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tourdemature is a blog set up to provide older persons with information about cycle touring options around the world, as well as to help people to understand the unique nuances of the addition of e-road bikes to to the range of bikes available to riders. In addition the blog contains lots of reviews of cycle tours, e-road bikes and bike accessories. Tour de Mature A site providing mature cyclists with a range of bike related information to assist with buying bikes and accessories or finding an appropriate bike tour. If you would prefer not to scan the whole web site, you might prefer to use the buttons provided below to give you direct access to current relevant topics. Just click on the button and you will be taken to the appropriate tab. Do you need riding experience? What bike options do you need to consider? The latest reviews of Tours, Bikes and Accessories What do you need to consider when preparing for a tour? Readers' Forum - an alternative to Social Media Are all e-bikes the same? New Arrivals Ankle Fusion Surgery -what's the impact on cycling? (Oct 2026) Have a look at my article concerning how to utilise e bike modes if and when derailleur problems arise! (Oct 2026)

Mature Forum I decided to add this 'Mature Forum' to my web page as it's becoming very difficult to say what you think on social media. In addition, when I get asked questions about touring and road bikes, including e-road bikes, I have found that if I include 'commercial' data such as unit prices or how costs today compare with an earlier period, my social media contribution won't be published. So the aim of this Mature Forum is to allow those of us with an opinion relating to the many aspects of mature riding to have our views published or to comment on published views in a mature fashion Ankle Fusion Surgery -what's the impact on cycling? In early 2026 I saw two orthopaedic surgeons to discuss my worsening arthritis in my right ankle/foot. I was faced with three options - ignore the problem, have fusion surgery or ankle replacement surgery. To help me decide I asked what would be the impact on my cycling activities. It was at this point that I discovered just how little information was available to help me decide which option to pursue. The surgeons both indicated that replacement, if successful, would allow me too resume riding at the same level as before the surgery. They also indicated that riding could resume after recovery from fusion surgery. The first option of ignoring the problem was not realistic as my ankle pain was rapidly getting worse! Replacement is a relatively new procedure world wide and neither surgeon was able to adequately convince me and Mary that the risks associated with problems occurring after the surgery were worth it. So fusion was the only option for me. It was at this point that I discovered that there was very little information available about the impact of ankle fusion surgery on physical activities such as cycling, particularly if the rider clipped in to ride as I do. So began a process of tracking down acquaintances who had been down the same path. In this regard, my cousin Jennifer and her partner Matt, who had been down the same path a few years earlier, were an invaluable source of information. Matt advised that once my rehabilitation was complete there should be no reason why I could not resume riding and he was correct. It turned out that fusion operations can differ in the way they are performed and are rehabilitated. In my case I had to be fully off my feet for six weeks post surgery. Then I had to have my foot in a moon boot for another six weeks and I started Physiotherapy. It was at this point that my Physio advised that I could get on my trainer with my moon boot on. It was a clumsy process but with a little extra concentration to avoid slipping off the pedal mid ride, I fond my starting with relatively flat 5km rides which over the next few weeks build up to 10kms at a time. Finally at the four month mark, I got the all clear to resume wearing shoes instead of the moon boot. This enabled me to wear my cycling shoes on both feet. I changed pedals from two sided MTB pedals suitable for mountain bikes shoes to Shimano pedals with a non clip in flat side on one side and a clip in mechanism on the reverse. I had been advised that the clip in and out bring is very soft on these pedals and would be the easiest to clip out of with my recovering ankle. By the end of the fourth month I was back on my Creo road bike and riding with the HOBOS, my vets cycling group. Into my sixth month I am writing this after returning from a four day ride in Central NSW with the HOBOS during which I completed my second 100km challenge after completing ny first since the operation just two weeks earlier. So what has fusion surgery meant for my physical well being, as well as my cycling? In a nut shell they are both better. My foot movement downwards when I walk down ramps is limted by the fusion but on level surfaces or climbing I am much improved. As for cycling, I can clip in and out of the pedals with out any issues, I can pedal like I could before and there are no issues of leaving one foot on the pedal when the other descends at various stops. Would I recommend it if arthritis in and around your ankle is a problem - yes I would!!! The following attached pdf file (E-Bike Policy) is a discussion paper on e-bikes that I prepared and submitted to Pedal Power in August 2025. Pedal Power is the ACT organisation that represents ordinary bike riders in Canberra and surrounds. I encourage you to read it and then please let me know through the 'Contact Me' page whether you agree, disagree or think that I have missed something vital? If you are based anywhere other than Australia I would also encourage to let me know of similarities and differences where you are, plus details of actions that your loc al regulators have made or are contemplating in order to solve problems, real or perceived, associated with e-bikes? Steve Ryan, August 2025 Application is no longer available. E-Bike Policy Discussion Paper Ankle Fusion Surgery - what is the impct on cycling? Australia's e-Bike Dilema in 2025 This is a trial to see if its worth the effort and I thought I would start with a discussion about a recent article published by Flow Mountain Bike titled 'Stats With Latz / Legal, Illegal and Everything in Between: Australia's e-Bike Dilemma'. This article from Phil Latz was published by Flow Mountain Bikes in May 2025 and came to my attention through a Pedal Power ACT Advocates weekly list of bike related articles that I and my fellow advocates might find interesting when we are developing potential cycling policy for Pedal Power. I'll start off by quoting Phil's opening sentence - ' There is no doubt you've noticed e-Bikes loaded with multiple riders buzzing around your local streets and bike paths, well beyond 25 kph and not even pretending to pedal'. He went on to state that 'These aren't the Bosch, TQ, Yamaha or Shimano equipped e-bikes made by Trek, Merida, Norco, Focus or Canyon (or Specialized) you're likely familiar with that see a 250w max continuous power output and a 25 kph cutoff. So what Phil's article focuses on is two issues - first how the Australian Government via the then Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister, Kevin Hogan from the National Party, in January 2021 removed e-Bikes from the Road Vehicle Standards Act, thus removing the requirement for importers of e-Bikes to provide evidence that the imported bikes meet Australian Standard EN15194. The second is that in 2023 the NSW Government, against the advice from the Australian bicycle industry and its own Transport Department increased the maximum allowable continuous power rating from 250w to 500w. Fortunately, no other State or Territory has implemented thus change but it does mean that people living outside NSW can buy and have 500w bikes shipped to them from NSW. The implications for e-bike riders and the general community are immense - I read Phil's article a couple of days after I returned from a visit to family on Sydney's northern beaches where we noticed the e-Bike scenario that he described. We were staying near a high school and we were amazed at how many young people we saw riding heavy duty e-Bikes with multiple riders on each bike and often no helmets. Pedalling was not required and the speeds were often well in excess of 25 kph. And to be fair, it's not just students in NSW. Most major cities in Australia now have food deliveries performed by riders on similar e-Bikes that they must be importing via NSW - they are ridden on roads and paths and the drivers trying to minimise delivery time ride them at great speeds and without apparent regard for other riders, pedestrians or motor vehicles. Another emerging issue is the reporting on e-battery fires which are becoming more common. Phil notes in his article that the removal of the standard has lead to cheap and nasty e-Bikes being imported from overseas, often with poor quality electronics. He states that there have been no reported fires from quality e-battery systems and notes that quality home e-chargers coming with cut out switches that stop batteries charging when they are fully charged. My Specialized and Ryobli lithium battery charging systems certainly do this. Cheaper battery systems don't have this feature and batteries left to just keep on charging get hotter and hotter and sometimes get so hot they burst into flames. Just one more reason to take control of what e-products are imported in to Australia. What am I wanting to do about this? I have proposed to Pedal Power ACT that the organisation needs to get on the front foot and develop comprehensive e-Bike policy that can be recommended to the ACT and Commonwealth Governments as a sensible way of promoting an effective e-Bike presence across Australia. I will be taking this up at the mid July 2025 Advocacy Meeting. In the meantime I would love the Mature Forum readers to put forward their thoughts on both the issues arising from current e-Bike legislative arrangements and on how you thunk we shouldn't be moving forward to take advantage of the benefits offered by safe and effective e-Bikes? For those reading this in locations other than Australia you might be wondering the relevance to your situation. I would suggest that while the particular standards and regulations might be different for you, the implications may very well be the same. To date e-bikes seem to have been lumped into a single category with one set of rules (if any exist) applying whether or not they should be? I aim to lead the charge in Australia and would certainly welcome feedback on what is happening in other parts of the world. Who knows, a little agitation may be all that is needed to get the regulatory wheels rolling and the implementation of rules and standards that make sense as they are applied to the very diverse world of e-bikes. Steve Ryan June 2025.

