Cycling tours are made for fun vacation holidays. Once you decide on your destination, the biggest decision you need to make is whether you will take one of the guided or self guided cycling tours. Even if the countryside scenery is in your local area and already familiar to you from, you’ll see it in an entirely different view from the seat of a bicycle.
Self Guided Cycling Tours
Cycling Tours
One of the best ways to take a cycling tour is to take a self guided bicycle tour. On a self guided tour, you cycle with your own group of friends or family at your own pace.
The self guided tour operator provides you with bicycles, a cycling route and schedule and makes all the necessary provisions for your hotel, luggage transportation, and breakfast buffet.
The bicycle provided will be comfortable and safe, and some tour operators now offer GPS systems on the handlebars. Often helmets are not provided, so be sure to bring your own helmet with you.
The tour operator will also provide maps and written descriptions of points of interest along your route. The tour operator also provides a service hotline you can call if you have an emergency on the road, but in general you are responsible for getting yourself to the next hotel by nightfall.
Cyclists are expected to fix their own flats and do their own repairs on self guided tours, but the tour operator will step in with a replacement bike in the event of a complete breakdown.
Guided Tours
On a guided tour, you will be grouped with other tourists and a guide will ride along with you. A second guide drives a support van. Every event is planned and taken care of, including hotels, routes, meals, luggage transportation, and sightseeing excursions. You may bring your own snacks to eat along the route. On some tours, the group pools funds to purchase a picnic lunch, which the guide prepares.
Tours usually begin the day after you arrive at the start city and end the day after your last leg of your route. Thus a seven-day event includes just five days of a cycling tour.
There are many benefits to going on a cycling tour. You meet your need for daily exercise as you get from one place to another. There’s no need to find a gym, schedule a workout and take time away from your vacation. Daily cycling burns lots of calories, so you can eat and drink just about anything without guilt or weight gain. So eat, drink and be merry and go cycling!