Bike & Hotel Tour Reviews page 2
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★★★★★ David Anderson
Pretty location, ok organization
Highlights of the Highlands: Donegal by E-bike
In general, it was a great experience. I'd never been on a bike tour, and this was a load of fun. My wife and I plan to do more bike tours. However, if I had to choose between bike tours, I wouldn't recommend this specific one.
Going over this bike tour's organization.
GPS / Directions.
A few things here to complain about.
1. The printed directions were inconsistent between people on the tour. Some printed directions said left at an intersection, others said right. They were simply out of date, and the tour didn't re-print everything. Old printouts = old directions.
2. The printed directions were inconsistent with the web directions. We were sent PDFs of directions. Those didn't match up with the printouts. Again, likely because they were older or newer (we couldn't figure out which). Different roads sometimes, different turns.
3. The printed and web directions were inconsistent with the GPS tracks. This was super annoying, because we were biking along listening to the GPS directions (on the unit provided), and the GPS would say "turn here!" and the printed directions indicated we should go another few blocks.
4. The printed / web / GPS directions were out of date for actual road conditions. In two different locations, the road was literally closed, and we had to detour around an area using Google maps. In one place, the GPS road literally had grass growing on it, and had obviously moved at least 5+ years before. These directions are *very* out of date at times.
These direction inconsistencies didn't mean we got lost, but it did mean *daily* stops to consult our map, Google maps, GPS directions, and try to figure out where the tour intended us to go, regardless of all the inconsistencies. I'd highly suggest having offline Google maps if you're going to take the tour.
Lodging.
Some places were outstanding and high quality. Other places were lower quality. One place in particular stank heavily of peat smoke, with smoke literally billowing in through our windows. I don't know how often the tour company inspects the places they're sending people.
Food.
The tour included breakfast. It was sometimes great, mostly fine, but sometimes a bit low quality. Again, perhaps a lack of inspection on exactly what they're paying for.
While the tour didn't provide dinner, we sometimes had trouble finding any place which was open. In one town, we got *lucky* that there was a food truck open, because otherwise every single restaurant in town was closed down. The locals all said that it made no sense that we hadn't planned on dinner, because their town didn't have restaurants open in this season. Many locations only had a single restaurant option. I think if you're going to operate a tour this late in the season, you need to scout out restaurants which will actually be open. SHOW MORE
Bikes.
The bikes on average worked fine. Few specific issues.
1. The batteries were inconsistent power. Both in size (different models) and in age we suspect (as the power ran down more quickly). We absolutely used full power rarely, and most often had it at 1 or 2 out of 4 power. Still, on the longer days, we ran quite low on power. We had a battery die once, which was annoying. Thankfully we had young people on our tour who were able to power their way the last distance without a battery. For the distances available, I think the bike batteries are inadequate for anyone who isn't in good shape. When the tour operator was asked about this before the tour started, he insisted that the batteries "never" run out. Can't be true, we heard from other people on the tour that they also ran out of batteries.
2. We had a bike which repeatedly had the chain fall off. Looking at the chain, it was *covered* in grease. Looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years / forever. Thankfully we could put the chain back on ourselves, but if we were older / less competent with a bike, this would have been an issue.
General interactions.
In general, the tour operator was nice, but didn't seem overly concerned with the feedback we provided him.
1. "The GPS tracks are out of date." - "Well yeah that happens."
2. "There were no restaurants available." - "Yeah, it's late in the season"
3. "The bike kept losing the chain." - "Yup, bikes do that sometimes."
In general, we didn't feel like our concerns were being heard.
Again, overall it was a fun place to go, and we liked bike touring in general. The operator just could have done better.
SHOW LESS- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Ireland
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★★★★★ shea214
too much is too much
Three Lakes Tour: From Geneva to Annecy
This tour is quite lovely, but not at the level we expected. This is our 8th tour so we feel we get them by now. We like the unguided aspect, but they completely outsourced the work of actual directions to a machine. It is not an adequate substitution. The machine added at least 15 miles on the first day and was most frustrating. Please, give us actual directions AND MAPS. A silly little device is certainly helpful but should not be a substitute. And the distance and hills were definitely not Medium. This was proven out the first night by the guy who biked to the hotel (he likes extreme and he thought it was tough).
