Three-hour guided bicycle tours through Heidelberg, Germany, are offered Monday to Saturday, April through October, through Heidelberg Marketing (phone +49 6221 5840 223). Sites visited can include Old Town, Tiefburg Castle and the Old Bridge (customized routes on request).
In a group of up to 10 people, a tour costs €121 (near $135) per person with an English-speaking guide or €110, German-speaking. Bike and helmet rental, €18.
Jim Johnson’s article “Biking the Backroads — What a Wonderful Way to Travel!” (June ’16, pg. 22) is right on. His descriptions on the various types of tours are excellent.
My husband, Robert, and I have taken many biking trips in Europe. We’ve taken fully guided tours with Hindriks Bicycle Tours, supported tours with Vermont Bike Tours and what I’ll call semisupported tours with Bike Tours Direct. All have pros and cons, of course.
After I remarried in 2015, my wife, Barbara, and I spent our 3-week honeymoon in two parts of France in May: Provence and Paris. Most of our time in Provence would be on bikes. Because Barbara hadn’t biked as much as I had, we chose what we thought would be easy day trips.
Shortly after arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport, we discovered that the bottom floor of the terminal housed the railroad station. We had tickets on the TGV from Paris to Avignon. After a wait of three hours or so, we boarded the train for a ride lasting almost four hours, stopping only once, in Lyon.
Visitors to Abu Dhabi, UAE, can rent bicycles from FunRideSports (phone +971 2 445 5838, www.funridesports.com), which has four locations in the corniche area on the western coast of Abu Dhabi, each open 4 p.m.-12 a.m. daily: Hilton Station (Corniche Rd. West, al Khubairah); Family Park (Corniche Rd. West, al Khalidiyah); Chamber Station (Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, Corniche Rd., al Markazaiyah West), and Meena Station (Meena St., Tourist Club area).
I enjoyed the Feature Article “Biking the Backroads” by Jim Johnson (June ’16, pg. 22). Flory, my late wife, and I biked independently quite a bit. Twelve years in a row, each year we biked approximately 3,000 miles through Europe and North Africa during 2- to 2½-month tours, using a different route each time.
Guided tours of Sydney are available on Gocycles, bicycles with lightweight electric motors to assist with uphill climbs. Take the 1½-hour, 8-mile “Bike the Bridge” tour for AUD59 (near $42) each or the 2½-hour, 12-mile “Sydney City Tour,” AUD99, or customize a tour.
Tours 9 a.m.-1 p.m. daily except Sunday. Group limit, six people. BlueBananas Electric Bike Tours (Arcade 2, 281 Clarence St., Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia; phone +61 [02] 9114 8488, http://bluebananas.com.au).
Some years ago, a cycling group I was with rolled into a village square in the Slovenian countryside and we started to fill our water bottles in a fountain. A white-haired gentleman seemed to listen intently to our small talk, then walked over.
7-day, 6-night “enthusiast”-level bike tour (average, 22 miles per day), Oct. 23-29 & Nov. 18-24, 2016. Highlights: From Santiago, ride west into Casablanca Valley/wine tastings/horse-handling demonstration/asado (barbecue-style) lunch/beach resort of Santo Domingo/interactive cooking demo with chef Pilar Rodriguez/colonial Santa Cruz/wine-making region of Apalta Valley. $7,495 ppdo, including bike and helmet. Single supp., $1,000. Butterfield & Robinson (70 Bond St., 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, M5B 1X3, Canada; in No.
Visitors to Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia’s Northern Territory can ride on a 9-mile-long path around the base on a bike rented from Outback Cycling (phone +61 437 917 018, http://outbackcycling.com).
Bikes can be rented 7 a.m.-2 p.m. daily. A 3-hour rental of a cruiser-style bike costs AUD45 (near $33) at the Outback Cycling bus, with a bike trailer, parked at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park’s Cultural Center.
Due to park guidelines, Outback Cycling will not rent bicycles if temperatures are forecast to be 36°C (96.8°F) or higher.
(Third of three parts)