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By Norman D. Ford
***CLICK HERE to read Adventure Cycling Magazine's report on this website in its May 2006 issue followed by Norman Ford's article Bicycle Touring Without Traffic in America published in the Park City Extra Magazine ( Dallas TX) in its July 2006 issue.
(For list of websites that exchange links with <www.tourvelo.org> see foot of this page.)
To help you get started, here are some of the BEST routes and strategies for touring the world's most SCENIC and BIKE-FRIENDLY countries--and U.S. States-- at minimum cost while overnighting at family- style budget hotels or motels that you can book at On-Line before you go. This includes routes and strategies for exploring some of America's most remote and unspoiled areas on car-free bike trails, with every night in a comfortable motel.
Ever thought of spending a vacation touring France, Ireland or the U.S. on a bicycle? Adventure travel it is--but you don't have to tent camp or stay at hostels. You can stay at the same hotels or motels, and eat at the same restaurants used by motorists and, if you like, pay with a credit card. Essential requirements are physical fitness and stamina, a bicycle designed for touring, and enough know-how to change a tube and keep your bicycle running.
This website describes how I do it on my own . . .how I stay at comfortable hotels or motels as I enjoy a fitness vacation exploring some of the world's most beautiful countries--and U.S. states-- by bicycle. By describing the tested itineraries that follow, I hope to encourage more cyclists to tour America and other countries on their own--at one-half to one-fourth the cost of most commercial bike tours.
You can spend $400 a day for a luxury tour of France with a commercial bike company. Or, as I have learned to do, you can ride exactly the same route, on your own, and stay at budget hotels, for $75 a day or less. So far, I've made fourteen different bicycle tours through France. Each night, I've stayed at a modest but quite comfortable family style hotel, and I've either eaten at inexpensive restaurants or purchased fresh fruits, vegetables, canned supplies, bread and wine and eaten in my hotel room.
I carry my luggage in panniers on the bike. And though I've ridden over some of the highest mountains in America and Europe--and through some of the most wildly spectacular country on earth--I've rarely needed a guide or a support vehicle. Planning my own route was always fascinating and fun. While I've enjoyed cycling on several group tours, and led a few, I've found do-it-yourself bike touring, with friends or on my own, to be just as enjoyable.
Altogether, I've bicycled in 38 countries. Today, I'd rank Southern France , Western Ireland , Austria , Germany and Switzerland among the world's best regions for road bike touring. The U.S., also, has world-class biking and places like Moab, Utah or Frisco, Colorado, as well as Rails-Trails and similar bike trail networks in the Midwest and elsewhere, all offer spectacular bike-touring, often on trails closed to motorized vehicles--and nowadays, a growing number of trails are paved.
In the menu below, you'll find reports on the best of my tours and bicycle vacations. But this isn't just a travelog. In each case, I describe everything you need to have and do--and to know--to duplicate my trips on your own (maps etc). And most important, I describe how to reserve a room for each night at a comfortable but affordable B&B, pension, gasthof, hotel or motel--something that most other touring websites studiously avoid.
While my routes and recommendations should prove rewarding to follow, they are not set in stone. I offer them merely as suggestions and ideas that you can adapt to fit the needs of your own bicycle tour. (And do note that they focus on staying at lodgings overnight, or perhaps hostels, rather than tent camping. Too, they assume you do not always have a support vehicle and that, in Europe, you will use trains to take your bike to and from the starting point of the tour. . .which means you must be riding solo bikes. Tandems or recumbent bikes are difficult to get on and off European trains, (not to mention planes.) However, if you have a back-up vehicle or prefer to tent-camp, my trips should still prove rewarding to follow.
If you decide to pattern your own bike tour or vacation after one of mine, please realize that my reports are for information only . Circumstances can change, so it's up to you to check on current conditions, costs and safety before you go. You'll read about several instances where I found roads closed due to landslides or construction and I had to change my itinerary accordingly. For further information, click on "Helpful Websites for Bicycle Touring" in the menu below.
Most of the lodgings I used and mention were comfortable by cyclists' standards. If you prefer to be coddled at more luxurious and expensive accommodations, I suggest you make your own reservations.