An explanation of the types of e-road bikes covered by the Tour De Mature web site. E Road & Gravel Bikes When I started drafting this site during the early days of the COVID Pandemic the concept of ebikes was just taking off in Australia. The major bicycle manufacturers such as Trek and Specialized had released their e road bikes to join a market which largely consisted of short range e commuter bikes, e cargo bikes and e mountain bikes. In addition we were starting to see the emergence of short term rental e bikes and e scooters based on the Boris Bikes that had popped up in London as a means of tourists getting around the city. By 2022 e road bikes were being joined by e gravel bikes which looked similar but had bulkier tires and were more comfortable t0 ride long distances. What we didn't have until recently was the proliferation of so called ebikes which were actually e mopeds or e motor bikes. The other thing we didn't have in Australia was effective policing of the distribution, sale and use of these throttle operated e machines which could reach high speeds and were potentially dangerous. Then in 2025 we started to see various legislatures in the US, the UK and Australia reacting to media demands for greater controls to be applied to all e devices based on the actions of what were already illegal devices that had been ignored until the number of injuries and deaths started to rise. In late 2025 the Queensland Government tabled draft legislation that applied to all e devices whether or not they were compiled with the European Standard for e bikes as regulated in Australia. I deal with this issue elsewhere in this site, but suffice it to say that as you read the advice below please be aware that as I predicted 18 months ago regulators have failed to differentiate between legal e bikes and illegal e mopeds and e motor bikes. To help you understand the nuances of e-biking, I am pleased to include an article by Julia Widdup with my bracketed comments), from Canberra Pedal Power, called "All you need to know about e-bikes" that was published in Canberra Cyclist, # 278, Summer Edition 2021. "There are many myths associated with ebikes which deter 'real' bike riders from even trying an e-bike. Here are the seven biggest myths about e-bikes: • You don't have to pedal an E-Bike, just turn the throttle (this defines an emoped or emotor bike). • E-bikes are cheating (and the single gear bike riders say the same thing about multi geared bikes). • E-bikes aren't good exercise (you are still pedalling and get good exercise) • E-bikes are for people who can't ride conventional bikes (possibly true in some cases) • E-bikes are too expensive (as with all bikes the costs vary depending on what you wish to achieve). • E-bike batteries don't last long (I assume this is a referencer to range and again it depends on what you are willing to pay for. With recent improvements in battery technology range can vary from 60-70km to 200km depending on where and how you ride the bike in. question). • E-bikes can't go where mountain bikes go. (When this article was written e mountain bikes were just taking off. Nowadays most of the quality brand mountain bikes can go where regular mountain bikes will struggle to match). E-bikes are becoming the new normal and have many advantages for the everyday rider. The terms e-bike and electric bicycle today are often used as synonyms for pedelecs. A pedelec is a type of electric bicycle where the rider's pedalling is assisted by a small electric motor." Since I included Julia's article I have come to appreciate that there is an even bigger myth that is spread and reinforced by the cycling community. That is, that the term e-bike can be applied to all bikes with electric motors. As a result, the pros and cons of specific types of bikes with electrical motors can be used to support or denigrate all types of electrically propelled bikes. I have included a chapter in this blog called 'Not All E-Bikes Are The Same ' and you can click on the link to be taken to the article. As one gets older and joints get stiffer its great to know that you can still go for rides on your choice of e bike type and get assistance when you need it rather than having to either give up or join supported rides so that you leave the ride when mountains get to steep or headwinds make riding really uncomfortable. Anchor 1 E-Road Bike Range - what’s possible A question I get asked often is ‘what range should I expect from my e-bike?’ I reply that there are lots of factors at play, with the first being the bike set up. So in order to answer this question I start with the suggestion of limiting the e-bike choices so as to try and compare ‘apples with apples’. I therefore start with limiting my e-bike option to e-road bikes which seem to be the most efficient of bikes using a motor to assist a rider. E-road bikes available in Australia have a total weight between 10 and 14 kgs without range extenders added. Those at the 10 kg end seem to have achieved the low weight by having smaller batteries that limit range to 60-80 kms, while those at the other end have ranges between 90 and 220kms depending on the technology utilised. As mentioned previously I ride a 2020 Specialized Turbo Creo Expert SL. This bike completely disengages the motor at 25kph which means that the more the rider can ride above 25kph the greater the battery range. A second factor is that the more the rider can rely on the Eco mode while riding below 25kph, the longer the battery will last. The following are the details of a 119.43km ride I did at the end of 2024. I hope that others with e-road bikes can aim to duplicate or match the ride to see what range results they can achieve and post to this Facebook page of to my updated and improved blog, TourDeMature.com? My ride was from Ainslie in Canberra through Hackett and North Watson and on to the Federal Highway out to the Olive Grove Cafe on the Highway a few km’s north of Collector and then back to Canberra riding along the Federal Highway and Northbourne Avenue till I turned left at Haig Park and rode back to Ainslie. I had charged my battery to 100% prior to the ride and according to my Specialised App I arrived home having consumed 52% of the available power. During my ride I had utilised the Eco mode for 67% of the power I consumed and Sports mode for 33%. During the ride I climbed 790m and rode with an average speed of 24.4kph. My max speed was 54.2 kph and I rode for 4hr 54m. My average cadence was 65 rpm with a max of 100 rpm. My average trip speed would have been closer 28 kph but for town riding in urban Canberra where traffic lights, pedestrians etc, slowed me down considerably. My followup ride added some interest comparison statistics. I joined my riding group for our weekly ride and I accidentally left the bike in Sports mode for 89% of the 53.7 km ride. As a result I used 22% of the remaining power in the battery, had a low average speed of 18.5kph and climbed 365m. So, notwithstanding I had left the bike in the wrong mode for much of the second trip I still achieved a significant ride of about 172 kms and 1,155m climbing from one fully charged battery. Accordingly I regularly achieve in excess of 200kms around town from a single battery charge during which Eco use is better than 95% and a lot of the riding is on flattish roads with speeds in excess of 25kph. Trips to mountainous regions like the East Coast of Tasmania does see me riding with more sports and even the occasional Turbo mode, but even then I still achieve ranges in excess of 110km. Finally, a word of caution. As bike companies boost the power outputs of their motors the downside is that they offer more power and this reduces the range. In mid 2024 my partner and I rented Creos in Italy to ride a hilly section between San Miniato and San Gimignano. The bike shop could only supply me with an original model Creo with a 1.0 motor, while my partner was provided with the almost new Creo with a 2.0 motor. Otherwise they were the same bike. The ride was substantially steeper on the way out to San Gimignano and my partner arrived at the half point worried that she would not have sufficient power to complete the ride. Fortunately with the ride back being mostly downhill, she arrived back at the bike shop with 20% still available on her battery. My battery still had over 40% power left notwithstanding I weigh 50% greater than my partner. Discussions with e-bike mechanics on our arrival back home suggested that the culprit was the extra motor power which would have made the climbing so much more easier. I hope that readers find this information useful and contribute their own experiences with their bikes. If you would like to make a contribution or there are other topics relevant to this blog that you would like dealt with please use the Contact Me page to send me an email with the details. Steve How my e-options saved my ride! Oct 2026 During a recent ride in central NSW I dropped my Creo when I lost concentration as I was applying sun lotion prior to resuming a 100km ride. I was standing on a concrete path and the bike landed on the derailleur and bent the mechanism onto the chain cassette. With no suitable tools to fix the problem I simply pulled the derailleur away from the cassette being careful not to snap the hanger which connects the derailleur to bike frame. This enabled me to resume riding, albeit only with access to gears 10 and 11. I was faced with a 36km ride into a strong headwind and lots of climbing! The initial challenge with only having access to gears 10 and 11 was that the process of starting or restarting a a ride would be slow and difficult. Further just how long could I last into the headwind? Then it dawned on me that the electric modes could compensate for the lost gears. I put the bike in sports mode and sure enough, getting started on the bike was straight forward and I was able to shift between sport and turbo as the conditions warranted extra support. Interestingly, either mode made it relatively easy to get up to the maximum e supported speed of 25 kph and I often found myself during the ride sitting on 26 or 27 kph and achieving a better average speed than if I had been riding primarily using gears. This was subsequently supported by my Strava AI review of my ride. I ended up doing another 34km ride the next morning with similar conditions and result before I was able to get the bike into Parkes NSW and to a bike repair business called Bickys Cycle Shed. Bicky has a fabulous bike repair business operating out of his backyard and he was able to fix my problem in a matter of minutes. Check out Bicky's Cycle Shed Facebook page or do a search on Google Maps if you are in the area and need assistance. But please be aware that you will need to make an appointment to ensure he will be home when you visit. e-options Anchor 2

Are you thinking about trying cycle touring and want to find out what is involved.? Do you need lots of cycling experience or can you just jump on a bike and go? Has the introduction of the various types of e-bikes made it easier for novices to join in? Is Cycle Touring for You? If you are new to cycle touring you might like to try it out locally before going to the expense of joining a lengthy organised tour. Many places have a variety of cycle touring companies that offer 2, 3 and 7 day cycle tours involving cycle paths or quiet country roads with quality accommodation and good meals included. Usually you have the choice of hiring bikes or bringing your own. The latter can bring the price down significantly. Once you have determined that cycle touring is for you, it's time to start thinking about where, when, how and what you can afford. (Riding Experience 1 or 2). How to get started: Read blogs like this one. Talk to others in your riding community who have already joined cycle tours and get their ideas and recommendations. Search the web and look at providers that are well established and offer a range of tours as they are more likely to be able to provide a guarantee that your chosen tour will occur. Review your cycling strengths and weaknesses: Many providers offer a difficulty scale to help you decide the type of cycle tour that will suit you. The scales are not universal, so you may need to do some additional research to help you decide whether a tour is for you. For example, when we were considering which road bike tour we would join with Road Bike Tours Italy for our first tour with them, we needed to get a better handle on just how difficult their 'Three Lakes Tour' would be. As this was a small, family run, business we were easily able to communicate with the owner Luca and provide him with details of a recent ride we had done with another company that we thought was comparable. Luca examined the ride and was able to assure us that it was comparable and within our scope and this turned out to be the case. (Riding Experience 5 or 6) . We also know our weaknesses and while we would love to be able to turn the clock back 20 or 30 years and ride like the younger riders, we know that this is not the case and we have to be careful to avoid tours that involve several days of riding 100 plus kms per day and/or doing lots of big climbs without appropriate support. It was this recognition that lead us to move to E Road Bikes in 2020 to enable us to join more interesting tours and match the younger, fitter, lighter riders. For us there is nothing worse than knowing that you will always be a long way behind the rest of the tour group due to steep climbs, really hot days and/or very strong head winds. And the good news is that since initially writing this section, e-road bikes cannot only be taken to other Australian locations by car or coach, but also they can be hired in Europe and similar circumstances should apply in whatever country you are based. Unfortunately, it is not possible to place a e bike in a passenger airplane cargo hold if it has a built in lithium battery. And while these batteries can be removed before a flight, they are too large to be carried as hold luggage and currently I have been unable to find any overseas bike shop that temporarily rents suitable batteries for my Specialized Creo. As far as I can tell this is the case for other e road bikes too. So bike rental remains the best option. Decide what you would like to do and where: There are lots of options for cycle touring and there is no hard and fast rule about what is the best one for anyone. Look at the options, possibly try out short versions of the ones that interest you and take it from there. We started with a 'bike and barge' tour in the Loire region in France and it was the perfect introduction. It was a great starting tour and provided us with the base line for our next tour. Our philosophy has been to make sure that our 'next' tour will be better both in terms of the set up and in terms of the quality of the ride. After more than 15 years we are pleased to report that we have mostly, but not always, been able to achieve this outcome. Communicate with the provider(s) to ensure that the tour is suitable for you: We decided many years ago that airlines and travel agents can be handy for arranging your principle flights, but we need to find and arrange our internal travel, accommodation and tours. Once we find a tour that looks good, we commence communicating with the operator if possible or else the company through whom you will need to make the booking. In this regard, be aware that many cycle tours are offered by multiple providers and delivered by single companies. It pays to compare as the costs can vary between providers. We have found that by communicating with operators or providers at an early stage you can not only decide on whether a tour is suitable for you, but also you can find out things like the probability that the tour will occur, the number of participants, where to stay before and after the tour, etc.

