded sea road” since it traverses six of them in all, each connected by yet more magnificent modern suspension bridges.

Foreshadowing the global boom in bicycle tourism and extending between the cities of Imabari, in Ehime, and Onomichi, in the prefecture of Hiroshima on Honshu, the Shimanami Kaido was made possible in 1999 by the completion of the Nishi-Seto Expressway and its network of engineering marvel bridges.

Along the way across the Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge there are lookout spots where you can dismount, pause for a swill of water and admire the panoramic views, including all manner of craft passing at varying knots below.

Up here, the Kurushima Strait, with the bridge nearly 80 metres above the water, forms one section of the vast Seto Inland Sea, home to as many as 3000 islands, with more than 170 permanently inhabited.

The temperature here on the Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge isn’t the only cool aspect of the rather cool Shimanami Kaido. Beyond th