Finally, these trips are frequently strenuous. So do be sure beforehand that you have the necessary energy, stamina and fitness and that you have the confidence, experience, resources and ability to carry them out...And if you haven't, click on the report, "Operators of Packaged Self-Led Tours " near the bottom of the menu below.
TOURING WITHOUT TRAFFIC--On America's Car-Free Bicycle Trails
USA--BIKE TRAILS
BIKELANDIA--TOURING EUROPE'S BIKE TRAILS
BIKELANDIA--TOURING EUROPE'S ROADS TOURING IN OTHER COUNTRIES MORE GREAT BIKE TOURING INFORMATION
Intended to inform rather than to entertain, this no-frills website
is constantly being revised and updated.
For example, we now have reports on six of America's longest multi-day tours on Rails-Trails and similar bike path systems: in Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, Idaho-Washington and Wisconsin (see listings under "USA --BIKE TRAILS.") To provide readers with a greater choice of U.S. road tours, we have recently added "Cycling California, The Do-It-Yourself Way" which is absolutely the one best way to discover the heart of California; and "Cycling the Texas Hill Country"--which is home of the best road biking between Florida and California. Our newest addition is , "Cycling the Natchez Trace," a 450-mile tour through the ante-bellum South, on a scenic National Park road with a speed limit of 50 mph --and a total ban on commercial vehicles-- and with every night at an affordable motel.
On our companion website www.nohypehealth.org we're also introducing the first reports in our new series on the Health and Fitness Lifestyle. "Enjoy Youthful Vigor And Robust Health To Age 90 Plus" debunks most of the life extension nostrums being peddled on the Net and describes only proven ways to keep on pedaling into your eighties and beyond. Practicing the Health and Fitness Lifestyle while exploring the world by bicycle provides the ultimate in fitness vacations.
And among other pros and cons is the undeniable advantage that on most group tours a support van relieves you of the burden of carrying your luggage on the bike. Yet on most group tours, if you must cancel at the last minute, you may forfeit the entire amount you paid for the tour.
As you'll read in our report Why Most Americans Are Vacation-Starved (in our Health and Fitness Lifestyle website www.nohypehealth.org) today's Americans have been so short-changed on vacations that most of us lack the experience to travel in other countries on our own-- whether by bicycle or any other way. However, for the benefit of cyclists who are simply unable to plan their own independent tour, we now feature a list of tour operators who offer packaged Self-Led tours in which they do all the planning and make reservations while you pedal along on your own or with friends and simply follow the routing instructions they give you. (See "Operators of Packaged Self-Led Tours" near bottom of menu above.)
For this same reason, Do-It-Yourself bicycle touring is far more popular in Europe than in America. Certainly, European cyclists join tours organized by clubs, or they may ride with a group of friends but few ever consider paying to go on a van-supported commercial tour. When the average European decides to take a bike tour through France, Ireland , Germany or Switzerland, he or she usually plans and carries out the entire trip on their own--or they may go with a spouse or friends.
Regrettably, many Americans lack the free time to plan their own trips. Which is why American cycling magazines are filled with ads for whirlwind 7 or 10-day bike tours of Europe but rarely are longer tours listed. These brief tours are fine for single women or neophytes or for anyone whose employment has cheated them of free time.
But cyclists who avoid the chore of planning and carrying out their own trips, rarely become experienced travelers. They never experience bicycle touring as a means of exploration, travel and adventure. And they seldom learn there is more to bicycling than racing or going on a commercial bike tour.
Ford is also founder and first president of the Globetrotters Club <www.globetrotters.co.uk>, which encourages members to travel and explore the world on their own.
