Self-guided/Supported Bike Tour Recommendations

Hi Donna,

While looking for some half-day bike tours in the Puglia area of Italy, I have seen some sites like this one for the type of trip of interest to you. I don’t have first-hand experience with them, yet.

https://www.pugliacycletours.com/

Another popular area is the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and it is a flat area for you. Sorry, I don’t have anymore details to give you about it, but I saw several bikers stopping in Mantova when I was there.

Thank you Jean. Italy is definitely a country I would love to see more of.

We've biked around Lake Constance and the Moselle from Metz France to Koblenz using this company. https://www.radweg-reisen.com/. We were very pleased with them. The bikes were great, instructions and maps very good and the hotels very good with one exception (and that was because it was very far up a hill from the river on a very hot day).

Thank you Jill. We used Rad Reisen for our tour on their Danube. We were pleased with them too other than one disappointing hotel and a detour that wasn't well it explained. We have only done a short day ride on the Moselle, so that is a definite possibility.

Donna hi. I've done all of the routes that you guys have done, essentially twice each. Probably repeated only 1/3 of the Constance route while doing some other Switzerland riding.

And at least 10 more major areas and routes on top of those, and some smaller stuff.

Just as a barometer (and keep in mind that I liked all of these routes you have done) I think we would rank them Danube, Alsace, Constance. The last had more stretches of uninteresting cycling, and maybe less pop in the places you would stop.

But anyway, I have a lot of ideas. Are you committed to flatter? Or will you do some slightly more hilly places with ebikes or regular bikes? Are you okay with using trains on parts of the route?

I'll get back to this when I have more time, so many wonderful rides out there :)

Okay, these I would consider the major highlight routes that you haven't done. Not that many others aren't great too.

My picks bias toward the safest types of routes, most riding on dedicated bike trails or quiet little roads - did most of these trips with children :).

Loire through the chateaux zone.
Bruges to the Netherlands or reverse.
From Salzburg, Munich, or Fussen to Bolzano, Garda, or Venice (Alpe Adria or Via Claudia Augusta). You can take the train up to the top of the major passes if you choose.

Other really pleasant rides:

Burgundy area tours
The Tauern cycle trail looping out of Salzburg
The Southern Black Forest

In Germany the bett und bike network of hotels will transfer luggage between hotels. www.bettundbike.de/en

Hi Donna,

RE: our experence ...

France (2023):
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/fabulous-tour-de-france-2-weeks-on-foot-and-by-train-2-weeks-by-e-bike
For France, see also https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/ The woman who maintains this site shares LOTS of information re: multiple opportunities in every region throughout France.

Croatia (2018)
Did this in 2018. Loved it. We used Meridien Ten. https://www.meridienten.com/ We did guided; self-guided would be less expensive.

Italy - not yet done, but planned for later this year with https://www.pugliacycletours.com/ They have both guided and self-guided.

Fred is right, freewheelingfrance is great resource. France is an amazing place to cycle tour. Amazing.

Brittany and Normandie could easily have gone on my list above. The cycle touring routes, many mostly off of streets, are truly comprehensive. Gorgeous, interesting place and cycling. And the region just works really well at the speed of cycling. Only wild card, as with the Netherlands and Belgium is weather. Hard not to get at least a bit of rain. But you are not made of sugar!

Not that there aren't more than 100 self guided routes like you've already been on, but once you skip the tour companies, pack light (for the bike riding part of the trip), rent a bike and simply carry your stuff ... well you'll never go back. My wife took a few years and maybe 5 organized tours to get over the hump to just simply "credit card tour" (inn to inn). Now she loves it, wouldn't do it differently. It costs less than half and you can do exactly what you want.

Self-guided is still awesome of course - bike related travel is dreamy all around. But one crack at fully self supported and you'll not go back :)

Hank…..

How do you handle gear (pannier contents) security when you want to stop and check out a mid route town?

I have done a four day wine country tour with a 25l daypack but don't think that would work for me for a week in Europe and certainly would not work for my wife.

Yeah storing your gear is tricky. Sometimes you end up restricted in what you can do and you might miss a thing or two.

But a few things:

Often the ride is riding, and then you do touristy stuff when you arrive at your destination, bikes and bags stashed at your hotel.

A surprising number of tourist sites have lockers. You lock the bikes and put your bags in a locker.

For some things in some places it's better if one person stays with the bikes. We've taken turns for quick look kind of stuff. Grocery store sometimes etc.

