Italy Bike Tour Reviews (page 21)

★★★★★ (2/5) Chris MacMillan September 4, 2023

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

★★★★★ (2/5) Mark Abzug September 28, 2023

meh

· Florence to Rome

great cycling, but eurotours was terrible. no orientation, routed us on some busy roads, no customer service at all. I've done 5 of these, and this group was the worst support outfit by far

Countries included in this tour?: Italy

★★★★★ (2/5) Leslie Wilson 7 months ago

Very disappointing

· Lake Garda (based in one hotel)

The bikes,local tour provider & maps where not an acceptable standard or adequately explained to our bike group. We all goind this to be very disappointing.

What was the date of your tour?: September 2024
How many tours have you completed?: 4
Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?: As expected
Who is this tour suitable for?: Solo travelers, Families with teens
Do you recommend this tour?: No
Countries included in this tour?: Italy

1/5 Value
3/5 Bikes + equipment
4/5 Hotels or boat
3/5 Scenery
1/5 Ease of navigation
1/5 Tour documents
1/5 Local tour company services
1/5 Route selection
1/5 Guides (if applicable)

★★★★★ (2/5) kirbymom October 19, 2016

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

3/5 Value
5/5 Included meals
5/5 Bikes + equipment
4/5 Hotels or boat
4/5 Scenery
1/5 Ease of navigation
3/5 Tour documents
5/5 Local tour company services
2/5 Route selection

★★★★★ (2/5) Collette February 12, 2022

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

4/5 Value
5/5 Included meals
5/5 Bikes + equipment
4/5 Hotels or boat
1/5 Scenery
5/5 Ease of navigation
5/5 Tour documents
5/5 Local tour company services
1/5 Route selection

★★★★★ (2/5) GregR October 6, 2019

Too much highway biking

· Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps

What was the date of your tour?: September 2019
How many tours have you completed?: 4
Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?: As expected
Do you recommend this tour?: No
Countries included in this tour?: Italy, Slovenia, Austria

3/5 Value
3/5 Included meals
3/5 Bikes + equipment
3/5 Hotels or boat
2/5 Scenery
2/5 Ease of navigation
3/5 Tour documents

★★★★★ (1/5) Kenneth Moffat September 25, 2023

The scenery was great the bike company very poor

· Innsbruck to Lake Garda Across the Southern Slopes of the Alps

The bikes should be delivered to the hotel we are assigned to.
No one reviewed the tour nor did we get a bike fitting.
The group should all stay in the same hotel. We do not want separate hotels.
There was more than one occasion when the hotel did not have all of us booked in the hotel.
The bike tools were not adequate to fix some of the bike issues we had.
None of us would use this company again.
I should mention the liaison person Penelope was very nice.

What was the date of your tour?: September
How many tours have you completed?: 5
Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?: As expected
Do you recommend this tour?: No
Countries included in this tour?: Austria, Italy

2/5 Value
1/5 Bikes + equipment
4/5 Hotels or boat
4/5 Ease of navigation
1/5 Tour documents
1/5 Local tour company services
4/5 Route selection

★★★★★ (1/5) Melissa Barney June 20, 2023

Biking in Italy in June

· Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps

I will not be recommending this trip or your company to anyone. The App was awful: only intermittently in English (otherwise in German) and when I gave 'feedback' I got no response; the App intermittently stopped working and I had to turn my phone off and on to re-boot; the App ATE UP my phone battery (a relativley new iPhone 13 with an otherwise long battery life); any highlights mentioned in the App along a particular day's travel was only a link to something that required internet or phone service (this is ridiculous; this link should have taken me to text within the App just as every other self-guided tour does within their App). The written paper description was poorly done - for some cities the description was how to 'get' into a city and other times the city/town mentioned was only a landmark of progress but this was very confusing. The pedometer on the bike did not work after the first three hours of the 7 day trip. The bikes were way too heavy; surely there is a way to make a durable bike that is at least 2 to 3 kilos lighter. Getting the bike and getting a safety helmet were in different cities!! I would ask for some of my money back if I thought this was possible as I was very disappointed in the trip.

Countries included in this tour?: Italy, Slovenia, Austria

★★★★★ (1/5) Heather Batchelor 11 months ago

Hail, lightning and rain

· Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps

Didn’t get to do the trip because of terrible weather and the idea of sitting in a hotel room until 6pm without any luggage.

Countries included in this tour?: Italy, Slovenia, Austria