Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

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charlie77
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Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by charlie77 »

Hi all, I'm looking to go on a guided cycling holiday with my young child. Please, could you recommend?
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:D
eileithyia
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by eileithyia »

If you cycle camp, consider joining us at the New Forest Cycling week, happens every year late July based in one place and lots of family friendly rides out to beaches, crabbing, kite flying, competitions and lost of other children to make friends with.
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100%JR
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by 100%JR »

Hi!
You need to be a little more specific.
Age?
Ability?
I could recommend what my 10 year old does(20-40miles) but it may not suit yours!
latequartet
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by latequartet »

Do you mean a holiday where there's a group leader with other families cycling?
A towing-daily-road cyclist (without a car) with children and a wife. Cycling close to and on the NCN 6 in Sheffield.
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Neil Wheadon
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Neil Wheadon »

There aren't any to be honest
The only ones are CTC Holidays and Tours and I ran them for 15 years. Gary Hill took over this year. He's doing a fixed centre trip to the Netherlands in 2019
Others
New Forest Week, coming and routes offered
Skedaddle and other companies do offer them, but they are self guided and in my opinion expensive for what they offer

Why aren't there more?
You need a person with a family to run them or someone who has run them, both in short supply

Neil
Former CTC Tour Leader, now with Bikexplore
Vorpal
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Vorpal »

I haven't used either of these companies, but they do some family friendly guided tours
https://www.freedomtreks.co.uk/family-cycling-holidays
https://flexitreks.com/themes/family-cycling-holidays/

There are also companies based in other countries. I know that a colleague has done such tours with a company in Germany, and I've come across local companies in Italy that do guided tours for families.
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Neil Wheadon
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Neil Wheadon »

Vorpal wrote:I haven't used either of these companies, but they do some family friendly guided tours
https://www.freedomtreks.co.uk/family-cycling-holidays
https://flexitreks.com/themes/family-cycling-holidays/

There are also companies based in other countries. I know that a colleague has done such tours with a company in Germany, and I've come across local companies in Italy that do guided tours for families.


Both of these holiday companies are Self Guided. That means that you cycle on your own. The joy of a guided trip is that the children interact with each other from other families
I will concede that Freedom Treks do offer guided holidays but are on a barge/boat but are not family specific. They have been selected as 'family friendly' because of the distance/nature of the tour (flat probably, but children like hills as do their parents) In reality a cycling family will probably end up on their own as a children's pace (stops not speed) is different to adults.
There are a tonne of self guided family holidays, in fact flexitreks offer 53. The question in the post was guided, these aren't I'm afraid
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Vorpal »

Both companies say on their website that they offer guided, family friendly tours. I t appears that some holidays are guided, and some self-guided.

I did say that I haven't used either company, but I do know that companies exist that offer guided family tours. If those comapnies do not suit, perhaps the OP can look for them in the country where they want to holiday.
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Neil Wheadon
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Neil Wheadon »

So which ones do offer genuine guided cycling holidays for families and I don't mean a bolt on where anyone can book. I'm not being awkward asking this question, just if there is a company out there aside CTC Tours and Holidays it would be interesting to know. Any company can put guided in the headline but what exactly does that mean?
The only other one I ever found was an American Company that offered a tour along the Loire Valley. The issue with this one was two fold. Firstly the children didn't actually cycle with the parents, they were taken for other activities, secondly it was $9000 for a family of 4.
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by hamster »

We did a family Freedom Treks family Bike & Barge tour in NL, it was wonderful. Contrary to some upthread it was not self-guided and the leader really knew her stuff- wild swimming etc was part of the fun. The local knowledge was worth it.
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Vorpal »

Neil Wheadon wrote:So which ones do offer genuine guided cycling holidays for families and I don't mean a bolt on where anyone can book. I'm not being awkward asking this question, just if there is a company out there aside CTC Tours and Holidays it would be interesting to know. Any company can put guided in the headline but what exactly does that mean?
Neil

I don't have any direct experience. My colleague who took her family of a guided holiday in Germany, used a German company. There were 5 families & two tour guides. They only went 30 km per day, and stopped places that kids are interested in, like play parks, and a theme park geared towards younger kids. They also did some stuff like grilling hot dogs & marshmallows over fires for a midday meal to help entertain the kiddies. I don't know more detail than that, and as her kids are grown (university age), I don't know if the company is still doing the same packages, but I can ask her.

My colleague just used the guided tour to try a cycling holiday, and now organises her own holidays, which I think mostly means using a luggage transfer company in Germany, these days.

TripSavvy has this page, which seems to be American companies, though most appear to also manage tours for people from around the world... https://www.tripsavvy.com/best-family-b ... pe-3266504

As for the previously linked companies...
Freedom Treks say they have family friendly tours. They don't have a category for family-friendly that allow one to filter their tours, but they do have some listed as both 'easy' and 'guided' https://www.freedomtreks.co.uk/guided-cycling-holidays

Flexitreks do have a page for 'family tours' and two of them appear to be 'guided' while several others show 'Self Guided & Guided' which in some cases is likely the mix of boat & self guided cycling that you indicated. You may have to click 'load more tours' at the bottom to see some options.
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Morzedec
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Re: Child Friendly Guided Cycling Holiday.

Post by Morzedec »

Bonjour,

Come to France, camp in our garden free of charge (but you buy the wine), and I'll help you wander around the quiet lanes and voie vertes. Really safe off-road cycling for children, if they are but novices.

I'm in Deux-Sevres, which is a relatively unknown part of France - so don't expect lots of chateau, but our nearest town has a medieval quarter.

Anything else - just ask.

Happy days,
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