- What was the date of your tour?
- Sept2016
- How many tours have you completed?
- 8
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- France, Switzerland
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BikeTours.com staff reply from Lindsay Nash
Hi! Thanks for your review. We're glad to hear that the tour was lovely despite the tour level not meeting your expectations. We're taking your review to our products team and to the local tour operator to re-assess the tour level. Thank you for sharing your experience and helping us to better advise other travelers in the future.
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I wanted to follow up once more on your review after following up with the local tour operator. They've never received complaints about the GPS before, and they did provide maps, a profile, and a large marked map in the roadbook on your tour. Also, to clarify, the client you mentioned who said it was a tough route was doing the more challenging version of the tour, not the version you went on. I'm sorry if that was confusing.
Again, we apologize the tour level did not match your expectations, but we do state clearly in the Surface and Terrain details about the daily climbing.
Thank you again for sharing your experience.
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★★★★★ Bluenose
Alsace in September
Alsace Wine Country
Great time of year to do this trip as the vineyards are being harvested. The weather is perfect for cycling! Much of the trip is on dedicated cycle paths which reduces the amount of riding in traffic.
We took the dinner package which saved us the hassle of trying to find dinner each night. A couple of the meals were terrific but most were average.- What was the date of your tour?
- September 9, 2018
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much easier
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- France
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★★★★★ Shirley Santucci
Disappointed
Danube Bike Path 8 Nights (Upscale Lodging)
Total lack of communication in not informing us that our biking would end 2 days early, which meant missing out biking through the Wachau valley . When I contacted Bike Tours that my husband was ill and could not make the trip. I should have been informed then that there were changes to the scheduled tour. The welcome meeting & bike fitting was a joke. There was absolutely no value in that 15 minute meeting. I had to adjust the handle bars myself and struggle through removing the battery for charging at the 1st two hotels that did not offer charging in the bike storage area. The electric bike itself was very good quality and comfortable to ride. The printed trip itinerary was easy to follow but did not offer much in the way of "do not miss" highlights along the way. In my opinion, only three of the hotels were worth the upscale category. I would not recommend this bike tour for anyone that has experienced quality bike tours previously.
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★★★★★ Chris MacMillan
Spectacular scenery, poor bike maintenance
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
The scenery was spectacular and memorable. The hotels were good. However in the middle of the trip my bike handlebars came loose and the bike was very difficult to steer towards the hotel. Also I found the Funtastic navigation app to be unreliable.
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ diane g
Salzburg to Salzburg has fantastic scenery but directions provided are unbelievably poorly developed
Tauern Bike Path (Salzburg-Salzburg)
Salzburg to Salzburg over 6 days is higher than a level 2. The terrain is hilly. I do not recommend this self guided tour because the german-speaking outfits they contract with provide totally inadequate self-guiding instructions. They do not know what a cue sheet is. They do not provide any directions as to north, south, east, west; they do not provide any street names. AND, the directions in English are very obviously translated very poorly from the German. In addition, there is no way to find your hotel once off the bike path. You have to depend upon good route finding skills for this hotel finding as well as the entire trip. We had this same experience with bike tours.com 7 years ago and thought they might have gotten better at directions. We gave bike tours feedback at that time, and our friends gave feedback on their german-speaking directions on their self-guided tour, and nothing changed. Hence I am writing this review without making a customer complaint becaue I do not believe bike tours will fix this problem. AND, THIS TOUR REQUIRES ONE TO CONSULT 3 SETS OF INSTRUCTIONS THROUGHOUT THE TRIP. 2 sets of friends had exactly the same experience. 2 stars are for getting our luggage to each hotel before we arrived; and the hotels were gracious and accommodating.
- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2016
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria
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★★★★★ John Parsons
Can't recommend it
Aare Cycle Route: Along the Jura, Aare, and Rhine Rivers
Food organization poor. Rhine River portion very industrial
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Switzerland
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★★★★★ kirbymom
Great Effort but we were frequently lost
A Taste of Italy: Emilia-Romagna
We had titanium bikes and a very intro. Unfortunately we were lost so often that instead of enjoying time at q location, we were biking around asking locals and using our compass. I think Bike Tour tried too hard to use route with less traffic or a bicycle trail. This made it very hard to get in and out of cities. We had both a bike gps with the routes inputted and the written instructions. Just give us the most direct route out of the cities.
The hotels were nice and mostly well located. Sometimes they weren't well located like the one on the farm. We very much enjoyed the cooking class, the visit to the balsamic vinegar producer, and the gelato machine making -- that ws great. Also the dinners and breakfasts were very good to excellent.
I would recommend this tour IF the routes were adjusted and the visit to the farm was eliminated- What was the date of your tour?
- 10-4-16
- How many tours have you completed?
- thousands of miles w/o guides
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ pmcmanamon
Tour instructions were outdated, and hard to follow
Strasbourg to Mainz: Imperial Cities and Charming Landscapes Along the Rhine
The cities we visited were great, and so were the hotels. I was warm, so air conditions would have been nice, but not a big deal. The tour instructions consisted of a generic book with instructions, and a generic set of maps. The maps were not that detailed. When the maps disagreed with the instructions the maps were right. The signage along the routes changed since they made the instructions . We were told to look for a large E along European bike paths, but it appears to have been replaced by a circle with 15 inside it, i guess for the # of countries in the EU. The bikes were great. The luggage was always delivered on time. I downloaded a Eurobike app to help with the directions, but it did not work well. In order to update my positions I had to quit the app, and restart it. The Biketours people did suggest a new app, RidewithGPS, that worked much better. Because they did not have cues the pass could not tell me ahead of a turn, but it did tell me if we go off course.
I think the local tour company, Eurobike, needs to update their instructions. I also would appreciate if they made unique instructions for each tour. The instructions start and end at a city center. When we got close I would use google maps to find the hotel directly, rather than going to the city center and then to the hotel. My ideal would be a unique set of instructions for a tour, with small maps above or below each instruction. We have had that with other tours, but different providers. On this tour I could not mount my instructions and maps so I could see both while riding, I picked the instructions. In some cases they recommend stopping at a certain place for lunch, but you cannot see if from the tour route, and there is no map to locate it.
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★★★★★ Sequoia
Not quite the Danube River Trip we expected
Vienna to Budapest (Classic)
Too much of the trip was off the river, and off trails. Going through corn fields was not our favorite. Dams should be called levees. The route through Budapest on sidewalks was difficult, too busy with trucks and traffic. It is not a bicycle friendly city. Hotel could have been closer to the river. We would recommend 2 nights in Bratislava, there is so much to see there. Add another day to sleep over in Hainburg. We loved the hotel in Vienna. We recommend the lower trail through the National Park on day one, to go swimming!!! The day one detour was difficult because of traffic, maybe there's a walk around the detour on bike path instead of so much road. We loved Gyur. Three days were totally off the river. We enjoyed the ferry rides very much. The last two days were on the river and were the best days.
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★★★★★ Carol Bly
Not what hoped for. Poor directions. Unsafe routes and not well marked.
Tauern Bike Path (Krimml-Passau)
Loved quiet rides in country and thru villages but dangerous conditions were not marked due to recent storms. We should have been notified and got onto dangerous routes.
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★★★★★ Ron S
Classic
Vienna to Budapest (Classic)
Nice hotels. Great company rep. (Joseph ) Lousy route. Too many dirt trails including one which may have been a garbage dump.l Less than twenty five percent of the route was along the Danube. The signage was not good. I have run four trips thru Bike Tours but this one is not a winner. All the others were great. One participant who had a patellar injury rented an electric assist bike but the battery pack did not hold charge very long. We had additional niggling bike problems.
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★★★★★ May
First family cycling trip completed!
