Frequently Asked Questions

Start with a destination and season where you can ride good roads day after day, then plan each day as a repeatable distance rather than one long effort chopped up (most fit riders do 40 to 70 miles a day depending on climbing). Line up lodging on or near the route, map your food and water stops, and have a bail-out plan for mechanicals or a bad day. The hardest part is the logistics, lodging, resupply, and backup support, which is exactly what a guided, supported trip handles for you.

Most full-service guided road cycling tours in the US run about $250 to $500 per person per day, which puts a long weekend or week between roughly $1,500 and $3,500. Premium luxury operators charge $600 to $850 or more a day, while budget or self-supported trips can dip to $150 to $250. Whatever the headline number, it should cover lodging, most meals, a guide who rides with you, and on-road support, so always compare the full list of inclusions and the refund policy, not just the price.

There is no single best one, because the right trip depends on your fitness, your calendar and the altitude you can handle. For winter riding, southern Arizona and the Mount Lemmon climb are unmatched; for spring, the Texas Hill Country; for a first long multi-day trip, the Natchez Trace Parkway, where commercial traffic is banned and there are no stop lights for 444 miles. If you want to be tested, the Blue Ridge Parkway or the Vermont gaps will do it, and the spring bike-only window on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier is the best single day in American cycling if the snowpack cooperates.

Most guided road cycling trips run 3 to 8 days, and 4 to 6 days is the most common length. Remember that the trip length is not the riding length: a 5-day trip usually has 4 riding days, because you arrive on the first day and ride short before flying home on the last. On a riding day expect 30 to 80 miles, with one bigger day in the middle, and check the climbing per day as well as the distance, because that is what decides how long you are out there.

A guided bike tour has staff with you all day: guides riding with the group, a support vehicle on the route, a mechanic, and most meals included. A self-guided tour buys you the same planning, hotels and daily luggage transfers, but you ride the route on your own from GPS files and written notes, with a phone number as your only backup. At the same operator a guided trip often costs roughly double, and the extra money is the people, the vehicle and the food.

Nothing. Tips are not required on a Velo Escapes trip and we do not accept them. Everyone who works on one of our trips is paid a fair amount up front, and any tip owed to an outside vendor, a driver or a hotel, is paid by us out of the trip price. The price you see when you book is the price you pay.

That is a deliberate choice by our founder, who rides every trip himself. A tip is a cost moved off the price you compared against other trips and onto an awkward conversation on your last night, which makes it a hidden charge, and we do not believe in hidden charges.

Worth knowing when you compare trips: every other bike tour company does expect a tip for its guide team, commonly around 10 percent of the trip price or 20 to 50 dollars per rider per day, and that amount sits on top of the price you were quoted.

No major US airline charges a separate bicycle fee any more. Your bike flies as a standard checked bag, which is $45 to $50 each way for the first bag on American, Delta, United, Alaska and Southwest, and four of those five waive the oversize charge on a bike case. What catches people is weight, not the bike: the overweight fee starts above 50 pounds and runs $100, and a travel case with a road bike and a few extras in it lands close to that line. Weigh it at home before you go. Alaska is the one exception, waiving the overweight fee on a bike up to 70 pounds.

On the bike, eat 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate an hour on a short day and 60 to 90 grams on anything over two and a half hours, mostly through a drink mix so you are not chewing nineteen gels. Off the bike the total is what matters: 6 to 10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight on a normal riding day and 8 to 12 on a big one, with the first four hours after the ride at 1 to 1.2 grams per kilogram per hour plus 20 to 40 grams of protein, because you ride again tomorrow. On our trips breakfast, on-bike fuel and hydration are provided, so the part you own is practicing your own products in training instead of trying them for the first time on the biggest day of the week.

On the bike you wear a full-zip jersey, bibs or shorts, cycling socks, cycling shoes, gloves, riding glasses and a helmet. Only three of those repeat: the jersey, the bibs or shorts, and the socks. That's a set, and you want three sets for a week, so one's on you, one's clean and ready and one's drying. Pack laundry pods or sheets. One pair of shoes, one pair of gloves, one pair of glasses and one helmet is all you need. Two sets are enough only on a trip under about three days. Add arm warmers, knee warmers, a wind vest and a packable shell. They weigh almost nothing and they cover the twenty to thirty degree swing between a cool roll-out and a warm afternoon. Off the bike you need comfortable clothes, one pair of walking shoes and a warm layer for the evening.