Surprising number of places will let you put your bikes somewhere safe. It never hurts to ask. Even restaurants will accommodate you sometimes.

Or you can park the bikes where you can see them from your table or whatever.

And in certain places you can just leave the bike with the bag on it and not worry about it much. You know, the types of places where you could be blackout drunk naked with 10,000 Euros taped to your body and you would wake up not one euro poorer after being guided back to your hotel.

Of course the vital stuff stays on your person. Passport phone and the like.

As for packing, my wife and daughter grouse about it a little, but generally you have one set of cycling clothes, and then two sets of other clothes. Do all the rest of the packing light tricks. And resign yourself to the fact that because you're bicycle touring you're not going to have your full wardrobe. Cost of doing business being a bicycle tourer. Of course you can bring that stuff, but you just need to stash it when you start the riding part of the vacation.

For what it's worth, my wife and girl end up being completely fine, perfectly happy and content with the wardrobe they can get into a couple of full size panniers.

Bikes are remarkably good and rolling along with pretty heavy stuff on them. Some large portion of bicycle tourers are carrying, in addition to clothes and what have you, full on camping gear for every night of their trip. So it's pretty doable if your credit card touring from hotel to hotel.

But yeah, definitely some trade-offs!

Thank you to all of you for your suggestions and the links. The only time we have done a multi-day trip and carried our own luggage was on the Great Allegheny Passage. I am a bit overwhelmed by figuring it all out in Europe with the need to storage luggage since whatever ride we choose will be just a part of, hopefully, a month of travel. I do recognize its advantages. I do a fair amount of climbing when riding at home, but the rental bikes are so much heavier than the rode bike I ride at home I hesitate to tackle too much. In addition my husband does not share my level of enthusiasm for cycling. He rents an electric bike and that levels the playing field. If any of you are interested in a ride in the Alsace region of France I would recommend Glenn Ford and his company BicycletteGo! at bicyclettego.com.

Donna

The self-guided tours where they carry your stuff are pretty great Donna! They seem like a great option for your wants and needs :-)

https://www.radurlaub.com/home.html

The above tour booker (and in some cases operator) is quite good for most regions, and particularly German speaking Europe. Associated with the Austria government I think? Whatever the case good prices and in my limited experience flexibility in how they book (add lay days, etc).

Don't rule out Alps routes where you use trains or busses to tackle the biggest passes (Alpe Adria for example). Great way to spend a lot of time in the mountains without a lot of climbing.

There was a previous mention of the Mosel river route. I rode this route two summers ago, kind of barreled through it, two close to 100 mile days. It's a good ride. I think out of all the routes out there, the river routes (or canals) are the most relaxing. Nearly flat entire length, and the river is always there as your guide - broad orientation is always taken care of automatically. Pretty towns, pretty vineyards, nice amenities for food and wine. If there's a downside it's that things stay largely the same, same type of view and same type of riding day in day out. And occasionally you are highway side (on a separate trail) - not at all as bad as along the romantic Rhine, but here and there (so it goes in a narrow valley). It's a very popular route among senior Germans on ebikes, who turn out in large numbers and dominate the touring rider culture. If it appeals to you to spend nearly all of your ride immersed in that environment then its a good choice.

Lastly I'll put in a little plug for the Netherlands. It's so interesting and user friendly. And the bicycle infrastructure is unbelievably good. Worth it for the quality of the cycling infrastructure alone, which in itself is a fascinating major attraction, not just a way to connect between major attractions. And then everything else is so cozy and nice and lovely and scenic and interesting and efficient and well-engineered and modern and old. The Dutch built a unique little miracle of a country, and it shows itself exceedingly well from the seat of a touring bicycle. If not now it ought to be a bucket list ride for anyone who enjoys touring in Europe. I've ridden basically the entire country, so if you pick the Netherlands I can recommend routes. :)

Okay again a lot! Sorry! I really love bike touring in Europe so it's fun for me to write about it.

Hi Donna
We spent some time cycling in Brittany and absolutely loved it. We used a company called Breton Bikes based in the small village of Gouarec. They have a variety of planned routes. Rather, we decided to rent their small gite for a week and just ride from there every day. What fun we had. https://www.bretonbikes.com/

Brittany is a fantastic place to cycle tour. I like to ride it free range, not knowing where I'll end any given day. But it also has tremendous canal path cycling networks and very nice organized tours.