Danube Bike Path 8 Nights (Upscale Lodging)
Overall a satisfactory trip! The GPS is very useful for navigation. The hotels are great! Just on first day, we find that 2 of the 4 bikes are not fit. We have enter our age and height and has not been told specifically what kinds of bikes will be assigned. I found that they just give standard bikes for adult female and male disregard our height and age (Asians in average are shorter than Westerners.) The person, Robert, arrived for “bike fitting” was not helpful at all. He suggested my daughter to cycle 30km to their bike shop to change bike. When we asked him to call customer service, he said he didn’t have Wi-Fi. So, Eurobike send a staff without communication methods to help customers’ solve problems? Finally, Robert had to use my phone to call the CS number. And in the phone, he said we are “bla, bla, bla.” Is it the customers cannot voice their requests, even the bikes are not fit and customers have to take the risk of getting hurt or accident? and seems to Robert, customers’ requests are “bla, bla, bla..” And customers need to take the riding risk to go 30km to change bike? Later he mentioned it may need to charge EUR 50 per bike change if need to switch bikes in Passau. I have emailed biketour and I am grateful that next day the 2 bikes were changed without additional charges. In second day, Simon is much more helpful. Simon helps us do the testing & it works. Simon is v polite and helpful. Passau is the starting point of Danube cycle path. I feel strange that the outsource company does not have a bike rental centre there. This is our first family cycling trip and it did create stresses at the beginning. The outsource company probably need to have better communication with biketour.
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★★★★★ Elizabeth Anderson
Not ideal
Bolzano to Verona: Orchards, Mountains & Timeless Culture
Sorry, this tour was not great. We have used biketours.com for five different trips and this was our least favorite. The hotels were way out of the city centers making it difficult to get dinner or see sights after biking. The routes were not well planned.
- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2025
- How many tours have you completed?
- Lots and lots
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Collette
Lecce Loop of the Trip is Beautiful
Apulia and Basilicata: Alberobello to Lecce
The segment of this trip within the Puglia region provided stunning views almost all day long of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. We took frequent advantage of public beaches, stopping for a swim along the way, and the towns were charming, making it easy to linger over an espresso and seaside lunch, or tour on foot once we were settled into our hotel for the night. Our E-bikes made us happy as this Puglia section of the route is quite hilly. The hotels were excellent to good, and the GPS mapping on our phones made it super easy to stay on track or find the route after we had chosen to deviate from it. This portion of the trip was a delight.
The first third of this bike trip includes the the route from Matera to Alberobello and Ostuni. A previous reviewer had mentioned, "an inordinate amount of garbage," on this section. I cannot stress enough how the garbage surpasses the word "inordinate." Hundreds of thousands of water bottles, household trash, appliances, used diapers and debris of all sorts litters the first three days of this trip, like riding through an open landfill.
This section of the Basilicata route has long been abandoned for repair. We had to turn off the "emergency SOS" app on our phones - the one that calls your emergency contact using severe shaking of your phone - due to the broken concrete and tar on these roads as our phones kept sending SOS pings out to family members in the US. Where I live, I often have to ride on gravel roads and those seemed like a dream compared to these first 3 days of road conditions. The Lecce portion of this trip was great but I cannot recommend this trip if it includes the first section. Bike Tours is wonderful, this was our second trip with them and we plan more, but I will heed reviews, which is why I'm offering this one.- What was the date of your tour?
- Sept 26 - Oct 1, 2021
- How many tours have you completed?
- two
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ quin101
Beautiful area but hectic pace
Baltic Capitals: Historic Cities of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn
We did experience the Baltic Countries and we went to places we never would have seen. But, there are issues about the tour, that others should be aware of, the cycling was much faster then we thought, often cycling on roads, busy roads,it was not a relaxed pace, one guide for 15 riders, people often got lost/left behind. We never arrived to the hotel until at least 8pm No free time, no time to shop, take pictures. We feel the guide was unorganized, no care for the slower riders. When we booked this tour it was rated as a 1 in difficulty. This is too low for the terrain and pace that we encountered.
That said we are still glad we did the tour as we did see beautiful and interesting places. I hope the company makes some changes to the tour to make it more enjoyable to all.