For a glimpse into the past, click here and discover what Ford considers his greatest bike tour, Istanbul to London via Kosovo , 1967
You can contact Norman Ford by email at <blodwen@hctc.net
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Adventure
Cycling Magazine's Review Of This Website In Its May, 2006 issue
A MAN OF MANY WORDS
Adventure Cycling Member does it his way and shares his knowledge
Adventure Cycling Member Norman D. Ford has authored sixty books on travel, health and retirement during his fifty-year-career as a freelance writer, two of which have sold more than a million copies each. Norman has also put down a huge amount of text at his website www.tourvelo.org , making it a treasure trove for cyclists planning tours in various parts of the United States and Europe (plus Costa Rica and, of all places, Bali). Among the items posted is an article Norman wrote for the New York Times on November 21, 1967 detailing what, to this day, he considers his greatest cycling adventure: Istanbul to London via Kosovo. His philosophy of touring, distilled in this passage, is one that many Adventure Cycling members can relate to. "This website describes how I do it on my own. . .how I stay at comfortable motels or hotels as I enjoy a fitness vacation exploring some of the world's most beautiful countries -- and the United States -- by bicycle. By describing [my] tested itineraries . . . I hope to encourage more cyclists to tour America and other countries on their own -- at one-half to one-fourth the cost of most commercial bike tours."
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Norm' Ford's article "Bicycle Touring
Without Traffic In America," published in the July 2006 issue of the Park
City Extra Magazine ( Dallas TX).
BICYCLE "TOURING WITHOUT TRAFFIC" IN AMERICA
By Norman D. Ford
In Europe, it's common to meet 3-generation families--kids, parents, grandparents--all pedaling their bicycles along scenic, car-free bike paths on a weeklong bicycle touring vacation. And unlike Americans, who often spend $300 a day or more to join a commercial bike tour, most Europeans plan their own bike tours themselves. Day after day, they pedal beside great rivers like the Rhine or Danube, past ancient castles and medieval villages and historic wine taverns, often without having to climb any hills. Each night, they stay at a comfortable, reasonably-priced hotel or B&B. And they do it all for less than half the price most commercial tours charge.
Is it possible to make similar Do-It-Yourself bike tours in the U.S? I can't guarantee any castles or centuries-old villages but Touring Without Traffic is entirely possible in America's Midwest. You can pedal on car-free Rails-to-Trails and similar bike paths along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers or through South Dakota's Black Hills, or on the 160-mile Route of the Hiawatha, a series of all downhill or level bike paths through Idaho's wilderness, and stay every night in a comfortable motel.
I have personally cycled a dozen or more Tours-Without-Traffic trips, and on my website <www.tourvelo.org> I describe everything you need to know to duplicate these same trips on your own. That includes where to get maps and the best months to go.
From Highland Park (near Dallas TX) the closest Tour-Without-Traffic is the 200-plus mile "Katy Trail" in relatively nearby Missouri. Or for a real adventure, try cycling the series of paved bike trails that radiate from Frisco (CO) through the heart of the Rockies. (No, this isn't a flat ride but the scenery is colossal.)
Even the best-planned trips can present problems at times. For the first 100 miles or so west of St.Charles, Missouri's Katy Trail hugs the north bank of the River while most motels, stores and restaurants are on the south bank. Too late, many cyclists have discovered that they could not cycle across a bridge to the south bank because the 3 existing bridges are all dangerously narrow and thronged with huge trucks and traffic. Yet few official trail guides bother to mention this fact.
Recently, I read about a middle-aged Texas couple who pedaled a 1,000-mile route from North Texas to Padre Island on the South Texas Coast. They planned the trip themselves and even though they checked out the entire route beforehand by car, they still encountered a variety of unexpected challenges ranging from powerful headwinds to sunburn and they often had to knock on someone's door to ask for a cold glass of water.
Reportedly, they carried only a credit card but discovered that many small stores along the way didn't accept plastic. On days they couldn't meet their schedule, kind folks along the way provided them with food and shelter. Actually, it turned into a fantastic adventure trip and they met many wonderful people. Yet had they cycled a more bike-friendly route, and made advance reservations at motels along the way, most of the tough going could have been avoided.
Trips like these, and others I have cycled, are all described in detail, together with helpful strategies and a few essential caveats, on my non-profit website <www.tourvelo.org>/. On these trips, there's no need to tent camp and you can often rent mountain bicycles. Also, you can pay for nearly everything with a credit card. And if you'd like to roam along Europe's Rhine or Mosel or Danube Rivers on your own, it's actually easier than biking in the U.S. But these are all Do-It-Yourself trips and I did them entirely on my own without anyone to help.