Rainy weather any time of year is the Achilles heel, but it's no worse than southwest Ireland and well worth the significant risk of a few rain day rides.

This thread makes me SMILE. And I am taking some notes, too.

Like @hank, I too will give a huge "try The Netherlands" vote. I try to ride (not cycle tour) in every place we visit, but The Netherlands bowled me over with just how easy almost everything bike related turned out being. Last year, we LITERALLY threw most of our plans in the trash and redid almost all of it around being on a bike. In a very short time, we adapted to the Dutch bikes (our hotel provided them), figured out the rules of the road, and were navigating the city and countryside (often with the Fietsknoop app & signage).

What we found out - and this is strictly one way of "touring" - is that simply picking one, two, or three "home bases" and planning (or wandering) out from each in a large loop worked really well, and minimized the hotel->hotel-->hotel shuffle of a true tour. From Amsterdam, we were able to split the day into museum/sites and bike rides out of town. That was a great mix as a few hours at a great museum is a wonderful excuse for several hours out in the sun. :) Then, evening's were back to the hotel, drop the bikes, clean up, and enjoy the evening without having changed hotels. A few days later, a train ride to Delft (home base #2) and repeat the same sort of plan. You could add - easily - any other Dutch city or even down into Belgium (Bruges or Ghent or similar).

Separately - we're not doing it this year since plans evolved - there is plenty of opportunity to do traditional touring in The Netherlands. Before we changed our summer plans to include Norway, I had (still have) an 8 day ride mapped out from Amsterdam -> Rotterdam -> Bruges -> Ghent. With bookends in Amsterdam and maybe Bruges, that's a nice mix of riding & countryside plus cities & towns. All is conveniently plotted in the Fietsknoop app and ready to be followed when we get the chance.

As with the info found in this thread, I generally look at what tour groups are offering, routes that are offered, and routes that I see on apps like Komoot to build up a general idea of pulling things together. For the Netherlands, one tour company Dutch Bike Tours (also same company as Belgian Bike Tours) had a bunch of good routes and options that helped me think about options for our own ride.

Good luck and safe cycling!

I had (still have) an 8 day ride mapped out from Amsterdam ->
Rotterdam -> Bruges -> Ghent. With bookends in Amsterdam and maybe
Bruges, that's a nice mix of riding & countryside plus cities & towns.
All is conveniently plotted in the Fietsknoop app and ready to be
followed when we get the chance.

I hope you get to do this - it's an exceedingly interesting route. Bruges to Ghent is a bit anticlimactic, quite a lot of ugly riding next to major highways. Bruges into Netherlands though is sublime.

A general tip for riding in this area: much of the time it is windy, and most the wind comes from the south or southwest. As such I try to arrange my routes starting in the south and traveling north, and/or west to east. Wind at your back much nicer, even on an e-bike; wind in your face always less pleasant.

I just reread everyone's responses. You have provided so many resources and inspirations. We are in the early stages of planning a Fall trip to Europe. Switzerland is looking like it will be on our agenda. I am wondering if any of you cycling enthusiasts have done a ride that starts (and preferably ends) at Lake Geneva?

Donna I've cycled through there. Lake Geneva is on the Rhone river. You can ride the Rhone cycle route south through France from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean sea.

A prettier ride though is the upper Rhone through Switzerland, from its source near Furka Pass through the Valais valley to Geneva. Interesting towns and pretty views. Look on a map - Sion is the most major town you'd pass in that region.

Both the above rides are fairly flat/easy because they follow the river (upper Valais some incline but you can choose to ride it downhill).

I'm not sure if self-guided tours are offered for either out of Geneva - maybe the French Rhone.

Also not sure about loop rides out of Geneva. It's quite hilly aside from the river valley. But maybe a self-guided route exists.

You could always ride around the lake itself, take a night or two to do it. I've not ridden all the way around Lake Geneva (only part way), but have heard it's reasonable riding.

Me again. I do love the planning stage of travel almost as much as the travel itself. We have been doing lots of reading and web-searching to fine tune our plans. We are now thinking the best place for us to do a self-guided multi-day bike tour might be while we are in Provence. (That's the latest twist to our developing itinerary.) We are considering Avignon as a home-base since we will be relying on public transportation and bicycles. My new question is . . . . Have any of you done this type of ride in Provence and if so what did you think and can you recommend a company? I have been looking at freewheelingfrance.com Thanks to those of you who made that recommendation.

Hank, I must say i love your passion for cycling while touring and am in awe of that amount of travel you have done.