Tucson has six rides. Mount Lemmon is the main one, 27.8 miles and about 6,276 feet of climbing on smooth pavement with a mile marker the whole way up. After that it's Gates Pass and the McCain Loop west of town, the 8 mile Cactus Forest Loop Drive in Saguaro National Park East, Madera Canyon and Kitt Peak to the south, and the Chuck Huckelberry Loop, 137 miles of paved path with no cars on it. The season runs November through March, and February through April is the best of it.

Ask how many riders will be on the trip, and how many have booked so far. Ask what happens when riders ride at different speeds. Ask what the miles and the climbing are for each day. Ask whose bike you're on. Ask who's leading, and whether they ride every day. Ask what's included, and what you pay for on top. Ask what happens to your deposit if your plans change. Most of these have no right answer. Companies answer them differently. The point is knowing which trip you're buying before you pay.

A century is hard. Eating and pacing matter more than raw fitness. Can you ride 60 miles at a conversational pace and finish feeling tired but fine? Then you can finish 100. It'll take you 7.5 to 9 hours including stops. The climbing matters far more than the distance. Over about 4,000 feet of climbing, it becomes a climbing ride that happens to be 100 miles long.

Bike touring means carrying your gear in panniers hung on metal racks. You ride mostly on paved roads, and a normal day is fifty to seventy miles. Bikepacking means strapping soft bags straight to the frame, with no racks at all. You ride dirt and gravel, and a normal day is thirty to fifty miles. So which one do you need? It comes down to whether you're carrying a tent or sleeping indoors. That decides the load. It also decides which bike you need and how long your days are.

Eat 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate and 20 to 30 grams of protein within an hour of finishing. Do it hungry or not. Drink 16 to 24 ounces with salt in it. Then get out of your kit. Shower within fifteen minutes. Put your legs up for ten to fifteen minutes. Then stretch your legs, and hold each stretch for at least thirty seconds. If you have a massage gun, spend about ten minutes on whatever hurts most. After that, eat a real dinner. Then sleep eight hours. If you're riding again the next morning, that first hour matters much more, because sixteen hours is the whole window you have.

The best-known road rides are the Willow City Loop, the out and back from Fredericksburg to Enchanted Rock, the Luckenbach loop on Old San Antonio Road, the ranch roads around Stonewall and the LBJ Ranch, and Devil's Backbone near Wimberley. The Twisted Sisters are on that list too. They're ranch roads 335, 336 and 337, and they're for strong riders. Fredericksburg is the best base, because most of these rides are within reach of town. Go in spring for the bluebonnets. Go in October and November for cooler weather and less traffic.

There are three ways. You can fly with your own bike packed in a bike travel bag. Most US airlines charge the same for it as for a large checked suitcase. You can have your local bike shop take your bike's measurements, box it and ship it to a bike shop at the destination. That shop builds it back up to those measurements, and after the trip the same happens in reverse. Or you can rent a good-quality bike at the destination. Ask the rental shop which measurements it needs, have your local bike shop take them off your own bike, and the rental shop will set the bike up to fit you.

If you ship, you pay shipping both ways. The bike also has to leave early enough to be built and waiting when you arrive. If you rent, ask what the bike comes with. Check the groupset, the pedals, the crank length and whether it has a power meter. Check your airline's latest bike bag policy before you fly. If you're not comfortable putting the bike back together yourself, have a bike shop at the destination do it.

In most of the US it's spring or fall, roughly March to May and September to November. The mornings are cool and the afternoons aren't hot. The days are long enough for a full day of riding. There are exceptions. The desert Southwest and Florida are best from November to March. The Rockies, the northern states and New England are best in summer, when the desert is over 100 degrees and in its monsoon season. Before you book, look up the average high and low, the storm season and the hours of daylight for the exact week you'd ride.