If you wondered what is the difference between a hybrid, a flat bar and a drop bar road bike, these pages provide the answers. Flat Bar Road Bike A Flat Bar Road bike is a road bike that has a flat handlebar rather than the drop bar handlebar, usually as the rider is looking for a more comfortable ride. They also often have 28 mm tyres as opposed to 23-26 mm on traditional road bikes, although this is now changing and 28 mm is becoming the norm across all road bikes. Bikes in this category can also have some carbon elements and possibly weigh less than 13 kg. By stepping up from a hybrid to a flat bar road bike you are initially getting the best of road biking but without the complication of going the 'full hog'! The prime difference between flat and drop bar road bikes is that you posture is more upright and you don't have to learn the art of using paddle gear levers (otherwise known as 'dual control levers'). Many riders prefer the thumb lever over paddles for changing gears, especially as the former usually are part of a barrel system which shows you which front cog you are using and the gear you are in. Canyon Roadlite Flat Bar Road Bike

Trying to identify a cycle tour that's right for you but the tour brochures are vague in relation to matters of interest to you. This site aims to publish tour reviews from around the world that allow readers to better understand whether they will fit in. Steve's Ride Reviews You can read the reviews I have posted below, with the most recent review first and then descending in date order back till 2012. Once you open a review that interests you, you can in most cases click on the photo and you will be taken to the webpage for that tour from the company that that we booked with. In some instances you will find that a little searching will identify several companies offering the same tour. It can pay to check out the alternatives as this can lead to better prices or a bonus for booking or even access to a better room as companies each pre-book and some may still have first class rooms that others don't. Reviews are both subjective and relevant to the author who wrote them, as are the star ratings. Furthermore, these reviews present the author's opinion at a point in time and with the passage of time companies can change an itinerary, guides can change and conditions on the ground can vary. In relation to the latter, for example, the review from 2013 of the Po River Tour dealt with a tour that was impacted by massive rain and flooding across central Europe and northern Italy. A year earlier or later, riders would have had a vastly different experience. Therefore, please use these reviews as a starting point to gain an initial understanding of what is available and what you might experience. Not all the tours I have reviewed are offered every year, but where the tour or the experience is being offered in 2025 I have provided a link to the company's tour webpage. You can compare reviews in this website with other sites and after that you might want to contact tour facilitators and operators to ask questions and seek more detail about what is being offerer now. HOBOS Tour of Goulburn Oct 2025 (no rating as I organised the tour). My veterans cycling group arranges two riding trips per annum, usually within half a day from our home base in Canberra. I hadn't been on a HOBOS tour for a couple of years due to clashes with other important events, so Mike (my regular riding companion) and I proposed to the group that we would organise a three day tour in and around Goulburn. After months of planning and a visit to the region we found a suitable central motel for our two nights in Goulburn and identified four rides that we hoped would cater for the different riding aspirations of our group. The Goulburn tour we offered involved on day one a 15km morning ride around the heritage sites of Goulburn which is a historic city first settled in the 1830s. This was followed by lunch at a nice cafe before we set off on a 27 km loop from north Goulburn which saw our rider numbers diminish from 8 to 5 but which turned out to be a pleasant introduction to the magnificent bike paths in and around Goulburn. Day two saw us riding 87kms out to Windelema and Bungonia before some of us took the opportunity to ride an extra 14kms on the Goulburn bike paths beside the river. The length of this ride saw our numbers shrink to six, although some of our support group waited till they arrived back in Goulburn and also tried out the bike paths. Day three saw us checking out of the motel and driving across to Breadalbane for the start of a 50 km round trip to Gunning for lunch. The weather had continued to improve and for the first time over the three days got really warm and a bit sticky. All up an excellent three days and a variety of challenges including the short but very steep ascent to the Goulburn War Memorial Lookout with gradients around 15%, the 100 km ride which included about 1000m of climbing and avoiding snakes on the road into Gunning. Great company, good accommodation, excellent meals and access to a day and night cafe across the road from our motel and a place where I could go for an excellent flat white at all hours. Tuscany - Hills and Sea, Italy - Provided by Road Bike Tours Italy ***** June 2024 We’ve been back on the road again, this time in Italy. A little background first. As previously mentioned in my blogs, taking your ebike anywhere by plane is impossible unless you send through a courier company. I corresponded with the Specialized Australia team to see whether Specialized had plans to rent batteries in Europe so that you just take your bike without batteries and you rent what you need once you arrive. The answer was no. I’ll certainly keep pressing on this as I think the market will be huge given the number of touring e-bikes we’ve seen since we arrived in Italy. Anyway, Specialized put me in touch with Renato at the Taddei Bike Shop in San Miniato (about an hour's drive from Lucca where we were going to be staying) as they rent out Specialized e bikes including Creo’s. Renato was fabulous to deal with but he too had to contend with the Specialized suppliers in Milan. For five months we corresponded and arranged Creo bikes for Mary and I only to be informed by Renato the week we were departing that he had only received the large model for me and that he was advised that a medium or small for Mary wouldn’t arrive till 6 June at the earliest - useless as our tour started on 2 June. As an alternative, Renato went out of his way to bring an e hybrid bike to our house in Lucca for Mary to try, but it did not suit her. Ultimately Renato agreed to cancel my bike rental and we instead organised De Rosa e road bikes through Road Bike Tours Italy, our touring company. Not in the Creo’s class, but still much better than eMTBs or ehybrids. And to the tour. We have ridden with Luca and RBTours Italy twice before and we opted to join their Hills and Sea tour which took us from Siena to the island of Elba. Mary and I were joined by our Italian friends, Elena and Alessio, who both hired a e hybrid and eMTB respectively for the tour. They joined us in Lucca and RBTours collected their rental bikes from the shop in Lucca before picking the four of us up at our house and taking us to Sienna. Readers may recall that during the Bike and Barge Tour in 2022 our friend Elena who has no English had lots of quiet moments. This tour turned out to be the opposite with four Italian speakers plus Mary and I. By half way through the week I had to ask Luca to remember that my Italian is minimal and Mary's in nil and to ensure that they included us in conversations by mixing his choice of language. A small thing, but so important when you arrange a tour with multiple languages. To get the tour date that suited us, we had paid for a private self guided tour with vehicle support, with the option of a price reduction if another two persons wanted to join us for an open tour. We weren't joined by anyone else but Luca and his partner, Marilisa, arrived in a mini bus with the Alessio's and Elena' heavy bikes in the rear plus bikes on the roof for Mary, myself and Luca. At around 28kgs each, putting the two heavy bikes on theon the roof with our 12kg e de Rosa’s and Luca’s 7kg Giant road bikes wasn’t an option. Luca had had to remove the last row of seats to fit the two bikes plus luggage for 6. He also explained that he was in training for a difficult tour in the Dolomites and had decided to ride with us as our guide while Marilisa drove the van at no extra cost. The service from RBTours was, as usual, amazing. Having spent the morning driving from Lake Garda to collect us in Lucca, Luca and Marilisa started the trip to our tour starting point of Siena. Upon arrival at our hotel for the next two nights, Luca proceeded to set up the bikes to suit each rider. For Alessio and Elena it was mostly about adjusting seat heights and getting them familiar with riding unfamiliar bikes. Luca was worried about battery range with these bikes as initially we were riding 70 - 80 kms a day with big climbs. As it turned out he needn’t have worried as they both completed the rides every day except the big day where the bike’s batteries died with a few kms to go. For Mary’s and my bikes, Luca had a bit more work. On Mary’s bike he replaced the handle bar stem with the one we brought with us so that Mary could achieve the right riding posture. He also installed Mary’s seat and put her Garmin holder on the handle bar and installed her preferred cleat pedals. My bike was a little simpler. Just a seat and Garmin holder installed. Then for both of us it was ride, test, adjust until we both felt comfortable. Day 1 for riding involved riding a loop out to Rada in Chianti for coffee, then on to Castelina in Chianti where we had a photo with symbol of Chianti, a sculpture of the black rooster. Then off to Gaiole in Chianti for lunch before returning to Siena. 73kms and 1243m of climbing. A nice way to start and to get used to the very different operating system of the De Rosa. Two chain rings compared to one on the Creo. The motor in the rear hub rather than between the cranks. A small internal battery located between the cranks and a large, strangely shaped range extender battery in the rear water bottle holder. And a manual campagnolo gear charging system. By the end of the week I was still finding the push button to raise the gears or to go from large to small chain ring was not an automatic process. Many times I automatically lifted my hand looking for an alternative gear change system. It took a few days of communicating with Luca before it became clear that the five mode e gear system needed to be set before you first put your feet on the pedals, otherwise the support was minimal. Second, based on the Creo battery system I had assumed that the internal battery would have twice the power as the extender. Assumption wrong! The extender by its size is twice as powerful as the internal battery. It’s only a guess, but I think De Rosa achieved 12 kgs overall weight by using a small internal battery. There were a couple of days where my range extender died and I had to stop, disconnect the extender battery and then restart the bike so that it starting obtaining power from the internal battery - weird!! Day 2 involved an 84km ride from Siena to Volterra with 1587m of climbing. A very big day, particularly as the final climb to the town was over 300m with steep gradients most of the way. Day 3 took us from Volterra to Marina di Castogneto Carducci on the coast after a visit to Bolgheri, one of Italy’s premier wine towns and regions. Mostly a downhill day, but we did climb to Montecatini Val di Cecina which contributed most of the day’s 773m of climbing. After 68kms of riding we arrived mid afternoon to our beach hotel - a hotel with its own private beach among many with sun beds and umbrellas and across the whole beach plus a beach bar for drinks. We looked but none of used the hotels beach facilities. Day 4 saw us back in the bus for the drive to the ferry terminal at Piombino where we boarded the ferry and headed for Portoferraio, the Elba ferry port. We then drove out of the town to a carpark where we set up our bikes and started the day’s ride. Just 41kms for the day, but with the late start we still faced some challenging climbs. 