Europe Bicycle Touring

Bike past pilgrims on the legendary Camino de Santiago in Spain. Bike past chic farming communities deep in the French and Italian Alps. Pedal up the switchbacks of the 2018 Stage 10 of the Tour de France from Bluffy to La Clusaz. Cross over to and ride in the Italian mountain town of Courmayeur. From Basque Country in Spain to the Foothills of Mont Blanc, we look forward to immersing you in the very best of the Continent on our Europe cycling trips.

Cycle easy routes on this bike tour into the Swiss and French Alps, following the Rhône and Isère rivers to Lakes Geneva, Annecy, and Saint-André. This five-day cycle tour by Helia Travel takes in two of the country’s must-sees—the iconic Lake Bled , and the cobblestoned capital, Ljubljana. With the Slovenian Alps never far away, the panoramas are breathtaking.

Croatia & Dalmatian Coast Bike Tour

Small children eagerly await the American riders to toss candy to them as the soldiers did when they liberated each town. So make sure you have candy to toss out, its tradition on this ride. If you’re looking for a guided bicycle tour in Europe, you’ve come to the right page. We’ve gathered up this list of all the European based guided bicycle touring companies and self guided companies we could find so that you can browse them all in one place easily.

In most cases you will not want to bring these guides along with you on the tour for space and weight reasons. You might want to photocopy some pages or make notes from these sources. Self-guided does to a certain extent mean self-supported. If you get a flat, you or someone in the group should know how to fix it. Our detailed pre-travel information will help you prepare for your trip, and a detailed briefing and bike fitting with our English-speaking, local staff helps ensure that your tour gets started on the right note. The summer heat would make southern Portugal particularly challenging for cycling, but spring and autumn – with cooler temperatures and coastal breezes – are perfect for it.

Dutch & Belgian Waterways River Cruise Bike Tour

The operator offers cycling tours in Holland, Ireland, and Italy. I must admit that whether I use hostels or not depends largely on if I’m traveling alone or not. When you are touring by yourself, there is certainly no less expensive way to go, and the hostel can provide company after a day on the road by yourself. Some European hostels do have assigned chores, which may be a surprise if you’re used to big city hostels with professional staffs. I used hostels for about half the nights I was in Holland and Belgium – basically, whenever there was one where I wanted to be. Dana didn’t want to cycle in Paris because she doesn’t like city traffic, so we explored by foot.

If you love oranges, check out the Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea, Piedmont. Europe offers a veritable cornucopia of cycling options–all within culturally stimulating environs. Sam’s approach is calm and confident and the route choice as well as accommodation was memorable. I would highly recommend engaging Bike Odyssey as your choice. Our room was in the back, smelled like dogs and the mattress was so soft and uncomfortable that I opted to sleep on the floor.

Provence Family Bike + Adventure Tour

At 150 miles , it is a decent distance, but is flat and can be broken up into manageable stages. The going can be a bit rough and bumpy, so consider investing in a gel saddle cover. Places to spend a night or two include the fortified city of Carcassonne, a short detour from the canal, and historic Béziers. Discover the diversity of Europe on your next bike tour.

Ride through the well paved paths along the romantic Danube River in countryside of Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Germany. Get covered if your travel plans are interrupted by COVID-19, with travel insurance that’s designed for the times – available at checkout. Just west of Oxford, in England’s bucolic region of honey-colored stone cottages and gently rolling green fields, the ambitious and enlightened cyclist can sleuth out a northern riding loop affectionately… Discover the scenic hillside vineyards of Portugal and Italy. Follow in the footsteps of Van Gogh and Monet in the sun-kissed flower fields of Provence.

France

I went to Holland in late April and early May primarily for the tulips, but I was surprised to learn that spring is actually the driest season there – and experience confirmed that. However, European weather – like our own in New England – can be very changeable, and two weeks of near-perfect weather can easily be followed by two weeks of rotten weather. I’ve come to believe that some people are just lucky when it comes to vacation weather and others are unlucky. You also have to be aware of and plan around prevailing winds. These are notable around the North Sea and the Mediterranean , but can occur elsewhere.

