Have bike, will travel
The rise and rise of cycling-specific holidays continues unabated, if the number of dedicated tour operators who exhibited at the London Bike Show can be taken as a guide.
Nick Miles, from East Sussex-based tour operator Rpm90, now in its third year of organising cycle tours, said that while trips to sample the iconic climbs of the Alps and Pyrenees were likely to remain popular, increasing numbers of his customers were riding the hills of Tuscany – l’Eroica country.
“High-level cyclists”, with the necessary fitness levels to make the most of the iconic roads of France and Italy when they arrive, continue to fuel the interest in cycling-specific holidays, he believes. “It’s nice to see that there’s an investment in the sport at the higher level, but it’s not just people who want the nice bike, but they are fit enough to ride it and doing well in the sport.” The characterisation of cycling’s newest cohort as having “all the gear and no idea” is inaccurate, he says.
Saskia Welch from Bike Breaks: Girona Cycle Centre said that climate – the terrible weather in Britain and the almost year-round dry roads of destinations like Girona – provides a powerful incentive for UK cyclists to seek more encouraging conditions than those of home in which to train. “Training in the weather in the UK is challenging,” she says. “You have to wear your whole wardrobe to go out. It’s a bigger step to go out and train. In Girona, it’s sunny and you just want to go out and ride your bike.”
Countries like France, Spain, and Italy – cycling’s heartlands – have not been slow to recognise the enormous growth in the popularity of the sport in the UK. This June, Girona will close the roads of its medieval town centre for a ‘nocturne’ ride in which cyclists will ride in safety at night on traffic-free roads before a gran fondo event the following day. Neither have companies in the UK been slow to tailor foreign breaks to meet the needs of cyclists from our own blighted shores. The continued harsh winters suffered by the UK are unlikely to slow demand any time soon.
