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Bicycle touring is the taking of self-contained cycling trips for pleasure, Adventure travel or autonomy rather than sport, commuting or exercise. Bicycle touring can range from single-day trips to extended travels spanning weeks or months. Tours may be planned by the participant or organized by a tourism business, local club or organization, or a charity as a fund-raising venture.
Their bicycles caused no little astonishment on the way, and the remarks passed by the natives were almost amusing. At some of the villages the boys clustered round the machines, and, where they could, caught hold of them and ran behind until they were tired out. Many enquiries were made as to the name of 'them queer horses', some called them 'whirligigs', 'menageries' and 'valparaisons'. Between Wolverhampton and Birmingham, attempts were made to upset the riders by throwing stones.Times, London, 31 March 1869
Enthusiasm extended to other countries. The New York Times spoke of "quantities of velocipedesIn the United States the word included what elsewhere were called hobby-horses flying like shuttles hither and thither". But while British interest had less frenzy than in the United States, it lasted longer.
The expansion from a machine that had to be pushed to propelled through pedals on a front wheel made longer distances feasible. A rider calling himself "A Light Dragoon" told in 1870 or 1871 of a ride from Lewes to Salisbury, across southern England. The title of his book, Wheels and Woes, suggests a less than event-free ride but McGurn says "it seems to have been a delightful adventure, despite bad road surfaces, dust and lack of signposts. Husband and wife team Joseph Pennell (illustrator) and Elizabeth Robins Pennell (writer) published travelogues of their journeys framed as literary pilgrimages; they "wheeled" a tandem tricycle from Florence to Rome, attracting more attention than she was comfortable with, as possibly the first female rider that the Italians had ever seen.
Journeys grew more adventurous. Thomas Stevens, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, set off around the world on April 22, 1884, on a 50-inch Columbia with a money belt, a revolver, two shirts and a rain cape, spending two years on the road and writing articles which became a two-volume, 1,021-page book. The feminist Annie Londonderry accomplished her around-the-globe bicycle trip as the first woman as early as in 1894–95. John Foster Fraser and two friends set off round the world on safety bicycles in July 1896. He, Edward Lunn and F. H. Lowe rode 19,237 miles, through 17 countries, in two years and two months.Fraser, John (abridged 1982), Around The World on a Wheel, Chatto and Windus (UK) By 1878, recreational cycling was enough established in Britain to lead to formation of the Bicycle Touring Club, later renamed Cyclists' Touring Club. It is the oldest national tourism organisation in the world. Members, like those of other clubs, often rode in uniform. The CTC appointed an official tailor. The uniform was a dark green Devonshire serge jacket, knickerbockers and a "Stanley helmet with a small peak". The colour changed to grey when green proved impractical because it showed the dirt. Cycling On, Ray Hallett, Dinosaur Publications 1978 Groups often rode with a bugler at their head to sound changes of direction or to bring the group to a halt. Confusion could be caused when groups met and mistook each other's signals.John Pinkerton, int. Wheels of Fortune, BBC Radio 4, 1988.
Membership of the CTC inspired the Frenchman, Paul de Vivie (b. April 29, 1853), to found what became the Fédération Française de Cyclotourisme, the world's largest cycling association, and to coin the French word cyclo-tourisme. The League of American Wheelmen in the U.S. was founded in Newport, Rhode Island, on May 30, 1880. It shared an interest in leisure cycling with the administration of cycle racing. Membership peaked at 103,000 in 1898.