Looking forward to your responses.

Donna

Donna you have reached the end of my helpfulness :). I have not ridden Provence. Many companies and tours though, I'm sure there's a lot of good riding!

Sounds like a good call have fun

Replying many months later, but wanted to recommend www.cycleeurope.com for Puglia Italy. In 2019 my husband and I did their self-guided on ebikes from Trani out into the countryside to Matera (REMARKABLE!!!!) and back to the coast through the Truli houses in Alberobello. Ended in Bari. It was an uncrowded and very untouristed, unique ride. We only saw one other couple on bikes. It's a must do.

mvarrin, Thank you for your response. It is not too late. Our trip has been postponed from Fall to Spring 2025 due to a rotator cuff injury (My husband's.) Lots more time to dream and plan. Thank you for the recommendation.

Sorry to hear that Donna but please let us know what you finally decided on, with whom and, eventually, how it went.

I am thinking about kidnapping Hank to be my forced tour guide next year!

My wife and I just did a 6-day self-guided bike tour around Zealand in Denmark. The biking was terrific, but that's largely because Denmark has built a series of excellent bike routes that are very well-marked and go through beautiful and varied terrain (through dense forests, along the coast, and across fields, as well as between small towns and villages). We definitely do NOT recommend the companies we used: the consolidator BikeTours.com and the local firm they use, RadFreund (although RadFreund's representatives on the ground, especially the very kind and committed Sofia in Copenhagen, were friendly and helpful). We were initially sent incorrect bike directions - taking us to hotels other than the ones they had booked us into - and when we pointed this out to them, they responded with a condescending note trying to justify the directions they had sent, instead of correcting their mistake and apologizing; with one exception, we were booked into charmless corporate hotels, way out of town; and they deleted our GPS files, so that we couldn't access them, before our trip was over. I would stay away from both companies. Another couple we met on our trip, who had done many bike trips in many different countries, told us that this was the worst organized trip they had ever been on.

I am not a guy who does bike tours. But I bought a bike for Christmas with the intention of doing some riding in my area combined with the German rail system pass. I recently picked up a book by Bikeline that details the route along the Rhine from Mainz to Basel "Rhein-Radweg / 2" and once I get some stiches' out of my hand this is going to be my guide.

With the 49 euro pass I can take my bike on any train (other than the IC) to where I want to start, and when I get tired just get back on the train and come home. I could easily see using this to plan a longer trip. The Bingen to Koblenz stretch was easy in (for me) short steps, and I expect the Mosel from Koblenz to Saarbrucken should be the same. I'm not sure if they have a book for France, and the rail system is different, but riding along the Mosel seems to be just as good based on the stretches I've driven; between Saarbrucken, Metz, and Nancy.

Donna

For Provence (which you mentioned in one of your later posts on this page), again I suggest the Freewheeling France website that both Hank and I mentioned.

You’ll find dozens of self-guided options from about 10 different operators. Plus at least about 6 guided tour options. Plus more options yet if all you want to do is rent bikes.

Check out reviews of operators that interest you on Trip Advisor to see what others say and how they all compare.

We were reasonably pleased with vélo voyageur last year. One week in Dordogne. And later, one week in the Loire. We gave the 4 stars on Trip Advisor for the Dordogne and 5 stars for the Loire.

Best wishes for your husband’s recovery.

I know I'm coming upon this late, but I have used 2 companies for self-guided cycling tours and both were excellent. Tulip Cycling in the Netherlands is a wonderful small business. I did two different routes with my family (small children at the time) and both were fantastic. Peter, the owner, made custom routes for us because we only had a few days to cycle. Most recently I have done 2 tours in Ireland with Green Marble Tours (AKA West Ireland Cycling in Galway). Also fantastic. Cycling in County Connemara with ebikes is absolutely sublime--the Atlantic coast, rocky cliffs, fjords, sheep, little villages, and Irish music at night.

Not too late at all Mlkochel. Our trip had to be postponed from next month until next spring. We have done a little cycling in The Netherlands and would love to visit Ireland. Thanks for the inspiration.

Donna

A few multi day trips I have tried in Europe include... the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, the Via Francigena in Italy and a bike and boat tour in Croatia. All of these were admittedly a little undulating though! I used Saddle Skedaddle as the company who are excellent and one of the UK's biggest cycling holiday companies. Last year I did my own cycling trip in Holland which is the flattest place I have ever cycled, though the wind made things quite hard work!