On other bike trails, official route guides published by states, counties or parks departments often don't even bother to mention which trailside towns actually have motels, let alone mentioning the motels' phone numbers and rates (though guidebooks you can buy usually do).
Thus I believe that the most important thing about a bike tour--one with overnights at lodgings--is not just the route itself but knowing exactly where you will spend each night.
As I say on my website:" To help you get started into bike touring, here are some of the best routes and strategies for touring the world's most scenic and bike-friendly countries--and United States--at minimum cost while overnighting at affordable, family-style budget hotels and motels, etc., that you can book at by phone or on-line before you go."
Meanwhile, Ford's treasure trove of information, which could help
you plan your own bike adventure vacation, is just a click away on your
computer. WWW.TOURVELO.ORG
To Top of Page Or Scroll back to Top of Page
Websites That Exchange Links with www.tourvelo.org
www.discounthotels.co/uk Discount Hotels Worldwide. Lists discount hotels in large cities worldwide. May include some in our itineraries.
www.traveldir.org/ International Travel Information on 29 countries worldwide with more than 800 travel-related articles.
www.travel.ovh.org/
Lists bicycle expeditions and tours in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere
operated by cyclo-tourist Tomasz Szajniak
Packaged self-led tours are becoming increasingly popular, especially among inexperienced cyclo-tourists. A packaged self-led tour is actually a cross between a group tour led by an experienced guide and a completely Do-It Yourself trip in which you do all the planning and carry out the entire trip on your own. Self-Led tours may also be called Self-Guided Tours while group tours may be referred to as Led-Trips.
When you join a group tour, everything is taken care of by the tour operator, including planning the route and hotel reservations, and each day the trip is led by an experienced guide. Your baggage is usually carried in a support vehicle driven by a bike-mechanic which can also pick up sagging riders and make emergency bike repairs.
When you join a packaged self-led tour, eveything is also taken care of by the tour operator BUT there's no leader-guide and, often, no support vehicle. You're given a map and cue sheet for each day's route and you simply follow it out on your own.. Within limits, you can start out when you like and you enjoy much of the independence and flexibility of Do-It-Yourself touring. At each night's stop, your hotel room is reserved while breakfast and dinner are usually included in the price.
While this saves you from buying maps and guidebooks for planning your tour, and spending hours poring over routes and making hotel reservations, you pay for the tour operator's service. By and large, if the rates for a fully supported group led-tour are $300 a day, a similar Self-Led tour might run $150. But you could do the same trip on your own for $100, or for $80 or less if you stayed at economy hotels.
A packaged Self-Led tour planned by an experienced tour operator ensures you will ride through a scenic and interesting region on low-traffic backroads. Yet in seeking out operators of Self-led tours, we found few that offered a real cycling experience. All too many limit their "tours" to 3-5 days, just a long weekend. So we've tried to focus on those that offer at least a weeklong tour. In some cases, you can join two weeklong tours together to form a tour of 14 days. Only Ireland's Iron Donkey Tours has a trip of 1,500 miles (2,400 kms) lasting 29 days and and even then, overnights are spent in only eleven different towns.
Which brings up the difference between Circuit Tours and Base Tours (aka Hub and Spoke Tours). On a Circuit Tour, each day's ride takes you to a new overnight stop where you stay one night before continuing the following day to the next one-night stand.
On a Base Tour, you simply stay 2 or more nights at the same overnight stop. Each day, during this layover, you take an out-and-back day ride in a different direction, all the while unencumbered by baggage which you leave in the hotel. Then you continue on your tour, perhaps to another Base Touring town.
Base Touring is becoming popular--even by Do-It-Yourself tourists--because it minimizes the number of hotels you must book at, and the chore of actually locating each hotel on arrival along with a supermarket, restaurants and the bicycle route for exiting the town. After arriving at a town, it often takes 20- 30 minutes to actually locate a hotel at which you have reservations. However, most Self-Led tour operators provide a street map showing your hotel location and the bicycle route for entering and leaving town. .