766m of climbing over two climbs. The first up the Elba Mortirolo with a 3.8km climb and average gradients of 8/9% and I recorded a max of 17%. A real challenge, even on an e bike. We started our second big climb after lunch on the coast and this time it was about 7kms of climbing although gradients averaged about 5/6% and the steepest were around 10%. I had hoped to test the bike for speed on the descent, but half way down with a speed around 52kph I caught up with slow cars and motorbikes. The same happened on our last day of riding - so disappointing! Which brings us to Day 5. It’s about 90kms to circumnavigate Elba and day 5 took us to the other half of the island. Just on 50kms of riding and 774m of climbing with most of this occurring during the initial climb from our coastal hotel to the hill top town of Marciana. After that it was a rolling coastal ride before lunch in Marina di Campo and back across the middle of Elba to our hotel. So in summary, a week of challenging riding, fantastic views, very nice hotels including two night stays in Siena and Elba, excellent breakfasts, superb dinners, and to top it off Mary, Elena and Alessio and I bought some really good wines and enjoyed some diverse lunches. Drinks such as wine, coffee, beers and apperitivo’s plus lunches weren’t included in the package, but this wasn’t a problem and gave us the opportunity to discover drinks and foods that we might not otherwise have tried. South Australian Wine and Food Tour - Provided by AllTrails ***** March 2024 This tour organised by AllTrails from Melbourne had 17 riders, including two from the USA and we all got on famously. The week consisted of a mix or wine tastings, meals, snacks, excellent accommodation and, of course, rides. Day one started with a bus ride from Adelaide to our Clare accommodation via a Seven Hills Winery tour and a Seven Hills Pub lunch before we adjourned for an excellent roof top bar meal at a Clare Restaurant - no riding! All week the daily routine was a morning ride so that we could undertake the wine and food tastings without having to drink/ride. Day two was a 46km ride along the Riesling Rail Trail from Clare to Scholz Park and then into the buses for a visit to the Mintaro Maze for a fab lunch and a visit to the nearby Martingale Hall to witness SA's plush past. Then back to Clare for a delicious Italian meal in a popular local restaurant. Day three we rode from Clare to Nooriootpa where we had to finish the 46lm ride a few kms short as the strong head winds were really slowing everyone down and we had another fabulous wine tasting and lunch to get to at Saltrams - wow what an occasion and many of us ordered wines to be delivered after we returned home. After Saltram we visited Penfolds to try the Penfolds Experience - blending Shiraz, Grenache and Mataro to create an out of the box GSM. Then it was off to Tanunda for the night and dinner at the 1918 Restaurant, an experience highly recommended by friends and they were right. A delicious Chef's degustation meal with matching wines. WOW! Then, the next day, the longest ride of the week - 71km from Tanunda to Hahndorf. The ride included a visit to the Birdwood National Motor Museum (excellent) and a delicious lunch at the Fold Cafe across the road. Then it was off to the Nepenthe Winery to end our really enjoyable ride where we were supposed to experience a Nepenthe wine tasting witth accompanying anti pasto platters. However supposed did not convert to reality with the staff only starting to explain the wines after our guides complained that the staff were just pouring and departing. All up such a contrast to the Seven Hills and Saltram experiences. Then we were bused to Hahndorf. The motel called 'Lodge by Haus' was very ordinary but it was well located and we could put our bikes in our room, albeit the result was a crowded room. Dinner and breakfast were across the road at the Haus Restaurant and we were impressed with the staff and the food/drinks. Our second last day of riding (46kms) took us from Hahndorf to MacLaren Vale via Meadows for lunch in town at the Tin Shed Cafe and then back to the Serafino Winery where we were accommodated in lovely, large rooms. The heat which had been with us all week got to around 40 degrees and was exacerbated by a burst water main in the road out front of Serafino. Luckily they had huge water tanks and could switch over, but our restaurant for the night was not so lucky and had to cancel at the last minute. Jo did a fabulous job of finding an alternative that could fit us in on a Saturday night. Vaserelli's in the Main Street did so and their staff did an amazing job of looking after us, storms and all that came racing through mid meal. Sunday saw his riding to Glenelg for our last night together. 42kms with the toughest climbing of the week and another stinking hot day saw us ride up to the Grand Stamford Hotel on Glenelg Beach around noon after an early start to try and avoid the worst of the heat. We had the afternoon to ourselves and then joined everyone for one last excellent dinner. Mary's and my Specialized Creos with low pressure gravel wheels worked very well and we mostly rode in the Eco mode. The main exceptions were a few of the long, drawn out mountains on the way to Nepenthe and the climb beside the motor way into Adelaide which consisted of several climbs including three long steep climbs. I started to use the sports mode and Mary used a mix of sports and turbo. We only charged our batteries once during the week and that was before the 71km ride, but we had sufficient power available for days 4 - 6 and possibly could have gone another 45km ride. We were allowed to keep our bikes with us at all venues other than the Clare Country Club where they were stored in a conferenced room. This was a pleasant surprise and would have facilitated regular battery charging if needed. We had a number of e road and e hybrid bikes on the ride, more so than we had previously experienced on an AllTrails ride. Based on experience in Europe I would not be surprised to see a majority of e bike on our next AllTrails ride. The staff at AllTrails subsequently accepted my challenge to try and offer an even better ride in 2025! In summary, a hot but enjoyable ride, great company, superb food, mostly excellent accommodation and all but one amazing wine tasting experience and all topped off by the support offered by Jo, Andreas and Tim. A long review but I felt I had an obligation to my readers to let them understand such a wonderful tour in Australia! This tour was a once in a while tour and is being replaced in 2025 with the Victorian Food & Wine Cycling Tour which should be just as good. Alsace and the Vosges Tour, France - Provided by French Cycling Holidays ***** July 2023 We joined our third French Cycling Holidays tour once again lead by Susan and David with the addition of two support guys, Martin and Chris, due to the size of our tour group. Usually FCH would have groups of no more than 8 or 9 guests supported by two guides/drivers who would take it in turn to ride with the group or drive the support van. Special circumstances saw an extended family group of 13 joining the tour to celebrate a family connection to touring with FCH. As a result we had 17 in the tour group with two support vehicles driven by Chris and Martin, while Susan and David rode with the group. Mary and I made our way to Strasbourg where we were collected by David and driven to our hotel in Ottrott where we met the members of our touring group plus Martin and Chris. FCH supplied bicycles for the ride and our 17 bikes consisted of four Trek hybrid models, eleven Velo Ville e city bikes and two Specialized Turbo Creo SL E5 Comp e road bikes. The latter were supplied for Mary and I with an additional charge after FCH let us know that they were available. They were both models one below our own Creo Experts with aluminium frames and paddle gears and they were the best rental bikes we had ridden in Europe till then! It was a week long tour with bike fittings on the first day followed by a familiarisation ride to a nearby village for lunch before heading up to a convent at the top of a nearby mountain to get our legs working. We took pedals, seats and a stem adjuster for Mary. The latter was not fitted till later in the week when it became apparent that handlebar adjustments made by FCH were not enough for Mary's neck and back. Once fitted Mary's Creo was a delight to ride too. Over the week we rode to Ribeauville for one night, Colmar for two nights, Ensisheim for one night and Mulhouse for our last night, all in the French Alsace region. The daily rides varied between 50km and 100km with the ride from Ensisheim to Mulhouse via a 23km and 1200m climb of La Grand Ballon being a highlight. Of the 14 riders with e bikes, all but myself with two bars, were on their last bar of e support as we arrived at the hotel. Notwithstanding discussions elsewhere in this website of factors that can vary distances that can be achieved on e bikes, I finished with two bars of e support even though Mary and I rode the same route, used turbo and sport settings pretty much the same and i weigh about 40% more than Mary. The hotels we stayed in were excellent, the nightly meals and accompanying wines were often Michelin standard and lunches were picnics with fresh ingredients each day purchased by one of the crew in between delivering our luggage to our rooms on days when we changed hotels. On our last morning we were driven to the Mulhouse rail station for the next leg of our European holiday. Overall it was another brilliant FCH bike tour and as usual they set the bar very high for future tours. The challenge for next time will be sourcing our preferred bikes. Susan advised that at present FCH is limited to sourcing Creos for the Alsace tour as their supplier is the only one carrying them and only in this region. However, twelve months ago we were being told that we would be on Giant e road bikes as Specialized Creos were not available. Hopefully by 2024 availability will have changed elsewhere too? RACV Resorts Ride, Australia - provided by All Trails **** March/April 2023 All Trails offered a ten day ride through Victoria with a rest day between each tranche of five day's riding and they kindly offered us the opportunity to join the group for the first five days riding from Mulwala on the banks of the Murray River to Creswick near Ballarat. The ride commenced with a gathering of the 27 riders and three crew at the Southern Cross Railway station in Melbourne at 6:30am and was followed by a rail trip to Benalla before being bused to Mulwala where we had lunch and our ride to to our first Royal Automobile Club of Victoria resort at Cobram, 55 kms along the Murray. Over the next four nights we travelled to Shepparton, Mitchellstown vineyard, Kyneton and into the five star RACV Goldfields Resort outside Creswick. In total I rode 383kms, climbed in excess of 2500 metres, overcame two climbs at 13% and 14% which had even our best riders walking and dealt with initial gentle tail winds that became wet and strong head winds over the last two days. The accommodation ranged from a van and cabin park run by the RACV in Cobram, to motels in Shepparton and Kyneton, a luxury hotel in the vineyard and ending in the luxury RACV resort with golf course located outside Creswick. All breakfasts were provided, while lunches were mostly always provided, and dinners were provided in Mitchellstown and Creswick. We managed to find interesting dining options in Shepparton and Kyneton which was great considering that the nights we were there most restaurants were closed. We opted to ride our e road bikes with 38mm gravel tyres as we understood that heavy rains had impacted the roads and in some cases resulted in temporary blue gravel replacements. This slowed us down compared to the road bikes with thin tyres on the unaffected bitumen, but we certainly appreciated our tyres when we rode on blue gravel and dirt roads or bitumen roads with lots of pot holes. We Also appreciated our choice of riding modes as the ride became steeper and the head winds stronger. Half way through our second last day we opted to stay in the Sports Mode and as a result we found ourselves slowly but surely catching the riders we normally only saw at the start and finish of sections and we rode into our Kyneton Motel with only three riders in front of us. I was having problems with my battery and I arrived with only 10% of my battery capacity left. Mary on the other hand arrived with 65% of her capacity left. It got even better for me on the last day when I rode from Kyneton to Creswick over the two big climbs plus rolling climbs into strong headwinds mostly in sports mode and arrived at Creswick with almost 20% battery capacity left. Mary ,along with many