Hoopdriver is certainly liberated by his machine. It affords him not only a country holiday, in itself a remarkable event which he enjoys immensely, however ignorant of the countryside he may be, but also a brush with a society girl, riding on pneumaticsInflatable tyres, many bicycles then still having solid tyres and wearing some kind of Rational Dress.Watson, Roderick and Gray, Martin (1978) The Penguin Book of the Bicycle, Penguin, UK
The book suggests the new social mobility created by the bike, which breaks the boundaries of Hoopdriver's world literally and figuratively. Hoopdriver sets off in a spirit of freedom, finally away from his job:
Only those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year round, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer time, know the exquisite sensations of the First Holiday Morning. All the dreary, uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains fall about your feet...There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass...He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him.Wells, H. G., Wheels of Chance; a Bicycling Idyll
Wells puts Hoopdriver in a new brown cycling suit to show the importance of the venture and the freedom on which he is embarking. Hoopdriver finds the bicycle raises his social standing, at least in his imagination, and he calls to himself as he rides that he's "a bloomin' dookLondon pronunciation of "duke" " The New Woman that he pursues wears Rational Dress of a sort that scandalised society but made cycling much easier. The Rational Dress Society was founded in 1881 in London. It said:
Both Hoopdriver and the Young Lady in Grey, as he refers to her, are escaping social restraints through bicycle touring. Hoopdriver falls in love and rescues her from a lover who says marrying him is the only way that she, having left alone for a cycling holiday, can save her reputation. She lowers her social status; he raises his. McGurn says: "The shift in social perspectives, as exemplified by Wells' cyclists, led John Galsworthy to claim, at a later date, that the bicycle had "been responsible for more movement in manners and morals than anything since Charles the Second."
A decline set in across Europe, particularly in Britain, when millions of servicemen returned from World War II having learned to drive. Trips away were now, for the increasing number who had one, by car. The decline in the United States came even sooner. McGurn says:
The story of interwar cycling was characterised by lack of interest and a steady decline... Cycling had lost out to the automobile, and to some extent to the new electric transport systems. In the 1930s cumbersome, fat-tyred 'balloon bombers', bulbously streamlined in imitation of motorcycles or aeroplanes, appealed to American children: the only mass market still open to cycle manufacturers. Wartime austerity gave cycling a short reprieve in the industrial world. The post-war peace was to lay the bicycle low.
However, between 1965 and 1975 the U.S. experienced a bike boom. In 1976, to celebrate the bicentennial of the founding of the United States, Greg Siple, his wife June, and Dan and Lys Burden organized a mass bike ride, Bikecentennial, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Siple said:
My original thought was to send out ads and flyers saying, 'Show up at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco at 9 o'clock on June 1 with your bicycle.' And then we were going to bicycle across the country. I pictured thousands of people, a sea of people with their bikes and packs all ready to go, and there would be old men and people with balloon-tire bikes and Frenchmen who flew over just for this. Nobody would shoot a gun off or anything. At 9 o'clock everybody would just start moving. It would be like this crowd of crossing America.
The ride eventually ran from Astoria, Oregon, to Yorktown, Virginia, site of the first British settlements; 4,100 rode, with 2,000 completing the entire route. It defined a new start for cycle-touring in the United States and led to the creation of Adventure Cycling Association. Adventure Cycling has mapped routes across America and into Canada, many of the rides taking up to three months to complete on a loaded bicycle.
In Britain, the Cyclists Touring Club grew to 70,000 members by 2011About CTC, www.ctc.org.uk, retrieved 2012-02-19 and is now the biggest body campaigning for cycling and cyclists' rights in the UK. It continues to organise group touring events including day rides through its local groups and CTC holidays in many countries led by experienced CTC members. Since 1983, Sustrans has created a National Cycle Network of long-distance cycle routes including back roads and traffic-free tracks built, signed, and mapped in partnership with local organisations.
Since 1980, there has been a growth of organised cycling holidays provided by commercial organisations in many countries. Some companies provide accommodation and route information to cyclists travelling independently; others focus on a group experience, including guides and support for a large number of riders cycling together. A variation on this is holidays, often in exotic locations, organised in partnership with a charity, in which participants are expected to raise donation as well as cover their costs. Due to the rise of hospitality exchange services from the nineties on, cycle travelers like other travelers got the means to better organize their stays at local hosts. The hospitality exchange website Warm Showers, which is specialized for cycle travelers started in 2005 and has over 100000 members worldwide today.