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★★★★★ Francisco Averhoff
beautiful countryside
Cycling Paradise of Provence - to and from Avignon
the hotels were very nice (we upgraded) and the bike riding was very doable and the countryside was beautiful. we have done 5 self guided bike tours through biketours.com and have been very satisfied, however for this trip the actual travel agency in France (Walk Inn) was unsatisfactory: 1. they did not meet with us and did not go over the routes; 2.did not meet with us to go over the bike equipment; 3. we had trouble with the GPS system on our phones and they provided no assistance; 4. the written maps/routes did not match the routes on the GPS (once we were able to get it on our phone); 5. the GPS routes that we finally downloaded were often for the trip going in the opposite direction which made the navigation more challenging; 6. Finally, the hotel transfers and bike provider were subcontracted by Walk Inn making coordination difficult and furthermore, Walk Inn did not answer our calls using the phone number provider for emergency contact. Overall because of the in country travel agency , Walk Inn, this trip was only fair and could have been excellent.
- Countries included in this tour?
- France
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★★★★★ Debra Miller
A Bit Disappointing
Danube Bike Path 7 Nights (Classic)
Cycling along a paved path along the Danube was relaxing for our group of four. Day three was truly beautiful with cobblestone roads and colorful houses in the villages. Wish we had gone earlier in the year as many restaurants and shops were closed for the season.
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★★★★★ GregR
Too much highway biking
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
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★★★★★ Janna R Poll
Needs a bit more sophistication
Prague to Dresden Along the Vltava & Elbe Rivers
1. There was no GPS. They insisted it was easy and we had maps, but they were in Czech and hard to read and the street were rarely marked.
2. I had two flats within the first mile ( two more to come). They need to put liners in their tires. Our pump was also so bad that after a lot of work it was still too low to ride. Usually other riders would stop and let us borrow their more superior pumps.
They delivered a new bike in Prague because my brakes were also broken. To get to their delivery car I had to go down a wet slope and across a divided highway. I fell on a wet grid and hurt my knee bad and ripped the entire butt out of my only pair of bike shorts for the whole trip ( remember the missing luggage). This. Detour meant we couldn’t ever seem to find the bike bath again and since we had a late start of 3:30, we rode hard for six straight hours. It was extremely dangerous after dark and we had no food out in the farmland. I was using my phone to try to find the towns with path.
I complained about the promise of a GPS and not having one. So they forwarded maps to use on a a special app on my phone, but that took a day to understand where we were on the map. I got a GPS the third day, but it didn’t have a charge and the charging unit didn’t go with the unit I had.
4. Not only did we have flats, but my kickstand didn’t work and more importantly, the fender supports in the front was missing some rubber tips. That meant when I put down my foot when stopping and the wheel was turned at all, the snipped off metal of the support would slash my inside knees badly. This happened a lot and was very painful and bloody.
5. Several of the hotels had some real problems with super warm rooms, (no A/C anywhere over there), loud streets, and no ice. Two at least had fans. the nice hotel in Bad Shandeau put us alone up on the 4th floor and said we were to leave the windows closed because of smoke from the fires, which was blowing the opposite direction. Our attic room was well over 90F w no ventilation. We opened the narrow attic windows anyhow
The best hotel was a little pensioner on the first night. That frog even gave us ice for our water bottles. It was a very hot week.6. The path ran right by a forest fire before Bad Schandau. Breathing was bad and stinky.
They guys were generally responsive, though the main guy was on vacation. We are fairly unde manding most of time, changed our own FOUR flat tires, tried to find our way, dealt w the bike faults, but feel they were tired of us the first day. In fact he said if we were ‘one of their clienta it would be different. If they took the money from you, we WERE their client!
Overall, it was a bit disappointing on the bike side, though the river is lovely and biking is still the best way to see a country! SHOW MORE
Janna Poll Olender
Pic of what the fender was doing. The bruise was from trying to get to their van w new bike in Prague.
SHOW LESS- What was the date of your tour?
- July2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- Five
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens, Families with young kids
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
- Countries included in this tour?
- Czech Republic, Germany
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