other riders, chose to get in the sag wagon at Daylesford as the conditions got worse so her battery was still quite strong. The ride over, the All Trails crew transferred us to the Creswick railway station the next morning and by 10am we were back in Melbourne. Lake Garda Bike Hotel , Italy ***** Aug/September 2022 We arrived at the Garda Bike Hotel beside a major Italian lake called Lake Garda and my right knee was only just beginning to settle down after strain put on it by the weight and configuration of my bike and barge e bike. We had signed up for four days of joining guided rides using Pinarello Nytro e road bikes. We brought our pedals and seats with us and it took the mechanics about 20 minutes to set us up. Mary's bike had a Garmin out front bracket which was great but I was glad I brought my Garmin temporary bracket which worked really well. The Bike Hotel usually offers three rides each day, a classic (40-70 kms), an Enthusiastic (about 90 kms) and an Epic (around 125kms). The actual rides change every day but if you stay long enough you will see the same rides offered, but perhaps with a different guide. When I say guide, it's not like you would expect on a cycle tour. The Bike Hotel Guides seem to approach each ride with the desire of completing it as soon as possible, especially the last 20-30 kms! Average speeds I experienced for the last parts of my rides were around 28-32 kms and pauses were rare and usually for photos. During our six days at Lake Garda I completed four very different rides, three of them with Mary. The first day was a 68 km ride up the eastern side of Lake Garda and into the hills before returning to the Hotel. Day 2 saw us transported to the base of Monte Baldo where we joined several other guests from the hotel in riding from the back of the mountain to the top and then down the other side towards Lake Garda and back to the hotel. All up just on 80 km of riding with a climb of 1,728m and a real good test of our Pinarello Nytros range. Day 3 we opted for a shorter ride with minimal climbing. So we rode south than east and then back to the hotel, just on 65 km and only 539m of climbing. Mary sat out the last day's ride and so I joined a hotel riding group including Brandan and Veronica Sweeney from Ireland who were also holidaying at the hotel. The Day 4 ride involved a rapid ride averaging in the low 30's from the hotel to the ferry port on the eastern shore of Lake Garda in a town called Torri del Benaco. After a ferry ride to Toscolano Maderno on the western shore, we climbed up into the mountains behind the town before descending to Garden Riviera and then riding long the lake foreshore to the lovely holiday town of Salo where we stopped for cold drinks as a beach side bar. After that, it was back on the bikes to ride to San Felice del Benaco before returning to the hotel via Desenzanodel Garda. All up, 90km of riding and an elevation gain of 807m. Our Pinarello Nytros were very good bikes, although Mary and I agreed that our Specialized Creos are better. Possibly due to the cost of purchasing Nytros and wanting to keep them affordable to rent, the Hotel had provided Nytros with Shram gearing, but no electronic gears like Shimano Di2. They also have big and small front chain rings and it was sometimes difficult to work out what gear we were in. This in turn caused each of us to drop a chain once. Easy to fix, but annoying. Nytros don't have range extenders and the main batteries had to be carefully used to ensue we had sufficient power to complete our rides. This was particularly the case with Monte Baldo with a climb of 21 kms and where spare batteries were retrieved from the supporting van to ensure we could get to the top and then back to the hotel. Besides range, we also noticed that the three modes - green (eco), blue (sport) and pink (turbo) operate differently to our Creo system. Provided I stayed in green it provided excellent support - for example at the end of my last ride of just on 90 kms with a steady 5km climb in the middle, I had only used the green mode and I had used only about 60% of my battery power. Using blue for steeper climbs and then reverting to green, it was like hitting a barrier we switched back. It was as if I had turned the power off for a few seconds and then the lesser support kicked in. This was even more noticeable going from pink to blue and while pink certainly made it easier to deal with gradients over 10%, we didn't experience the initial surge in power that we had found with our Creos in similar circumstances while climbing in Tasmania earlier this year. It is possible, however, that the differences in performance were the result of how the bikes were set up. The Creo's Mission Control App allows you to dictate how much support you get from each mode and after watching some You Tube stories on optimising each mode, we had changed the factory settings so that we removed the mode cross over set up and made sure that as you change up, you get the boost you are expecting. As a result, eith the Creo, if and when you go up or down a mode you notice the difference, but at the same time it's a smooth change. Communications with the Hotel's mechanics and guides (and it seemed most guides were also mechanics) was one of the weak points of our time at the Hotel. From bike setup, to bike use and through to our rides we felt that the communication levels were pretty ordinary. Of course everyone was Italian and English was their second language. This may explains why when they did communicate it sometimes took an effort on everyone's part to get messages across. But we were offered only rudimentary advice about the ins and outs of riding the Nytros - essentially just an explanation of the modes. This came to a head for us while climbing the first 16kms of Monte Baldo with gradients ranging from 5% to 12%. Working on the premise that we should ride the same way we would on our Creos we were moving between blue and pink as gradients changed. Then our guide appeared, saw we we in pink and chastised us for being so. At that point he advised that if we continued doing do our batteries would be empty after an hour of riding. We knew we each had a spare battery in the support van, but if he was right we would have used both by the first major stop at 16kms. So we changed to climbing using green till gradients got too steep and then we switched to blue. This way I arrived at the 16km mark with two bars left, while Mary had four. They swapped my battery then, while Mary's was changed after the second, shorter but steeper climb. So steep that we used pink for about 500m. As I weigh about 33% more than Mary we assumed that the power consumption differences were probably weight related. This has been a bit long winded, but an aim of this site is to hopefully fill in gaps never covered in bike or tour reviews. We had a great week of cycling, the Nytros were certainly great to ride, especially as we learned more about how to best operate them, the hotel services are fabulous including providing late lunches if you ride and washing your cycling gear overnight which makes it so easy to ride. The hotel staff were great and the guides were very good, but gave us the impression that our decision to ride e road bikes labeled us as non-serious riders. As a result we felt that notwithstanding how we rode each day, we didn't receive the accolades or feedback that the other riders we rode with received. Paranoid perhaps, but when Scott arrived, unpacked his road bike and immediately was approached by one of the owner/guides who had spent the whole week smiling at us but did not engage with us. Hopefully, the hotel will attract more riders like us and the guides will come to understand that us mature riders by using ebikes are able to join in the rides and do the climbs without falling way behind and yet still make a big effort! Bike and Barge tour from Amsterdam to Brugge Provided by Tripsite ***** August 2022 In late August 2022 we joined the Magnifique IV Bike and Barge Tour from Amsterdam to Brugge. This was a seven day, six nht tour that allowed the Magnifique to work its way along canals and rivers in the Netherlands and Belgium while we either watched on as passengers or participated in daily rides. We were joined by two Italian friends who were being initiated into the wonderful world of bike and barging. They both have city e bikes at home, so all four of us opted to rent the barge's city e bikes (see photo) to help with the daily rides which ranged from about 32 to 57 kms. The week was fabulous - we were aboard a self proclaimed Luxury River Cruiser and it showed. Our above deck suite was spacious and very well appointed. Two single beds pushed together in the main cabin with a coffee table and two soft chairs plus wardrobe with a safe in it. The bathroom was big for a barge and the shower was the equal of any experienced in top notch hotels. We had 33 passengers, five crew and two guides on board and everyone had a great week. Our Italian friends enjoyed the experience although one doesn't speak English. It was disappointing that we only had one other Italian speaker on board resulting in lots of quiet moments for our friend. We have discussed this and the four of us agreed that for a week long adventure it's important to know the likely makeup of the touring group so that you don't find yourself feeling isolated. We had experienced this on a tour several years ago when we were two of just four English speakers on a German speaking barge and it made for a difficult week. The rides each day, after day one when it rained and Mary dropped the heavy ebike on the side of the road and cut her leg below her knee, were delightful. A bonus on our last day of riding was that the four of us were set up by the guides to use Ride with GPS on my iPhone to ride the last day on our own for the 33 kms into Brugge. This worked really well. Usually each riding day started with us being divided into two groups to keep the rides manageable. Still, riding with a group of about 15 can be very tiring at times with daily average speeds around 16 kph. As at least half the participants had ebikes, it was surprising that average speeds weren't higher until you considered that some of the riders had opted for regular bikes rather than ebikes notwithstanding they were hopeless riders. The promotion material urges people to opt for ebikes if they can't maintain a daily average speed of 15+ kph, which is still slow, but at least feels a good pace. I twice acted as group sweep, once to a group containing some very slow riders. My job was to stay behind the group and let the guide know that everyone was still behind. With the slow riders we got down to an average of 11kph, the gap between us and the rest of the group blew out to about a km and yes we got to a major multi direction junction and had no clue which way the group had gone. To make matters worse the walkie talkie I was given to communicate with the group leader didn't work. She had accidentally changed the station and when I pressed the required buttons there was nobody there. So a final day on our own averaging about 22 kph was delightful and threw into question whether unguided touring might be a better option provided you have the right support such as Ride with GPS? It's a wonderful visual and audio guide, but it eats phone batteries. My phone started at 100% and was almost dead by the 25 km mark. Luckily we had our charging block with us and were able to recharge the phone as we rode. And what were our learnings from the week? First and foremost, bike and barging is a wonderful way of combining my two passions, exploring new places and riding bikes. Second and most importantly, really check out the implications of the equipment you will be riding if you are hiring your bike. In years past bike and barging in various forms has introduced us to riding with cleats, showed us the wonderful benefits of the Di2 electronic gear system and made it clear that to keep up with younger, fitter riders we would need e road bikes. This time round we opted for the offered e city bikes so that we could ride the same equipment as our friends. Perhaps if the route had involved more climbing they would have been great, but the four of agreed that manual bikes would have been more challenging and removed the down side of these bikes. The bikes we received weighed in at around 30 kgs each and were very difficult to manoeuvre whether on and off the bike. I have a weak right knee and it took three days of taking anti inflammatory tablets once the ride was over