Bike tours - see the world from a different perspective

There’s many ways to see the planet we live on, ways that allow us to experience everything that the world has to offer from a variety of different perspectives. Some of them have gone down in legend; the helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon, scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Whatever it is, these different methods of viewing the world and its sights are there to offer something different, something unique.
While it may not be as exciting as a helicopter ride, or as thrill inducing as a trip across the ocean with only a snorkel for company, an enduringly popular method of visiting the sights and sounds of a country is with bicycle tours. Mountain bike tours are exactly what one would expect them to be; visiting and enjoying various locations, sites of historical interest and other wonders of the world, all from the relative comfort of a push pedal bicycle.
The reason for the popularity of bike tours is easy to see. These tours are the perfect middle ground between walking tours and tours involving motorised transport, such as cars or aircraft. Walking all day may sound perfectly reasonable, but if you have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of places you want to go, you’re going to end up with sore feet – particularly if you repeat the schedule over the course of an entire holiday. On the other hand, vehicular based tours are restrictive in a completely different way; from behind a wind shield, it is hard to see, absorb and smell the place you are visiting.
Bike tours are the perfect solution to this double-edged problem. With a bicycle tour, you can cover more ground than you would be able to do on foot – but still have the opportunity to feel the wind on your skin as you peruse sights and sites of interest.
The popularity of these bicycle tours is dependent on location of holiday. Ideal as they are, only the most proficient of cyclists would consider visiting the heart of a bustling city upon a bicycle. It may be best for the enjoyment of your city break to keep the concept of touring the sights and sounds of a city to motorised transport. Instead, bicycle tours have found their niche wherever one can find forestation, open fields and ready-made routes: the countryside.
You may be able to spend a day leisurely walking through hills and valleys, enjoying the sense of being at one with nature, but by switching plans to incorporate bicycle tours, you can see so much more. Find the most stunning panoramas atop a hill with only half the effort to climb it – and of course, getting back down is a breeze, as you simply freewheel the effort away.
Bicycle tours have captured the countryside roaming market. You can either tour with a group or tour guide, or rent a bicycle and a specifically configured bicycle-friendly map and tour yourself. This freedom, flexibility and ease of us is one of the primary reasons why these tours have become so popular – and will continue to be so for a long time yet.

The need for bicycle rack

Cycling is one of life’s little pleasures – at least, it can be if you are in the right setting with the right conditions. But most cyclists would admit, some quite cheerfully, that you simply cannot cycle everywhere. As enjoyable as a good bike ride is, sometimes you have to drive to get somewhere that allows you to enjoy cycling to its fullest. Some might call that a Catch 22 situation, but if you buy a good bicycle rack for your car you can take your bike with you in the car and then park up and pedal away to your heart’s content.
Cycling accessory manufacturers are well aware of the enjoyment that many cyclists get from cycling in places which may not themselves be easily accessible by bike. Therefore, sometimes it is necessary to strap the bike to your car or 4×4, and drive there. Equally important to this is that you need to have the right kind of rack to fit your vehicle and your bike. Most commonly, people used to fix their bikes to a roof rack on their car, but while this is still a popular way of doing things, just as many people are now using different ways of attaching their bike.
If your car has a tow bar on the back, it is easy enough to fit a rack to that, and this leaves the bike less exposed than it would be on a roof rack. Equally, it can fit perfectly well on a rack that you fit to the tail of your boot. Either way, it gives you the chance to transport your bike around with you – using the car for the hard yards and the bike for the free running.

Bike trailer

There are certainly a lot of people who have the impression that traveling back and forth, to and from shops, precludes the use of their bicycle. The theory goes that if you are cycling, you will not have the wherewithal to bring back whatever you buy. But this is not strictly true. You just need to consider alternative solutions, and one possible solution which too few people consider is a bike trailer. You may be sitting there and laughing at the concept, but you would be surprised how well they work.
It is not a difficult concept to get your head around. A car can take a trailer with it by means of attaching it to the back axle. In the same way, you can hook a trailer on to your bike and load it up with your shopping (as long as it’s not too fragile – you wouldn’t throw a box of bone china into your car boot, either) and, although it will take a little bit more pedal power, you can take things home without needing to add to the amount of pollution in the atmosphere.

Naturally, there are limitations to what you can load on to a bike trailer and where you can ride it. Going over a certain speed leaves you with the concern that the trailer might become detached, as it does with a car. You don’t want to be riding on a freeway with a trailer on your bike, either. However, in the right circumstances and with the right bike (ideally a sturdy one), the bike trailer can be a wise investment, of that there is no doubt whatsoever.

