READER'S REVIEWS
Here is the first reader review from Ray Cameron, who writes:
"My wife and I were impressed with Steve's Canberra Pedal Power article in the Spring Edition 2021 magazine, #277. We are both now in our 70s and are fortunate to have stumbled on a cycling holiday system when we started in 2006 and it has worked really well for us, until COVID. We want to encourage your readers to consider trying some of our tours themselves.
Our first adventure was in the Loire Valley in 2006, where we booked two bikes and panniers and planned our own tour. The panniers provided were very small "shopping panniers", yet we realised that we could each get by with less. We planned a circular tour over 10 nights, returning to the same hotel in Blois, and they were happy to store our bags until our return. Blois is the centre of one of the highest density of castles in Europe and the Tourist Information Centre had a very useful map of the local rides on specified routes to the castles.
We subsequently have had 13 years of most satisfying and enjoyable self-guided 3-4 weeks cycling holidays. We packed very little, my travel bag fitted into my wife's bag for storage at our first b&b in the town where we hired the bikes, panniers and helmets. As a result we booked the first and last 2 night's b&b accommodation at the town with the bike shop for each subsequent tour.
Our 14 self-guided trips were in France (3), Netherlands (2) and England (9), cycling a total of around 16,500 kms.
Tour of Mallorca based between Platja de Muro and Alcudia, Mallorca,Balearic Islands, Spain submitted by: Brendan Sweeney from County Donegal, Ireland.
When: May 2023
Tour Length: One week with 5 consecutive days cycling.
Type of Event – This tour was self-guided and self-booked (flights, accommodation and bike hire) by individual members of our cycle club with routes decided beforehand for each of the five days of the trip. Because this was our club's third trip to Mallorca, we had a reasonably good knowledge of the routes we wanted to do.
Our cycling club trip to Mallorca this year was very much looked forward to by the eight of us that took part. This was our third time to visit this cycling paradise in the Mediterranean and won't be our last. We booked our usual hotel (Gruphotel Maritimo in Alcudia) and we weren't disappointed. The hotel is four star and everything about is just right for us. The location is in the north east corner of the island close to many classic cycling routes such as the climbs of Sa Colobra and Cap Formentor, but also loads of flatter roads as well. We created routes on Strava and downloaded them before we arrived there. The best time of year to travel to Mallorca is probably from March to May and from September to October as the roads are less busy and the weather is not too hot.
We dealt with a german company called Huerzeler that rents out bikes and does guided tours. Their company link is: https://www.huerzeler.com/en. They hire all kinds of bikes including e road bikes from one of their cycle stations on Mallorca and they are great to deal with. This would be perfect for anyone new to the island.