before my knee pain disappeared. Not being allowed to fit my clip on pedals (understandable given how stiff and heavy the bikes were and the likeliness of novice riders around you just stopping without warning) meant that each time we restarted the heavy bike really applied pressure to my right knee. On top of this, their weight meant that turning, manoeuvring, coasting and stopping were all major exercises that at times made riding on crowded bike paths or through heavily populated city centres very difficult. Tour of the East Coast of Tasmania, Australia, Provided by AllTrails ***** February 2022 Mary and I took the post pandemic plunge and headed to Tasmania to join the AllTrails tour from Launceston to Hobart! A ten day tour with eight days of riding and two rest days at Freycinet and Port Arthur. By driving to Melbourne and catching the Spirit of Tasmania we were able to take our Specialized Turbo Creo SL E road bikes and they made the tour so very enjoyable. Over the eight days of riding I rode in excess of 670 kms and climbed more than 8,000m. Mary's figures were slightly less as she had a hammie strain half way through a day's riding and later I joined one really long ride with a steep climb just to see how I would go. The tour was superb, with the tour crew - Rick and Lou - providing great support, with the 12 riders soon establishing a great level of camaraderie and support. In addition breakfasts were generally excellent and occasionally superb, while the provided meals (most lunches and dinners) were also of a very high standard, culminating in great meals in Port Arthur and Hobart. Accommodation was as advertised, 3 or 4 star hotels or equivalent with our accommodation in Richmond being a little quirky, but still pretty good. Our bikes each weigh 12 kgs without the 1kg battery range extenders and we looked at our pre-tour stats and decided that we wouldn't take the extenders as our main batteries should be capable of providing adequate support for even the longest days. We had our bikes in our room on all but one night and were able to recharge them from the room power points without any issue. At our Richmond accommodation all bikes had to stay outside and so our bikes chargers were attached to a power board which was in turn attached to mains power in the establishment via an extension cord. We don't know how it happened (but could guess) but the charging stopped with just 1% power added to each of our bikes. The bike were locked down with a tarpaulin and a locked cable and we only discovered the failure to charge as the bikes were uncovered prior to our ride the next morning. We had finished the day before with 60% and 58% charge left on our bikes respectively after a 60km ride and we were facing another 80 kms + ride with lots of climbing. It was a great test for the bikes, particularly as we faced over 1100m of steep climbing. I'm pleased to report that even though we used the sports and turbo modes as needed (to beat the 'fast' riders up climbs or to counter strong head winds) we arrived in Port Arthur without any issues. However we had tested the batteries with my bike in the 'red' literally with less than 10% charge left, while lightweight Mary still had just over 10% left. One of our riders, Derek, rode a rented Zoomo Sport e-bike which essentially is an Australian developed urban e-bike which weighs about 28kgs and has a battery life of about 6 hours which apparently will allow the rider to get about 80kms riding up to 25kph depending on the terrain. At the end of the tour I asked Derek, who seemed to ride consistently between 10 and 25 kph, at what point each day did he replace his battery with his spare. His answer was that he had not had to use his spare, but he rode at slow speeds and often turned the emode off and relied on his legs alone. This process kept him within sight of his partner who was on a regular Trek road bike, usually at the rear of the ride, and left him with lots of e-power for the big climbs. So, did we enjoy the riding experience and would we do it again? The answer is a hearty yes! We really worked the sport and turbo functions hard and they came up trumps. On the day that I rode 119 kms with one big climb and about the last 40 kms into a strong headwind, I only used less than 40% of my charge. Possibly because the bike is so well balanced that riding on the flat or rolling roads, even with a headwind saw me averaging 28kph over the first 40kms and close to 25kph over the whole ride. It's a fabulous bike and I look forward to trying it soon in other difficult conditions. Australia - Slow Ocean Road Tour, Victoria Provided by AllTrails ***** March 2021 Our first local cycle tour since COVID began was a six day tour organised by AllTrails along the Great Ocean Road which follows the Victorian coast between South Australia and Port Phillip Bay. We were collected in Melbourne early on a Tuesday morning (luggage and our bikes) and bused to a location about 40km west of Port Campbell. Six days later we finished the riding element in Morningside before being bused back into Melbourne to end the tour. in between we had been provided with six lunches, five breakfasts and five dinners, all of which were excellent. We were to fend for ourselves for dinner in Apollo Bay but we all ended up eating in the same pub, such was the camaraderie we developed. Richard, our tour leader, strongly supported by Lou our bus driver and general fantastic all round helper, looked after us fabulously. The tour was a mix of rides which averaged about 40kms a day and involved bus transfers when the distances got too long or we were mixing our activities. Besides riding the Great Ocean Road, we had a great time riding e fattyre MTBs around Cape Otway. We also stopped and admired many view points along the coast, visited an animal reserve, visited the Cape Otway Lighthouse, visited Timboon for lunch on our way to the start of the ride and travelled by ferry from Queenscliffe to Sorrento. Dinners were excellent and ranged from a bbq dinner cooked for us by Richard and Lou at our Otway caravan park (we had a delightful solar power eco-hut which was spacious and well appointed) to an amazing dinner at the 360Q Restauant in Queenscliffe to celebrate the end of the tour. Accommodation ranged from motels to cabins to bnb’s and all were excellent. Loire Valley - Cycling in the land of Châteaux, France provided by French Cycling Holidays ***** June 2019 Another French tour booked through Tour de Vines, operated by French Cycling Holidays and lead by the wonderful guides, Susan and David. We were collected from our Hotel in Tours and taken along with several other riders to our first nights' hotel in Azay-le-Rideau where we were joined by the rest of the riders. A lovely hotel which set the scene for the rest of the week, as did the excellent meals and amazing wines. After arrival we were fitted to our Trek 23 speed hybrid bikes including changing pedals and seats as required. Our group of 10 riders was mainly from Australia and ranged from novices to experienced riders. The route for the week was essentially flat and daily rides tended to range from 40 - 60kms, making it easy for the novices to keep up. The highlights of the week included visiting the Chateau de Villandry which has amazing gardens and the Chambord Chateau which is an impressive castle built for a king. Our hotel was right beside the Chateau and provided us with amazing views. Southern Dalmatia Plus, Croatia,Bike and Yacht Holiday Provided by Saddle Skedaddle **** June 2019 Our first sea based bike and barge tour was a delight. We booked through Saddle Skedaddle, an English company and it was operated by a company called Island Hopping. We joined our boat called the Melody in the Croatian port of Trogir and were quickly settled into our twin cabin on the upper deck. The Melody was a good sized boat and accommodated our large group of 25 riders without a problem. About two thirds of our group, including Mary, opted for the Cube hybrid ebikes, while the rest of us opted for the cube manual hybrid bikes. Over the following week we visited different ports each day, mostly on the islands that are prevalent in Southern Dalmatia, but also two on the mainland. The rides from the ports other than in Split, required us to climb from the port up into the surrounding hills/mountains and by the Thursday I was delighted to have the opportunity to ride one of the ebikes for the biggest daily climb of the week. After having struggled at times on the manual bikes throughout the week, it was a delight to try the ebike and enjoy the big climbs, further reinforcing my desire to try a full E Road bike tour. The accommodation was excellent, the food was nicely prepared and varied, the bar has excellent drink choices and we really enjoyed the experience. Our guides were efficient and effective, but not as personable as some on other rides. Tuscany - A Fantastic Journey, Italy, Provided by Road Bike Tours , Italy **** September 2018 An adventure from Sienna to Assisi in Italy. Due to trains from Rome not directly linking with Sienna on weekends, we departed from our train in Florence and were collected by Luca and his cousin Richi who had taken over from Michalia as driver and mechanic. We met the other five riders who were joining us for this tour and our first get to know you activity was a bus trip to a nearby venue for dinner. Unfortunately one of the five did not want to join in with the group and this was to be the pattern for the week. We were provided with Giant TSR road bikes and over the corse of the week we were faced with long rides, some with steep climbs, lots very ordinary roads with multiple pot holes and some amazing sights. The climbs were on very hot days and twice my partner and I decided to finish the climbs in the bus. With temperatures over 30 degrees and 6-15% climbs we again were thinking about what it would take for us to complete rides with the group. This highlight of the week was the visit to hilltop town of Civita di Bagnoregio, with amazing sights, a wonderful dinner and a welcome break from cycling. All up a week of highs and lows, but a tour with lots of potential for the very fit or with e bike assistance. Good hotels, nice meals and wines made for a mostly enjoyable week. Dordogne Castles and Caves, France Provided by French Cycling Holidays ***** August 2018 This was our first tour with French Cycling Holidays. Our guides/mechanics/drivers were Susan and David and they did a fabulous job. We were collected from our hotel in Brive on the Sunday morning and a week later we were back at the same hotel to collect half our luggage which we had put in storage to reduce our impact on the transportation of luggage in the minibus as we did not know that there would only be four riders joining this tour. We were transferred to our Chateau for the night and did a short exploratory tour to the Caves of Le Saux get used to our Trek flat bar road bikes. The rest of the week was taken up with lengthy rides along the Dordogne River visiting very interesting places including the Troglodyte Caves and some interesting castles and we spent a day canoeing down part of the Dordogne. The accommodation was first class, the food and wine was usually Michelin quality and the bikes were perfect for the ride although the climb to the top of the mountain behind Rocamadour was too much for the two of us and we each spent parts of the climb in the bus. Northern Italy - 3 Lakes and More, Italy & Switzerland Provided by Road Bike Tours Italy **** September 2017 This was our first tour with Luca and Road Bike Tours Italy which was then a relatively new bike touring company. The company has a range of road bike tours across Northern and Central Italy and we opted for the tour that seemed to best suit our riding abilities as it was relatively flat most of the time and daily distances were manageable. Because of the newness of the company there were only the two of us participating and we had a fabulous time with the couple that were running the tours. Luca is the guide and for this tour his then partner, Michalia, was the bus driver. Accommodation was mostly 3 or 4 star, the food was excellent, the riding ranged from very good to very challenging and the Bianchi road bikes were a pleasure to ride, albeit they had manual gears and calliper brake which required getting used to. The three lakes, Maggiore, Como and Iseo, were a pleasure to ride around and the ride into and out of Switzerland from Lake Maggiore introduced both a tough climb and a very different perspective to Italy.