Many tours nowadays are a combination of Circuit and Base Touring. This can be an attractive idea but if you're staying at only 2-3 different overnight stops on a week-long tour, it's a fairly simple matter to book that many hotels on your own.
Most Self-Led tours are designed for leisurely riding and typically cover 25-40 miles (40-64 kms) per day. This is a bit too easy for many energetic cyclists. Actually, most routes stay fairly close to the tour company headquarters. If your bike breaks down, this allows you to phone in for help and most firms will have a replacement bike delivered to you by car within an hour. Thus most Self-Led Tours do not take you roaming too far afield.
Too, if you have the time to plan your own trip, you will learn far more about the region or country than if someone else plans your tour. Most Self-Led tours cater to single riders or to couples or small groups of friends or family. You don't have to share the trip with a large group of cyclists from your own country, nor do you need to share a room with a stranger.
A Final Caveat from Breton Bikes: Only you can judge how fit you are. Please don't assume a level of fitness when you have not taken any exercise for years. Try a few rides before you leave. A few years ago, we had a group of fit-looking young people who found the route they had chosen much too hard. Yet the following week, an 8-year old girl 4 feet 4 inches tall , cycled the same route on a fully-loaded kid's bike--heavier than an adult bike--without difficulty. If in doubt, practice first to see what you're comfortable with.
SELECTED OPERATORS OF SELF-LED TOURS
Listing here is for information only and does not imply our endorsement. However, these operators come well recommended by others and appear to be well-established. We receive no commission or other compensation should you take one of their tours. If you find other Self-Led Tour Operators who offer tours of at least 7 nights or more, please send us their names and website URLs and we shall consider listing them here.
Most of these websites are also packed with priceless info on every aspect of bicycle touring. They're well worth reading, even if you don't use their services. Almost all Self-Led tours are on paved roads, usually in Europe or New Zealand, and most operators rent well-maintained 21-24 speed road or hybrid bikes at extra charge to tour participants (though sometimes bikes are free).
Tulip Cycling's tours of the Netherland's top 3 biking regions offer easy riding with baggage transfers included on typical upright European 8-speed bikes (or bring your own). Daily distances average 45km (26 miles) with trips as long as 12 days available. (www.tulipcycling.com)..
Randonnee Self-Guided Vacations (www.randonneetours.com) Self-led tours in Canada, USA, France, Ireland and Italy, averaging 30 miles per day with overnights at comfortable 2 and 3 star hotels, bikes included or bring your own. Their itineraries for Southern France are particularly good and are similar to some of Norm' Ford's Do-It-Yourself bike tours.
Europe. Diverse Directions (www.diversedirections.net). Owners Stephen Taylor and David Parker of Chicago will do all the planning and will coordinate all aspects of a Self-Led Bike Tour at half or less the cost of a comparable group tour. They offer a choice of scenic and rewarding tours through the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
Ireland--England. Iron Donkey Tours (www.irondonkey.com) Based in Ireland, this company offers a variety of Self-Led Tours of Western and Northwest Ireland, and others in England's Cotswolds and Wessex regions and also in Italy. Each tour lasts 7-11 nights and includes at least one Base Town stopover. The two English tours can be combined into a single 11-day tour of the West of England. And the Irish tours can be combined into a single 1,500-mile Long Distance Tour of Ireland lasting 29 days in all.
Ireland--Irish Cycling Tours (www.irishcyclingtours.com). Based in Connemara, Irish Cycling Tours offers a choice of Self-Led Tours through the extravagent scenery of Kerry and Connemara, favorite bike-touring regions on Ireland's West Coast. Most itineraries are for 6-7 days but two of these tours can be combined into a longer 14-day adventure trip. Cannondale hybrid bikes for rent.
Freewheeling Adventures Self-led tours for active cyclists through Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Crete; also Costa Rica. (www.freewheelingadventures.com)
France--Brittany. Breton Bikes (www.bretonbikes.com). Operated by an English expatriate couple, this firm offers a variety of Self-Led tours through Brittany (France) with either tent-camping or hotels for overnight. In either case, you carry your own bags. Distances are easy-to-moderate and tours average 7 nights in length. A choice of routes take you exploring every corner of picturesque Brittany as well as along the coast. It's often possible to take a 14-day tour by cycling two connecting 7-day routes. Great rental bikes!