If you're flying to a bike tour, yes. Buy a policy that covers your flights and the trip from the tour company's refund cutoff onward, and check that cycling isn't in its exclusions. If you're driving to a trip in the US and the company refunds everything up to a cutoff date, you don't need cancellation coverage, but check that your health plan covers care in another state. Either way, cover your bike separately, because a travel policy's baggage limits don't cover what a road bike is worth.

Yes. Most bike tours still ride in the rain. Whoever is leading the ride changes the day's plan: a later start, a shorter route, or a long coffee stop while a storm passes. A ride should stop for lightning, water running across the road, or cold rain on a long descent. Bring a packable rain shell, full-fingered gloves and lights. Brake earlier on wet roads.

Does your ride have long climbs or lots of short, steep hills? Work that out first, because they're trained differently.

For long climbs, ride steady efforts of 10 to 20 minutes at a pace you could hold for about an hour. Build toward 40 to 60 minutes.

For short hills, ride hill repeats of one to three minutes with an easy roll back down.

For both, fit easier gears. Start every climb slower than you want to. And ride hills on back-to-back days before your trip.

Most riders take two to three and a half hours to ride from the bottom of the Catalina Highway to Summerhaven, about 24.5 miles and roughly 5,000 to 5,500 feet of climbing. Going on to the summit adds another 20 to 40 minutes. The descent takes about 45 minutes. For most riders, the full ride up and back takes four and a half to five and a half hours.

Yes, if most of those rides are easy. Keep the hard rides to one or two a week. Ride the rest at a pace where you can hold a conversation. On a multi-day trip, several days of solid riding in a row is fine for a fit rider who eats and sleeps properly. Take a day off if your morning resting heart rate stays up, your legs never start to feel good on an easy ride, or one spot keeps hurting.

In a group on rolling roads, 15 to 16 mph is a steady pace. 17 to 18 mph is a fit club ride. 19 mph and up is fast. Riding alone, take about 2 to 3 mph off each of those, because nobody's sharing the work of pushing the air. Compare moving average with moving average on the same kind of road. Hills, wind and stops all lower the number.

Early morning is the best time of day for most rides: it's cooler, the wind is lighter, there are fewer cars, and you're done before the day gets busy. Your legs are slightly stronger in the late afternoon, which helps on a short, hard effort, but on a long or hot day the morning is still the better time to ride. Avoid the hours around dusk on roads with traffic, or ride them with bright front and rear lights.

Start with about 24 to 34 ounces an hour and put about 700 milligrams of sodium in each 24-ounce bottle, up to about 1,000 on a hot day. Drink a little before you feel thirsty, and expect to pee about once every two to two and a half hours. If you pee more than that, add salt first, then drink a little less. The danger on a long ride is drinking a lot of water without enough salt.

Your accommodations, most meals, a support vehicle on every ride, mechanical support, and a host who's there the whole way - the founder rides every trip. You ride; we handle the rest. Each trip's page lists exactly what's included, down to the meal.

Every trip tells you honestly who it's for. Each trip page publishes the daily mileage, the climbing, and plain-language distance and effort ratings - some tours are built around big days in real mountains, others leave room to ride as much or as little as you want. Read the ride profile before you book; it's written so you know exactly what you're signing up for.

Yes - we're built for riders who bring their own machine, and most of our riders do. If you'd rather not travel with yours, many of our trips offer quality rentals through a trusted local shop; each trip page lists that tour's rental options.

No - our insurance coverage doesn't extend to e-bikes, so every rider is on a standard bicycle. If you're unsure whether a trip's routes are within your range, reach out before booking - every tour offers shorter options each day, and we're happy to talk it through.

Simple and clearly posted: every trip has a refund cutoff date, shown before you book and on your booking page. Cancel before that date and everything you've paid is refunded. After that date, payments are non-refundable. The full policy is in our Terms and Conditions.

Absolutely - solo riders are a big part of every trip. Lodging is priced by room occupancy: take a room to yourself, or share one to lower your per-person price. Either way, you're riding with the group all day, and our groups are small enough that nobody stays a stranger for long.

Each trip is scheduled for its destination's best riding window, and every trip page includes a weather summary for those dates. If a day turns ugly, your host adapts the plan - the support vehicle is never far away.