The Beach Cruiser Bike - Retro bike

We can all think of a few things from the past that we are only too happy to make a part of our modern life. Fashion, technology, music and more, they all end up being part of one of the human race’s endless obsession with retro. One of the major elements of our retro obsession is the unending love of the Sixties, but going a little bit further back it is easy to find one of the most classic bicycles of all time, the beach cruiser bicycle. Designed to be easy to ride on a beach – unsurprisingly – the cruiser with its wide tires and single-gear mechanism is one of those things that is built to last.

The beach cruiser is modeled after the traditional bikes seen all over America from the 1930`s until the 1950`s, and has become a trend in recent years, though the modern version is more lightweight than the bikes of the early days. The first beach cruiser was made by the Schwinn bicycle brand, which still sells many cruisers today, along with a wide range of mountain bikes.

The interesting thing about the beach cruiser bike is that it pretty much went away entirely for some time. If you think about classic retro developments, there is usually a line going through time which shows you how they have been popular and continued to be so throughout time. The Beatles would be a good example. The beach cruiser bike appeared in the 30s, dropped off in popularity in the 60s, and suddenly appeared in people’s estimations again towards the end of the last century. Our human utilitarian instincts mean that we like things that are built to last.

In bringing back the beach cruiser bicycle, people have shown that quality will always have its day. It should be noted that you do not need to be on a beach to ride a beach cruiser bicycle – although it is quite an experience when you do – but just appreciate it for what it is.

Shopping by bike

As we all take account of the message of environmentalism, it is not uncommon for individuals to think about what small impact we can make on our own carbon footprint. We want to reduce it, and taking our cars everywhere is one way we can be sure of increasing it. So if you have a bit of light shopping to do, it is worth considering taking your bike to the shop or supermarket. The big question is in how we get the shopping home. Although it seems like a quaint idea, many people consider bicycle baskets to be a good idea.

Sometimes you will see a person hooking the shopping bag over the handlebars of their bike. This is a terrible idea. It stops you from being able to react as quickly if you need to brake suddenly or take evasive action. The bag can get caught up in the front wheel of your bicycle. It can bang against your hand, and it can split and spill its content in the road in front of you. There are so many things that can so easily go wrong. A bicycle basket avoids this happening because it sits in the center of your handlebars, secured above the wheel, and will not affect your ability to control the bicycle.

Of course, it depends on the quality of your chosen bicycle basket. It needs to be fixed very well to the front of the handlebars, and it needs to be both narrow enough to be out of the way of your hands and shallow enough to not get in the way of the front wheel. Cycling requires an element of control, and the right bicycle basket prevents you from having problems of control.

Check the tires on your bicycle

Although there are many legal requirements that are known and followed by motorists, and these requirements tend to mean that most cars on the road are safe to drive, the same requirements are either non-existent or scarcely followed by a number of cyclists. This is no criticism of the average cyclist, who will take every effort to ensure that they can cycle safely. However, some people will always let the side down. It is important that you do not let yourself become one of those people. This means that you need to check your bicycle tires regularly.

The importance of quality bicycle tires is significant. The average bike tire has grip and tread in it that allows you to brake swiftly if you need to and means that your tires will hold fast to the road when you are going at speed or changing direction. Checking that tread is one of the most important things you can do. If you let the tread on your bicycle tires run down, then there is a very real chance of it leading to an accident. If you let your tires become flat, then the tread will wear away more quickly, and there will be a very real danger of the tires slipping and causing you to fall off.

One of the most sensible things you can do is briefly check and, if necessary, pump up the tires of your bicycle before you set off. Even if it is not a matter of urgency, getting your tires to a requisite level of firmness means that you will not have to worry unduly about the risks of cycling.

Bicycle locks

Although bikes in general do not cost as much as an equivalent quality of car there is no doubt that owners want to make sure their bicycle is protected. It is not uncommon to leave your bike somewhere you consider to be safe, even chain it up, but come back to find that someone has stolen it. It is selfish behavior, and it leaves the cyclist high and dry, but the bicycle thief has one thought in mind – freeing up that bike so that they can sell it on. It is important to remember that thieves can be enormously resourceful, so your anti-theft measures need to be of a high quality.

Bicycle locks are not a new innovation, but there are changes made in the mechanics all the time, as thieves learn how to crack older models and their efforts need to be countered. The main problem with bicycle locks is that you will be well advised to update the kind that you have, and possibly use more than one or two to make sure that even if the thief gets past your first line of defense, they will have a tough job to steal it without anyone seeing them and stopping them.

A little bit of online comparison shopping should enable you to find at least one good bicycle lock, and if you put the lock through the frame and the front wheel of the back as well as adding a back wheel immobilizer you can feel relatively secure in the knowledge that the person who tries to steal your bike will usually shrug their shoulders and move on to another target – which is really the best that we can hope for.