One of the major activities and pleasures of my day when touring is selecting the restaurant for dinner . Lots of customers is a sure sign of good food, while lack of diners may or may not indicate the opposite. I have no qualms about standing outside and querying those leaving with “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” prompts.

North Macedonia Bike Tour

Other highlights include the canyon of the Iron Gates national park and the Esztergom basilica, the biggest church in Hungary. Accommodation takes the form of the MV Theodor Körner, a spacious art-deco boat that follows cyclists along the river. Organised tour Zenith Holidays has a seven-night self-guided trip from £827 B&B, including bike hire and luggage transfers. Even for those who love Italy, Sardinia is often an outlier, a rugged island with its own language , culture, and cuisine. DuVine Cycling + Adventure Co have put together this six-day Sardinia Bike Tour that goes from the jet set enclave known as the Costa Smeralda to the wild interior. The ride includes traveling through the Goroppu Gorge and a climb up the Genna Silana Pass, which was featured in the 2017 Giro d’Italia.

About all I’m going to say here is that I’ve never camped on an extended bike tour. One bias I have against it is that you have to carry at least 10 pounds more gear, and even more if you plan to cook. From Tallin to Vilnius, this cycling tour of the Baltics steers you to some of the more well-known spots as well as taking you on the roads less travelled to uncover the hidden gems of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. You’ll explore ancient cities, coastal routes and national parks, where you can uncover the history of the Baltics and embrace its vibrant culture. For those after a more challenging trip, this eight-day Balkan Trilogy tour offers a decent workout, with about 80km covered each day.

Planning Your First Europe Bike Tour

Travelling by bike is in itself a minimal-impact approach but we do everything we can as a company, on and off tour to make our impact positive. Dining, bar and lounge facilities change depending on the size of the barge. Some barges have upper and lower decks, and nearly all of them have an outside seating area where you can just relax and watch the landscape slipping slowly by. Aschaffenburg – Bamberg Self-guided Bike and Barge Tour 8-Days Germany From999€/p.p.

With so many companies offering bike tours in so many countries for so many ability levels, it is assured you can find a ride on the surface you want. Europe is proud of its dedicated bike trails; they are wonderful, long-distance paths separated from traffic. Even when portions must share the road with cars, we found the French to be very respectful of bikers, often not passing unless they could safely pull out to the left lane. Now we’re planning our next cycling tour and, yes, feeling very lucky. In May we’ll be hopping on bikes in southern Italy with BikeTours.com, an outfit that has introduced us to hundreds of options in European cycling tours. As we prepare for this next round of biking Europe, we figured we share some of the details in order to answer all the follow up questions we get about guided cycling.

Experience Plus! Bicycle Tours

Plus, we have the assistance of BikeTours.com (a U.S. company) to select the ones they feel best suit our needs and preferences. Put the fun between your legs and explore the continent by bicycle touring in Europe. Our custom cycling tours of Europe will take you from the soaring peaks of the Pyrenees to Corsica’s wild and untamed coast, from the rollercoaster ride of the Alps through the sculpted canyons of Provence.

First, let’s just remind ourselves of the unique benefits of a bike tour. A spectacular, challenging, exquisite, unforgettable experience. When you ride and seek you will hit the bed each night knowing you are truly alive and you have experienced something very special.

Trips You May Like

At hotels or hostels, ask if there is a locked bike room, and, if not, ask for a place to put your bike inside overnight. Remember that hotels and many pensions don’t really have rules against taking a bike up to your room; just do it unobtrusively. Airlines have different bike-checking policies, many of which charge a fee for the bike box that they provide to passengers. On the other hand, some airlines consider the bicycle to be part of their allotment of checked baggage.