Tourdemature.com provides information about cycle touring for older riders including answers to their questions about what is involved in getting on a bike and touring. Welcome I was asked why readers need this blog given there are a number of other cycling blogs already in existence including 'Crazy Guy on a Bike' and 'CycleBlaze'. I took time to ponder the question and came up with what I believe are the two fundamental things my blog covers that are different - first this site concentrates on comfortable cycling and, second, it provides reviews of cycle tours, bikes (especially e road bikes at present) and cycling accessories. I'm full of admiration for this cyclists that can load up their panniers on a regular endurance bike and hit the road without assistance of any kind, buts that's not me and, I believe, its not lots of you! I have endeavoured to keep the material brief, but in order to respond to questions I receive from time to time I have focused on the themes. The menu is topic based and will take readers directly to the topic(s) that you are interested in. Please use the Contact Me page to send me any suggestions for improvement or to identify additional topics that need to be covered? I hope you enjoy my blog which had its last major update at the start of 2025. While this site has an Australian focus, I encourage readers from other countries to submit local information to help fill any gaps where the Australian context may not apply. This website serves as a resource for anyone considering a bike holiday tour, providing relevant information on cycling options available at their travel destinations, as well as connections to providers offering bikes and touring services. Additionally, we offer advice on bikes and accessories, with a special focus on e-road bikes. Enjoying the scenery on Elba Island, Italy This site was initially developed during the 2020 Pandemic in response to frequent requests to help potential tour riders plan their cycling adventures. Six years on, and the site has been updated, but still serves the same purpose. Each menu tab provides extensive information on various topics. "Your Riding Experience " addresses key questions for cycle tourists—assessing your cycling background, determining if cycle touring suits you, and deciding between guided or-guided tours. "Which Bike " explores the types of bikes available for hire during cycle tours. "Tips 4 Touring " answers common inquiries about joining a cycle tour and what to expect"Reviews " features my evaluations of tours and cycling gear while allowing readers to share their reviews as well. The final two tabs, "About Us " and "Contact Me " provide information about the site's author and a means for you to reach out or submit your reviews. Shortcuts are available throughout the site, but our main goal to ensure potential cycle tourists can easily access the information they need informed touring decisions. If you identify any gaps or wish to provide updates or corrections, please visit the Contact to send me an email. Please note, the website includes reviews from tours conducted several years ago. Use them to get an idea of locations, facilities, ride difficulty, and highlights, rather than as definitive assessments of your potential experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional website; its layout and format are still evolving. If you're viewing this site on a mobile device, some pages might be hard to read. For a better experience, please try accessing it on a computer. Anchor 2 Anchor 1

What do you need to do to successfully prepare for an upcoming cycle tour? Will you have the right gear, will you take your bike or hire one there, will all meals be provided or will you need to find some or all on your own. Just some of the many questions that you will need to consider. Are U Prepared? So you are about to join your first bike tour - are you prepared? Riding Readiness! Bike touring comes in many forms and as mentioned previously, this web site concentrates on guided bike tours. Over the last 15 years Mary and I have joined bike and barge/boat tours, bike and hotel tours and a variety of short tours based around a single site for accommodation. We started with bike and barge tours utilising hybrid bikes rented from the company organising the tours. These tours typically last from 5-7 days with out and back rides each day racing from, say, 40 to 50 kms. As we became confident with this style of cycling we moved on to tours with longer rides on road bikes and eventually started joining bike and hotel tours which often included rides anywhere between 70 and 100 kms a day. The preparation for these rides was very much dependent on the length of the daily rides. For a first tour you might like to consider whether the tour will include ride lengths and efforts that you already meet or exceed from your current riding program or do you need to start building up for the ride and get saddle ready? Nothing will dampen your enjoyment of cycling more than a sore bottom! You can be aerobically prepared but if you do not put in "saddle time" you might be sorry. In relation to distance, if you go on 50 km rides from home two or three days a week, you might be well prepared for the distance of your tour rides, but perhaps not the frequency. A cycle tour usually involves several days of riding in succession, although longer tours might also include one or two rest days. Doing a tour on an electric bike will find it much easier, but frequency might still be an issue. Accordingly, I suggest that you consider the 'plus 10 x 2 rule' - If the longest day on your tour is 25 km, then you should be able to ride 10 kms longer which is 35 km in this example. The x 2 component means that you should be able to do this distance AT LEAST twice in one week. You will benefit even more if you add at least one ride of a shorter distance for a few weeks before your tour. If you will be riding an electric bike and you do your training on a regular bike you shoulda be able to reduce the rule to a 'minus 10 x 2 rule, as the electric bike will certainly make it easier to complete the distances on the tour, but frequency might still be an issue. Even if you're accustomed to long distances, remember that you're going to be riding at a leisurely explorer's pace. This means you'll be on your bike longer than you expect, and certainly longer than your daily rides at home. Most home rides will last two, three or four hours, whereas touring usually sees you in the saddle from early morning till late afternoon with breaks for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and possibly visiting a tourist attraction or two. As the difficulty level increases, so should your pre-tour preparation and training. For those booking a difficult tour, the assumption of the organisers is that you are a regular year-round cyclist who understands training techniques. Hills require hill work and long distances require longer times in the saddle. Mary and I completed a ten day tour of Tasmania with two rest days on our electric road bikes. The daily rides ranged from 60 to 105 kms with many climbs every day. Over our eight riding days we completed in excess of 600km of riding with over 9,000 m of climbing. Our preparation included months of riding 2-3 times a week with distances equaling about 200 kms. On regular road bikes we would not have been prepared, but with our Specialized Creo electric road bikes we were able to match it with the younger, fitter riders and found ourselves enjoying the full eight days of riding. Cycling Attire! Wearing comfortable cycling attire, especially padded cycling pants or shorts, can be the difference between an enjoyable and a painful ride. If wearing 'lycra' is not for you, padded mountain bike shorts look like regular shorts with the benefit of good padding. You may also wish to bring along a padded/gel saddle cover for extra comfort, but perhaps test one out before you tour as not everyone finds them comfortable or effective. Check the weather forecasts for the tour route before you go and consider multiple layers of clothing. Multi layers tend to work best for all kinds of weather and if your bike has a paneer you can always take extra clothes off and store them till they are needed again. You might want to consider bringing a windbreaker and full rain gear and your own properly fitted helmet. If you will be riding in the Netherlands/Belgium, note that these countries are famous for their changeable weather - mornings can start cool and foggy, then slowly change to sunny, then clouds at the end of the day can make it chilly again. You never know what the day will be like, although we all hope that we have chosen a touring date that offers fabulous weather. Having a Rest One of the benefits of guided tours is the ability to have a rest if the need to rest arises. On a bike and barge tour, riders have the opportunity to decide at the start of the day that they will stay aboard the barge for the day rather than go for a ride. In most instances this means staying of the barge all day as it makes its way to the meeting point for the riders to return to in the afternoon. This can be a nice, slow, day and might help to get you ready for the next day's ride. As it will usually be the whole day, choose the day carefully so that you don't inadvertently miss the highlight of the tour. With bike and hotel tours, you would expect the tour to include a 'sag' wagon. This is the mini-bus that carries spares and may also carry the equipment to set up a trail lunch when no commercial alternative is available. The guides will tell you that the sag wagon is there as backup for riders who might decided that they can't ride any further, whether that's at the start of the day or some time during. You can also jump on board if the terrain gets too difficult and then resume riding once conditions improve. Mary and I have used the sag wagon under a variety of circumstances including when the climbing got too tough and we got out once the hard part was passed, on really hot days when the heat got to us for the last stage of the day's ride, and to mange a slight hamstring strain to make sure that we would be right to ride for the rest of the tour. Don't feel awkward about staying on board the barge or climbing aboard a sag wagon. Its your holiday and you should be enjoying everything, including the ride. So, in summary, the more you ride before your bicycle tour, the more you'll enjoy it! Nothing prepares you for a bike tour like "time in the saddle." If you have a bike, take it out as much as you can; to work, to go shopping or when visiting friends. Or go on a weekend bike excursion to that local forest, lake or nature area that you always wanted to explore. Practice makes perfect. And you'll be a lot fitter too. If you don't have a bike think about hiring one for the month or two before your tour. Likewise, if you will be hiring an electric bike for your tour, think about hiring one to practice on before your join the tour. Remember that an electric-bike still requires some cycling experience. It works like a normal bike - you do the pedalling - but it can go a lot faster. And don't forget to use the gears; cycling uphill or with a headwind calls for low gears. I would like to acknowledge that besides my own experience, I have utilised information published by AllTrails.com.au, BikeTours.com and Boat Bike Tours to prepare this page.

Trainer bikes - what are they, how do they work and should you be considering one for when riding on the road is not an option? Trainer Bikes For the last three years I have been using an Elite Direto XR smart trainer to which I attached my old Specialized Roubaix road bike. The results have been fabulous and provide a useful alternative to road riding when the weather is foul or injuries keep you off a regular bike. There are many types of trainers on the market ranging from roller type trainers which involve you placing your bike on rollers to simulate being on the road through to devices that allow you to attach your bike's rear wheel onto a hub that can be set to provide various levels of resistance and right up to smart trainers that can connect to apps like FulGaz or Rouvy so that the app controls the ride based on the terrain being ridden across as seen on a computer or TV screen. In early 2025, Fulham announced it had been purchased by Rouvy and it expects that FulGaz will be fully integrated into Rouvy during the next six months. It will be interesting to see if the integration improves or worsens the experience? I've been enjoying using FulGaz, an app that allows me to participate in rides that have been filmed by other riders with the result that it feels just like you are doing the same ride. The Direto can be set up so that the resistance you feel when riding approximates the feel you have on the road. I have found this useful as I can approximate the various levels of support I get on the road when. on my e road bike. There is no ability to coast along on down hill FulGaz segments and there is no give in the seat post so a 30km ride on the trainer can end up feeling like a 50km ride on the road, but you get used to it and scenery all around the world can be fabulous to look at. Elite Direto XR Trainer

What's the difference between a hybrid, a flat bar and a drop bar bike and which one would best suit you? The Hybrid Bike Wikipedia suggests that a Hybrid Bike blends characteristics from more specialised road bikes, touring bikes and mountain bikes. The resulting "hybrid" is a general-purpose bike that can tolerate a wide range of riding conditions and applications. Many cycle stores will put new riders on hybrids to start their cycling experience and this was certainly the case for Mary and I. We started with Avanti hybrid bikes which had a low entry cost and provided us with a very comfortable ride. These type of bikes usually weigh 13 to 16 kg, have a flat bar handlebar, either calliper or disc brakes, and up to 30 gears using a handlebar based gearing system like the Shimano Tiagra 3 x 10 speed below . They also often have mudguards, one or two panniers, a large soft seat, 32 mm tyres, and suspension for the front fork. As you can see in the photo below, Trek, like a lot of bike manufacturers, has converted to using disc brakes. The flat bars on a hybrid are super comfortable, but they aren’t aerodynamic or fast. They also often arrive with a kickstand which can be very useful for keeping your bike upright where there are no practical places to park the bike. Hybrid bikes are easy to ride and are popular with so called 'weekend warriors' who like to join walkers, joggers and riders travelling around popular spots like parks and lakes. Touring companies such as Girolibero and French Cycling Holidays provide either cross bar or step through hybrid bikes to their guests, with step through popular with both males and females as they are easier to get on and off for novice riders. From my experience, this is the most common type of bike offered by on and off road cycle touring companies.

