Difficult to experience any other form of holiday...
Suntour
Posts: 11
I did my first self-guided cyle touring holiday 11 years ago and I got hooked. Now very difficult to contemplate any other sort of holiday.
Here's a couple of reasons:
Taking your bike often means you arrive by ferry which if often a holiday in itself and makes the transition
from work-to-holiday mode so much nicer than your average airport experience.
Cycle touring takes you to places where most "tourists" don't get to. You tend to visit authentic places
where locals live, eat and work. You tend to see the real country. You leave the country with a feeling that you've got under it's skin and not with the feeling that you're just another dumb tourist!
Cycle touring is one of the few times when I enjoy getting up at 6am in the morning. Nothng beats hitting the road early in the morning cycling to the dawn chorus.
You can choose where you want to stop and not where a touring company wants you to stop.
You're never a slave to a guide book reading about stuff which you "must see".
The satisfaction of sitting down, envigorated with a cold beer and looking at your map and seeing the distance you covered. Beats sitting down exhausted from day of "sight-seeing".
If the town or village where you're staying is dull or boring - just clip on those panniers and away you go.
Cycling touring is one of the few holidays where arrive back fitter than when you left.
Disclaimer: I admit this list is biased towards cycle touring...I'm fully aware that there are plenty of other forms of activity holiday.
Here's a couple of reasons:
Taking your bike often means you arrive by ferry which if often a holiday in itself and makes the transition
from work-to-holiday mode so much nicer than your average airport experience.
Cycle touring takes you to places where most "tourists" don't get to. You tend to visit authentic places
where locals live, eat and work. You tend to see the real country. You leave the country with a feeling that you've got under it's skin and not with the feeling that you're just another dumb tourist!
Cycle touring is one of the few times when I enjoy getting up at 6am in the morning. Nothng beats hitting the road early in the morning cycling to the dawn chorus.
You can choose where you want to stop and not where a touring company wants you to stop.
You're never a slave to a guide book reading about stuff which you "must see".
The satisfaction of sitting down, envigorated with a cold beer and looking at your map and seeing the distance you covered. Beats sitting down exhausted from day of "sight-seeing".
If the town or village where you're staying is dull or boring - just clip on those panniers and away you go.
Cycling touring is one of the few holidays where arrive back fitter than when you left.
Disclaimer: I admit this list is biased towards cycle touring...I'm fully aware that there are plenty of other forms of activity holiday.
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Comments
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Go skiing.
/thread.Advocate of disc brakes.0 -
cycle touring = going on holiday with a bike
cycle tourist = tourist with a bike0 -
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Suntour wrote:I did my first self-guided cyle touring holiday 11 years ago and I got hooked. Now very difficult to contemplate any other sort of holiday.
Here's a couple of reasons:
Taking your bike often means you arrive by ferry which if often a holiday in itself and makes the transition
from work-to-holiday mode so much nicer than your average airport experience.
Cycle touring takes you to places where most "tourists" don't get to. You tend to visit authentic places
where locals live, eat and work. You tend to see the real country. You leave the country with a feeling that you've got under it's skin and not with the feeling that you're just another dumb tourist!
Cycle touring is one of the few times when I enjoy getting up at 6am in the morning. Nothng beats hitting the road early in the morning cycling to the dawn chorus.
You can choose where you want to stop and not where a touring company wants you to stop.
You're never a slave to a guide book reading about stuff which you "must see".
The satisfaction of sitting down, envigorated with a cold beer and looking at your map and seeing the distance you covered. Beats sitting down exhausted from day of "sight-seeing".
If the town or village where you're staying is dull or boring - just clip on those panniers and away you go.
Cycling touring is one of the few holidays where arrive back fitter than when you left.
Disclaimer: I admit this list is biased towards cycle touring...I'm fully aware that there are plenty of other forms of activity holiday.
Cycle touring is one of the few occasions where I've been kept awake for most of the night by the bloke in the next tent.
Cycle touring is one of the few occasions where I've been soaked through for three consecutive days.
Cycle touring is when I sometimes wish that I'd had a guide book because I'd just learned that there really was a must see place twenty miles ago.
Sometimes you can't stop where you want to when wild camping - the minefield signs move you on.
If the ten mile straight road is exposed, shadeless and the air temperature is 38 degree celcius, a car is an attractive alternative.
Cycling slowly over Rannoch Moor in still air during peak midge season is less attractive than driving over it.
If there's only one train from dull and boring Belgrade going to your destination, leaving the city on a bike adds to the problem not solve it.
Cycle touring is one of the few holidays where I've returned home weighing more than when I left it.
Flying with your bike is faster and cheaper than using ferries and trains.
Having said all that, I need an annual fix and this year it will be in America.0 -
Hi Vern...I can empathise with some of the the points you've made
Cycling in the rain is miserable - no ifs or maybes...it's a miserable experience..I agree.
Belgrade is indeed boring...If Prague is the pretty sister...Belgrade is the scruffy fat one...
And as for bringing a tent - yes its a good backup....but a Mastercard is so much lighter to pack...0 -
My wings would have been severely clipped if I was dependent on roofed accommodation and a Mastercard. My eyes water at the potential cost of even cheap accommodation for three months in the USA this summer. But each to his own...0
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3 months puts a different spin on it...
Are you doing an East-to-West or trip down the West Coast-type tour?0