Discover France Self-Led tours of Southwest France, Dordogne, Brittany, Burgundy, Loire Valley, Champagne, Cognac-Poitou, Languedoc, Normandie, Provence-Alpes and Rhone-Alpes. Baggage transfer included, rental bikes available. Call Discover France at 1-800-960-2221 (USA) or click on www.discoverfrance.com and scroll down to "Self-Guided Touring" for details.
Central Europe by Topbicycle Tours (www.topbicycle.com/selfguided.htm). For an exciting self-led tour through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Austria or Germany--all rewarding off-the-beaten path regions that few Cyclists have yet to pedal through--you can't beat this Czech-owned bike company's self-led tours through the heart of Central Europe. Topbicycle provides route descriptions, maps and even GPS navigation to help you follow their programmed routes and they arrange hotel reservations, luggage transfers and support services. Most tours are for 7 or more days . Topbicycle also arranges one way bike rentals ( pick up at one place, drop off at another). Click on their website for a mouth- watering description of tours through a unique part of Europe that few other cyclists have yet to discover.
Europe--New Zealand. Pure Adventures (www.pure-adventures.com). Pure Adventures offers Self-Led tours of all grades through France, Britain, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and Spain and also through New Zealand. Also rides over Tour de France passes. Rental bikes available.
Wales. Cycling Sideways (www.kc3.co.uk/~bicycle/sideways) This website about cycling in Wales is also associated with Beano Tours which offers a 7- night Self-Led Tour of the mountainous Snowdonia region of Wales and a longer tour across Wales on the Welsh National Bike Route. Beano Tours features vegetarian meals.
Italy On Line (www.initaly.com/ads/biktour/tuscany.htm ) Self-led tours for groups of 2-6 cyclists through ancient hill towns like Assissi, Siena, Orvieto and Perugia in Italy's scenic regions of Tuscany and Umbria. Van carries luggage, rental bikes available, rather pricey.
New Zealand. Nature's Highway Ltd Tours. (www.natureshighway.co.nz) Self-Led cycling safaris for individuals and small groups leaving monthly to tour South Island. Bikes supplied.
New Zealand. Independent Cycle Tours New Zealand. (www.cyclehire.co.nz) Extensive coverage of spectacular South Island by a variety of self-led bike routes with rental bikes available. Anyone interested in exploring New Zealand by bike should read this informative website.
For other Self-Led packaged tours, look under Tour Operators in the current Cyclist's Yellow Pages published annually by Adventure Cycling and also free online at their website www.adventurecycling.org/
Group Tours For Do-It-Yourself Cyclists
If you just can't find the Self-Led Tour you're looking for, try one of the very affordable and expertly-led group tours listed below.
Since 1994, Suzie and Roger Knable have been personally hosting their very affordable tours in the U.S., Canada and Europe. "My husband and I happily found your DIY Bicycle Touring website quite by accident,"Suzie wrote." We are an advocacy group of the League of American Bicyclists and have been hosting bike tours through our own company since 1994. But we still maintain our non-profit mission to encourage people to travel on two wheels. And we do so by offering them trips that are very reasonable and are personally hosted by us. "
Their website describes a mouth-watering list of exciting tours on both coasts of the U.S., and in Canada while their 11-day trip from Prague to Budapest through the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary is as rewarding as you'll find on any Self-Led Tour.
For something really different and off the beaten path, sample a rewarding bike tour through Poland, actually a wonderful place to ride with a variety of terrain and cultural sights and a surprise at every corner. Both road and mountain bike tours.
The BAC offers a series of highly-recommended, non-profit hotel-motel tours in the U.S., and overseas for adults: volunteer leaders, sag-supported, top hotels, unbeatable value at one-half or less the cost of most commercial bike tours. Club membership is $50 per couple the first year, then $25 annually.
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