The scale of bicycle touring and its economic effects are difficult to estimate, given the activity's informal nature. Market research indicates that in 2006 British cyclists spent £120m on 450,000 organised cycling holidays, and a further 2.5 million people included some cycling activity in their annual holiday that year.Mintel, "Brits Go Wheely Mad for Cycling Holidays" retrieved 2012-02-19 The total economic benefit to communities visited during the nine-day long Great Victorian Bike Ride was estimated at AU$2 million in 2011, which does not include costs paid directly to ride organisers and ongoing benefits to towns. Sustrans estimate that the total value of cycle tourism in the UK in 1997 was £635m and they forecast £14bn for the whole EU by 2020.Keeling, A. (1999), Cycle Tourism Information Pack TT21 , Sustrans, retrieved 2012-02-19 Among examples of current activity given by Sustrans are 1.5m cyclists using the Danube Cycle Route each year and 25% of holiday visitors in Germany using bicycles during their visit.
Heinz Stücke left his job as a die-maker in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1962 when he was 22 — three years after Stolle and is still riding. By 2006 he had cycled more than and visited 192 countries. He pays his way by selling photographs to magazines. From Asia, Gua Dahao left China in May 1999 to ride across Siberia, the Middle East, Turkey, western Europe, Scandinavia, then another 100,000 km across Africa, Latin America and Australia.Meyer, Éric (2005), L'Empire en Danseuse, Rocher, France
Others attempt long voyages in exceptionally short time periods. The current circumnavigation record by bicycle is 78 days 14 hours, and 40 minutes by Mark Beaumont.
Noted writers have combined cycling with travel writing including Dervla Murphy, who made her first documented journeyMurphy, D.(1965) in 1963, from London to India, on a single speed bicycle with little more than a revolver and a change of underwear. In 2006, she describedMurphy, D. (2006) "Silverland: A Winter Journey Beyond the Urals" how, aged 74, she was held up at gunpoint and robbed while cycling in Russia. Eric Newby,Newby, E. (1987) Round Ireland in Low Gear, Eric Newby, London, Collins Bettina Selby, and Anne Mustoe have all used cycling as a means to a literary end, valuing the way that cycling brings the traveller closer to people and places. Selby said,
In recent years, British adventurers Alastair Humphreys ( Moods of Future Joys), Mark Beaumont ( The Man who Cycled the World), and Rob Lilwall ( Cycling Home From Siberia) have all been on bicycle expeditions and written books about their exploits.
One economic implication of bicycling is that it liberates the cyclist from oil consumption.(Ballantine, 1972) The bicycle is an inexpensive, fast, healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport. Ivan Illich said that bicycling extends the usable physical environment for people, while alternatives such as cars and motorways degrade and confined people's environment and mobility.ILLICH, I. (1974). Energy and equity. New York, Harper & Row.
The website crazyguyonabike.com includes thousands of rider-generated journals of cycling tours globally.
City bike tours are cycling excursions designed for urban exploration. Unlike long-distance bicycle touring, city bike tours are shorter in duration (usually 2-4 hours) and cater to a wide range of participants, including casual cyclists and tourists.They often include stops at historical sites, local markets, and scenic viewpoints. Some tours focus on specific themes, such as street art, food tastings, historical narratives or geographical features (such as the Pedal Hidrográfico tour in São Paulo).
City bike tours contribute to sustainable tourism by promoting cycling as an eco-friendly alternative to motorized transportation. They are commonly offered by local tour companies, bike rental services, and municipal initiatives aiming to encourage cycling culture. It is also common for them to be organized informally or spontaneously by amateur cyclists.
"Ultralight tourers" choose traditional or "Audax" or Randonneuring bicycles for speed and simplicity. However, these bikes are harder to ride on unmade roads, which may limit route options. Since about 2015, are a new option to combine speed and unpaved road capabilities.
For some, the advantages of a recumbent bicycle are particularly relevant to touring.
To lessen the weight carried on the bicycle, or increase luggage capacity, touring cyclists may use .
For a "supported" rider, luggage carrying is not important and a wider range of bicycle types may be suitable depending on the terrain.
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