Dec 6, 2007
At last! A comprehensive bicycling website enables you to book reasonably-priced cycling tours of Europe operated by local, low-cost companies
The high cost of bicycle tours is a problem that has caused much anguish. Despite the fact that it is your own two legs that provide the transportation, a bicycle tour -- as offered by U.S. companies -- invariably costs far more than an escorted motorcoach tour of the same areas. For some inexplicable reason, the bicycle tour companies take an elitist tack, making use of the most upscale lodgings and meals on the tours they operate. Even when they don't, they claim that the need to supply two tour leaders (one to cycle ahead of the pack, the other to cycle at the rear) and one "sag wagon" (carrying luggage, as well as exhausted participants who don't want to continue cycling) elevates their costs to stratospheric heights. The result is that most of the leading bicycle tour companies are as elegant as they come, charging $500 and $600 a day for their tours. That's why it's helpful to know about BikeToursDirect (tel. 877/462-2423; www.biketoursdirect.com), which represents overseas (not American) bike tour operators whose low overhead and frequent departures allow them to offer prices as much as 70 per cent below U.S. levels. Their self-guided (without escort) tours start at less than $750 a week (including hotels, breakfasts, route information, luggage transfers, and bikes), and their guided tours (including support vans, dinners and guides) start at less than $1,050 a week.
You'll be impressed by the company website's many features, and especially those that invite you to insert your preferences and instantly receive recommendations of the best tour for you. The company's 2008 program includes new tour itineraries through Poland (five different routes), along the Danube, into the Loire, from Amsterdam to Bruges, and on many other interesting roads.
So here's your chance to beat the system, using modest two-star and three-star hotels, dispensing with the group, the leaders, and the sag wagon -- bicycling through Europe on your own, as you were meant to do.
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Labels: cycling, europe, websites
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