A collection of reviews covering road bike tours, bikes and accessories written and provided by the site author, Steve plus tour and bike reviews from site readers. Reviews I started this website in 2020 with a series of one paragraph reviews covering the various longer cycle tours I had joined in Europe and the USA over the previous ten years. I had tried to cover topics that seem to elicit interest when discussing our tours with family, friends and people we meet during our rides. The reviews web page therefore contains two sections, the first devoted to my reviews and the other includes reviews submitted directly to this site using the Template provided at the bottom of the Contact Me page. After looking at the feedback I had received, I added reviews of one day and partial day events as these are often the means by which potential cycle tourists get to experience the joys of cycling. Please also use the Contact Me page to suggest improvements or to identify data that needs to be collected but hasn't been so far. Throughout the website I have made references to cycle tour companies (see Tips 4 Touring for details of the companies I have used), operators, guides, etc. Usually positive, but not always so, but please remember that these are my views and may not accord with your experience or the experience of others that you talk too. Cycle tourists can spend a lot of money to do bike tours and, accordingly, we need as much information as possible to make important expenditure decisions, even if this means having to weigh up competing opinions and make a personal decision. So, please, have a read, make a decision and then spend whatever time is required getting ready to ride!

Expanding horizons: to e-bike or not to e-bike. An article from the French Cycling,linguistics Holidays Website. In late 2025 I wad approached by Caitlin Smith from Creative Communication in Les Moulins, Bozel, France who had been employed by French Cycling Holidays (FCH) to write an article on e-biking. She had been given my name by FCH and she asked whether I could provide some ‘real life’ input, to help others decide whether or not an e-bike is for them within the context of joining cycle tours. Caitlin looked at this web site and sent me three questions and used my reply to prepare the newsletter article below which FCH published in early December 2025. The article contains links to both this website and to the FCH website and if you find the links useful please let me know using this site's contact me page. Also, I would appreciate it if you would mention to FCH the role this site played in any booking you might subsequently make. “People absolutely love e-bikes!” Our guides Susan and David are adamant that it’s a case of “once bitten, forever smitten” when it comes to choosing pedal assisted e-bikes. So let’s delve into the topic in a bit more detail to help you decide whether an e-bike is for you (or not yet, or not ever!) To begin at the beginning, when it comes to choosing a cycling tour, the first thought in everyone’s mind is capability: “Am I up to the riding, or not?” These are the questions we are most often asked: How hard are the hill climbs? Am I fit/experienced enough to cope with daily riding? Will I hold back the rest of the group? What happens if I get too tired and can’t finish the ride? The answer is, if you are feeling anxious about these questions, or holding back on committing to a cycle tour, then an e-bike could make all the difference to your enjoyment by smoothing over any niggles (whether that’s confidence, health or fitness) and allow you to fully enjoy your days on the bike, rather than feel overly challenged. If your objective is the challenge, then perhaps you would prefer to stick to a human-powered bike, but if you feel like you're nearly up for a bike tour, but not quite - do consider an e-bike. “Everyone can ride together” According to Susan, from our guests' perspective, e-bikes are overwhelmingly positive: "A huge plus is for couples or groups within a mixed tour who are worried about keeping the same pace. You should never feel pressure about “keeping up” on your cycling holiday, but e-bikes completely remove that anxiety. Everyone can ride together, enjoy the scenery, and relax.” Susan goes on to tell the story of a couple who had been travelling with French Cycling Holidays for several years, but – as age crept up on them – mentioned that they were probably on their final tour, the wife having gradually fallen out of love with riding. “We arranged an e-bike for her that same year, and the change was incredible. She enjoyed the holiday again, and he enjoyed seeing her happy. And five years later, he made the switch too. The truth is that e-bikes extend the cycling timeline for so many people. Guests who’ve had injuries, hip or knee replacements, have mobility issues, or simply fatigue earlier as they age, find themselves able to enjoy riding again.” Australian cycle tour adventurer Steve Ryan, from Tour de Mature , agrees, and shares his experience: “My wife Mary and I had been travelling to Europe for cycle tours from 2014 till 2019 when it became clear to us that whilst we were enjoying the tours we joined, we were struggling to keep up with our fellow riders who were either much younger and/or much fitter. It was as we climbed into a sag wagon on a big climb in Italy that we decided that the tour had morphed from an enjoyable ride to a physical challenge and there had to be a better way.” Expanding horizons: e-bikes can help you explore further afield Steve continues: “As we have gotten older, we recognised that riding regular bikes would mean we either join beginner tours or accept that most days we will finish well behind the rest of the group. E-bikes have meant that we have been able to select tours that we would otherwise have had to ignore. Riding e-bikes, we were able to ascend the 1325m Le Grand Ballon, something we would never have done otherwise. Likewise we have ridden rented e-road bikes up challenging climbs such as Monte Baldi near Lake Garda in Italy and up various climbs on the Italian Island of Elba. And the sights have been amazing!” Clearly, the opportunity to conquer climbs that were previously not on your radar are a huge bonus of pedal assist biking. E-bike uptake has been exponential in recent years and it is a joy to see people who you perhaps wouldn’t have seen out on a bike, enjoying the sunshine and getting fresh air and exercise, even on some of the challenging mountain roads of the Alps. And you shouldn’t think of e-biking as “giving up” on your old bike. Susan explains, “The two are definitely not mutually exclusive, it’s just a different tool for a different job. If you love road biking at home but fancy exploring some hillier terrain whilst on holiday, renting an e-bike for a tour gives you a perfect opportunity to try it out and see how you get on.” With an e-bike, mountain landscapes such as Lake Annecy become more accessible to more riders But which e-bike do I choose? Let’s get technical. Not all e-bikes are the same, and with ‘e’ versions of road bikes, hybrids, mountain bikes and city riders, there are loads of options and styles from the major bike producers as well as specialist e-bike brands. So much so, it could be a bit overwhelming! In which case, ask an expert. If you’re signing up for a cycling tour and want to explore e-bike rental, then the first stop is to ask the operator which they’d recommend for the terrain, and often they will already be in contact with rental stockists near to the starting point of your tour. Steve has delved into testing bikes and e-bikes (more on his website here ) and has ridden on numerous cycle tours, and explains how the process began for his and Mary’s switch: “We were both Specialized road bike riders at home, then I received an email from Specialized telling us about the new Creo e-road bike they were about to release. And that’s when we decided to check out e-bike possibilities to see what it would mean for us and others joining tours. In 2020 just before COVID struck we had the good fortune to join a Creo test ride in Adelaide as part of the Tour Down Under promotions. We were instantly hooked." Is it better to rent a bike abroad or travel with your own e-bike? Since beginning their e-bike journey, Steve and Mary haven’t looked back: “We’ve only ridden e-bikes since, both here in Australia and in Europe. The challenge has been that it’s immensely difficult and expensive to get our bikes from Canberra to Europe, so we look at e-bike options offered by providers. Initially that meant e-city bikes for our tour of the Netherlands and Belgium. And then Susan contacted me to advise that the company’s bike supplier could provide Mary and I with e-bikes, similar to our own back home. We are wedded to riding on e-bikes now, and our first preference each time will be to select a company that can provide e-road bikes.” Most guests on a French Cycling Holidays tour don't travel with their own bikes as the cost and logistics of packing and transporting your bike usually outweigh the benefit. All our tours include our hybrid Trek bikes as standard, but we can also source e-bikes to suit your needs, and find something suitable for the terrain, whether that's a road, hybrid, or mountain bike. Ask us via the contact form or send us an email to find out more: fch@frenchcyclingholidays.com Choosing an e-road bike makes France's cols slightly less daunting! Bike sorted – but what about the group dynamic? Some cycle tour operators offer ‘e-bike only’ holidays, and others allow mixed, which are ideal for couples or families at different fitness levels. When you book your guided cycle tour, your guides should be extremely experienced in managing groups. That’s why at French Cycling Holidays we generally run mixed tours with e-bikes and our Trek bikes. Susan and David say, “We’re very used to mixed groups, we have years of experience in managing different levels and styles of riders, so e-bikes are just another of these factors. Keeping mixed groups together is something our guests really appreciate, especially as it means friends/partners can stay together on a ride, where perhaps they wouldn’t usually manage to ride alongside one another.” The group dynamic on a guided tour is key to everyone’s enjoyment, something Steve also recognises. “In the early days of touring Europe we often had about a third of riders on bike and the rest of us on hybrid flat bar bikes. Each day the group would tend to split into those with and without e-bikes and at that time the latter riders tended to be quite slow, such that those on regular bikes would often ride ahead. This started to change as we headed towards 2020 with more e-bikes appearing and the group starting to ride as a single entity, although big climbs spread the field with e-bikes taking the lead. In 2023 we joined a French Cycling Holidays tour in the Alsace region. From memory, besides Mary and I on e-road bikes, three or four riders were on regular road bikes and the rest on hybrid e-bikes. This was a great tour and the riders each had bikes that suited their riding aspirations, and everyone seemed to enjoy the bikes they were on." Susan acknowledges that everyone will have their own preference about mixed -vs- separate bike tours: “Some guests prefer tours that are entirely e-bike groups; others prefer tours of all regular bikes; and many are happy mixing.” Evidently, it’s a personal choice. “At French Cycling Holidays, because we are a small company, we can respond to each enquiry and fit them with a suitable group, so rather than saying it’s an either/or situation, we prefer to just chat with people and understand what their requirements are. We also run private tours for groups of 6-8+, so in this case, they decide between themselves what will work best for them.” Which tours are best for e-bikes? Susan explains that there are some stunning rides that less confident cyclists don’t need to miss out on, if they choose an e-bike: “Our Luberon tour is a gorgeous route but it’s definitely a hilly one – in fact, many other companies run it exclusively as an e-bike tour. An e-bike completely changes the accessibility of terrain like that.” Likewise, our Cévennes tour is marked as an 8/10 in difficulty for non e-bikers. This remote but dramatic region is suitable testing ground for anyone wanting a step up towards our Alpine or Pyrénées climbs, but for an e-biker, we rate it as a 4/10 which opens up this beautiful and un-touristy area to a much wider audience. The stunning hilltop village of Gordes in the Luberon Is it “cheating” to use an e-bike? There is unfortunately some stigma still attached to e-bikes within the cycling community! E-bikes are easier to ride, that’s for sure, so many toughened road cyclists will decide it’s simply not for them. And that’s totally fine, of course! But in terms of allowing people to access new landscapes, whilst staying active longer, we’ll say it loud and proud: “E-biking is not cheating”! So stop apologising for your battery and simply enjoy the ride (like Steve and Mary!) Get in touch with your questions about e-bikes on our cycle tours fch@frenchcyclingholidays.com +44(0) 1923 894305 020 8357 8934 With many thanks to Steve Ryan for his input.