Everybody rides bikes in Japan. Nara park has few hills and is not that enormous. I have been twice but can't remember if bikes are common in the park. Nara expert, Shot, will give you chapter and verse on this.

The Japanese don't steal things but, as one of my Japanese friends is fond of saying, 'There are foreigners around here so be careful of your possessions'.

As LondonBob said, everybody rides bikes in Japan. But I was in Nara several weeks ago, and I can't remember people riding bikes through the park. Maybe I just didn't notice. There were lots of people and lots of deer, so you'd have to be careful about running into people or animals with the bikes.

Nara wasn't that big, and the sites are pretty much all within walking distance of each other, so I don't know if bikes are necessary.

Yes...Shot will have the authoritative say on this.

Outer lanes ok but inners a big no-no. Maybe you bike it on da boulevard, den into driveway goin toward shrine parkin lot. Dont go in, take a left, climb up small hill and go pass entrance to restaurant called Hilltop Terrace, den you see Wakakusa Hill. Dats all you got.

Shxx, where's my long on-line draft on the reply-message board??? It was all gone with a single wrong key stroke when I came back to my pc, refreshed after taking a bath... Hey, good guys on on-line TA, won't you please gimme a helping hand and get me out of this?

Well, all right, let me do this from scratch. Sorry, OP, I just vented out my anger.

Umm, what was it I was coming up with…

Let me begin by saying this: there’s been a movement to promote a “bike campaign” among city officials in a bid to reduce traffic jams on Sundays and legal holidays. Locals and non-locals alike hit Deer Park with their 4-wheel vehicles as always, letting them fume around. Seems like the city hall is all out to try to alleviate woes given to otherwise perfect environment. You know something? There’s signs on the roadside here indicating the peril of deer being hit by cars (or vice-versa). Yes, creatures, a god-send, are all around. If you are a ryokan guest staying in and around the park, you’ll encounter one or two straying right into the backyard.

There is a worshippers’ lane stretching from Sanjo Street, via a well-known touristy place that draws visitors to its pond, where tortoises are teeming and always basking in the sun, and if you climb up the flight of stairs you see on your left, the number of which connotes, incidentally, the hardships that a monk-trainee has to go through in his career, you’ll know you’re at the threshold of the compound of a series of temples called Kofukuji. It’s right here the Pagoda towers five stories high. At its back across from the road, there’s Torii Gate and from here you can walk it all the way to the Shrine through the worshippers’ lane. I may possibly get wired up with somewhere else, but there’s a notice right here saying (something to the effect) that you can’t ride on a bike going on the sacred lane, (much less into the shrine itself).

You know something? As told elsewhere around the globe, there had once been a long-running, blood-shed feud before it got settled more than 1000years ago, a fierce battle between Shintoism and Buddhism, each represented here by Kasuga Shrine and Todaiji Temple respectively, vying for territory and perhaps the number of followers. Yes, you’ll get a different feel the moment you step into the lane in the wooded area, which belongs to Kasuga. Not that my father’s father before him was a shinto priest, but I think I know how important worshippers’ lanes are to the shrine. No, in here you can’t possibly smoke. Spitting and urinating are just unthinkable. Yes, you can jog here, though. Tall cedar trees together with stone lanterns flank the lane, and come May wisterias blossom beautifully. It’s pretty awesome staying here for awhile. Before you get here, you‘ll see on your right a vast stretch of land, all green, with deer roaming around. That’s part of ranch they run for deer; yet, you’d possibly take it for a golf course, though. No, I’ve never seen people mounting on a bike around here. When you’ve done the shrine and proceeded toward a teahouse with a thatched roof via a long stretch of stairs, you may find locals riding their bikes across a small river from that teahouse. FYI, you can bike it here from the parking lot I mentioned above. But I can hardly imagine you strapping your bike to your back trying to walk up another long stairs leading to Wakakusa Hill… The same thing can be said about the lane connecting February Hall and Great Buddha Hall. That said, I once saw a local young guy mounting on his sleek bike around here, zapping to I didn’t know where. But that was well after the sun had sunk down the ridges of a mountain. In broad daylight, I couldn’t have believed my eyes.

If you are an avid bicyclist, you may be relieved to know there’s a bikeway running from Nara to Horyuji Temple, another designated venue for World Cultural Heritage, the total distance of which is 20-something kilometers. But even if not, you may be tempted to tour around the quaint old nara-machi area and / or traverse the pagoda-wakakusa hill area on the neat driveways mounting on your bike. Lastly, if you come in early-to-mid April, you gotta come see one thousand cherry trees located at the hill valley on the west side of Wakakusa. Maybe you’ll wish you’d walked it here, though, since you’d have to dodge crowds along the way. But the trip here with a bike or otherwise would be worth your effort in the springtime; that I can assure you.

Enjoy your trip.

wow Shot what a massive effort in your answer. Thanks so much for all the specific info I'll print it off and take it with me. Thanks also to all the others who answered. I think we'll give the bikes a miss when going to the park. Really looking forward to our holiday and hope the crowds won't be too big.