Which type of cycling holiday is for you?

Most of our cycling holidays are self-guided, giving you freedom and flexibility to explore at your own pace. We also have some group escorted tours which may appeal to people who enjoy cycling in a group, or solo travellers who want to meet like-minded adventurers. 

Most importantly, it’s important to know that even on a self-guided cycling holiday, you won’t be alone out there on the trails. You have a support team on the ground, reachable by phone 24/7 and they give you detailed instructions, maps or apps (depending on the tour). If you don’t have a smartphone, we will advise you in advance whether you need to bring a GPS device such as a Garmin, to help navigate and we recommend getting this in advance of your trip and practising with it. But on many of our easier cycling tours, our detailed instructions will do the trick. 

A good fit

As well as making sure that you send us all the dimensions that we need when you book a cycling holiday, so that we can choose the right bike rental for you, make sure that your own bike is a good fit while training at home. You can have padded shorts and gel saddle covers, but if your bike isn’t a good fit, from the saddle position to the actual size of the bike, then you will start to feel the burn more quickly than you should, and also risk injury. A tweak here and there can make all the difference. This video is very clear about how to get a good fit but, it’s worth getting your bike serviced before starting to prepare for a cycle trip and, while you’re at the bike shop, ask them to check the fit. 

Get in training

On all our trips, we give you details of how many kilometres or hours you will cycle every day, as well as the elevations that you’ll cover, if any. No matter which cycling holiday you are planning, it’s good to build up over a period of at least two months (ideally more) before your trip, especially for the moderate to strenuous trips. 

Never use trips as a way to get fit, as you risk injury or simply not enjoying it. It’s also worth remembering that the pace we set in our holiday itineraries is based on cycling at a leisurely, gentle pace. We want you to revel in it all, not race it and training will help that. 

Build up gently 

We advise building up the amount of kilometres you ride by around 10% a week, until you are riding the same amount that your cycling holiday has in store for you. This doesn’t mean increasing speed, just distance, duration and trying tougher terrain. You should also aim to cycle at least three or four times a week, and get accustomed to sitting in that saddle for a few hours for several weeks before you go. 

Don’t be a stretcher case – just stretch!

It’s also important to learn some good stretching exercises that will become second nature at the end of one of your cycling holiday days. As well as doing a quick stretch before you head off too. Imagine stretching on the beach after a day of cycling along Italy’s Cilento Coast or overlooking Venice’s lagoon while cycling between Venice and Istria along the Adriatic Coast. If you fancy a mountain view as you stretch it out, there is no shortage of dizzy heights while cycling between Salzburg in Austria and Lake Bled in Slovenia, a route that is categorised as moderate even though it’s mountainous. 

Indoor training

If the weather is a bit grim and you aren’t a hardy cyclist, brave it out and try a spin class at your local gym, or consider buying or borrowing a turbo machine to turn your bike into an indoor one. These are also good ways to get familiar with cadence, which may turn out to be your best friend if you get it right. Cadence is the rate at which you pedal, measured in revolutions per minute or RPM. There are lots of schools of thought on what the perfect cadence is to avoid injury. For hills, the general rule of thumb is to have a slower cadence of around 60rpm. 

Chill on the hills

If you are planning on a cycling holiday with a few ascents in the itinerary, you need to start incorporating a few of these into your regular cycles, or at least cycling in a lower gear to get the feeling of a steeper gradient. If you are lucky enough to have a few hills nearby, one of the secrets of conquering them is to slice it up into segments, and focus on a target point at each segment, such as a signpost or a tree. Aim for that and cycle at your own pace, then take a sip of water, ride out of the saddle for 30 seconds or so, then pick another identifiable marker and head slowly for that next one. The other trick is to keep breathing – deeply. See the mountain as something to meditate on, rather than something to fear. 

Go up a gear

If you are already a keen cyclist, but you’re upping your game a little by taking on a more moderate to strenuous cycling holiday, then we recommend pushing yourself in the gym a little too. So if Mallorca’s cycling circuit is calling or the ancient and awesome ascents of North Macedonia and Greece, where you cycle between 40 and 80km a day, or you are contemplating cycling the Camino, you need to press your inner power button at weekends, not just the snooze button. 

As well as committing to regular cycling, we recommend an hour’s workout in the gym, three times a week with, for example, 20mins on the treadmill, 20mins on the cross trainer, followed by 20mins of core and leg strength exercises, in particular focusing on quads, glutes and hamstrings.  

Hitting the heights

For strenuous (but always stupendous) cycling tours, such as Switzerland’s Valais region, or Cycling the Grand Crossing of the Alps, you need to double your efforts in the last few weeks, but always taking rest days to ensure you don’t injure yourself. As well as short cycles every day you can, for example, increase your gym workout to include 60mins of cardiovascular exercise, including a good circuit of strength exercises such as squats and lunges, four times a week, plus a five hour cycle, with plenty of hills, at weekends.