CYCLETRAVELGUIDE · THE WORLD BY BIKE
You learn a place faster from the saddle.
Reviews of the best guided cycling tours on earth, city by city. Rice-terrace descents in Bali, the Mekong delta lanes, Tokyo back streets and the Hiroshima peace ride, Tuscan vineyards and the Golden Gate Bridge. We sort through the listings so you book the right ride.
Worth the airfare
Three rides that belong to one stretch of road.
You can hire a bike almost anywhere. But the freewheel down the Ubud terraces, the flat green lanes of the Mekong, and the quiet shrine streets of a Japanese city are rides you take in these places and nowhere else on earth.
Bali
Down Through the Ubud Rice Terraces
A van climbs to the rim of Mount Batur, and from there it is almost all downhill: a long freewheel through Bali’s stepped emerald paddies, past family compounds, banyan trees and the occasional temple ceremony spilling across the lane. The terraces have been carved by hand for a thousand years, and there is no other ride on earth quite like rolling down through them. An e-bike on the rare climbs, a real Balinese lunch at the bottom.
- 1 Electric Cycling Tour of Ubud with Free Hotel Transfer and Lunch
- 2 Ubud: Downhill Cycling with Volcano, Rice Terraces and Meal
- 3 Quad Bike Ride and Snorkeling at Blue Lagoon Beach All-inclusive
Vietnam
The Mekong Delta and the Karst at Ninh Binh
Vietnam rides like nowhere else: dead-flat lanes raised just above the paddies, water buffalo in the ditches, kids waving from doorways, and limestone towers rising straight out of the green at Ninh Binh and Tam Coc. You pedal between craft villages and rice fields, break for a cooking class or a sampan through a flooded cave, and cover real ground without ever climbing a hill. The countryside opens up at bicycle pace in a way no bus or boat can match.
- 1 Ninh Binh Day Trip: Hoa Lu-Trang An/Tam Coc-Mua Cave-Cycling-Boat
- 2 Cai Be Mekong Delta Tour: Cooking Class, Cycling & Craft Villages
- 3 Mekong Day Trip Explore Village Bicycle CookingClass Group 12 Pax
Japan
The Hiroshima Peace Ride and the Tokyo Back Lanes
Japan is built for the bicycle, and two rides stand out. In Hiroshima you pedal the rebuilt city with a local, ending at the Peace Park where the story lands harder from the saddle than from any bus window. In Tokyo you thread the shrines, river paths and side streets the world’s busiest city hides between its towers. Quiet, immaculate, deeply local: riding is simply the best way to read a Japanese city.
- 1 Tokyo Great Cycling Tour
- 2 Tokyo Top Highlights 3h Guided E-bike Tour
- 3 Hiroshima 2hr Peace Cycling Tour with Local Guide
The ride everyone books
If you only clip in once.
More riders reach for this one than anything else on the site. A safe first booking in a city you are still getting to know.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Cycling Tours
Ubud, the Mekong, Tokyo, the Golden Gate, Tuscany. The rides travellers reach for first, in the places they most want to pedal.
Where to ride
Pick your patch of the map.
Bali for the rice terraces. Vietnam for the delta lanes. Japan for the shrine streets, the USA for the Golden Gate and the wine country, Italy for the Tuscan loops, Spain for the orange-tree streets of Seville. Each region, with the rides it does best.
Which kind of ride
Pick the kind of day in the saddle.
The kind of ride matters as much as the place. Three ways to spend a day on a bike, depending on the time you have and how far you want to go.
Bali & Java
Indonesia is one long green descent.
This is the heart of the site. A van lifts you to the rim of a Balinese volcano and you roll down for hours through hand-cut rice terraces, banana groves and villages mid-ceremony. Over on Java the same idea plays out below Borobudur, the Menoreh hills falling away under your wheels. Pedal-assist where it climbs, a long freewheel where it does not, and the most photogenic riding in Southeast Asia the whole way down.
See the best cycling tours in Indonesia →Vietnam & the Mekong
The flattest, greenest riding on earth.
Out of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Hoi An the lanes run dead flat between the paddies: water buffalo in the ditches, limestone towers at Ninh Binh and Tam Coc, craft villages and a cooking class built into the day. You ride right through the delta and the rice country at the speed it actually moves, and barely turn a pedal uphill.
See the best cycling tours in Vietnam →The best part
A place opens up at bicycle pace.
A good ride is never just the route. It is the guide who knows which lane has no traffic and exactly where to stop for the view, the small group that set off as strangers, and the speed itself: fast enough to cover real ground, slow enough to wave back at the kid on the doorstep. You come home with the place mapped in your legs, and a few people on it.
Browse every cycling tour →Bridges, parks & wine country
America was built for the day ride.
Roll across the Golden Gate Bridge and coast down into Sausalito for the ferry back. Loop the old town of Key West, the most-booked ride on the whole site. Glide between the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, or freewheel down Waimea Canyon on Kauai. Smooth roads, big scenery and an e-bike option almost everywhere make the States an easy first ride abroad.
- 1 Guided Bike Tour of Old Town Key West
- 2 Waimea Canyon Downhill Bike Ride
- 3 San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge Bike or Electric Bike Rental
By distance
How far do you want to ride?
Some days you want a flat hour through the city and home for lunch. Some days you want the countryside, a craft village and a real meal. And some days you want a van to the top and a long descent to the bottom. Pick the distance, we will point you at the ride.
A couple of hours
Just roll through the city.A flat, easy spin past the landmarks and down the back lanes a walking tour never reaches. An e-bike flattens the hills, and you are back for lunch with the city mapped in your legs.
Half a day
Out to the rice fields and back.Cross the river into the countryside: paddies, water buffalo, a craft village and a guide who stops where the postcards do not. Gentle distances, a lot of green, home by mid-afternoon.
A full day in the saddle
Descend the terraces till dusk.A van to the volcano rim, then a long mostly-downhill run through the rice terraces and village temples to a proper lunch. The big days you plan a whole trip around.
La dolce vita, on two wheels
Italy rides best with a long lunch in it.
Roll the Appian Way cobbles out of Rome before the heat, freewheel the cypress-lined gravel of Tuscany between vineyards, or drop down to a Naples winery for a plate and a glass. The distances are gentle, the e-bikes plentiful, and every ride seems to end at a table. This is cycling as the Italians treat it: an excuse for the view and the meal that follows.
See all 22 cycling tours in Italy →By city
Pick a city and clip in.
Ubud for the rice-terrace descent. Ho Chi Minh City for the Mekong delta lanes. Hoi An for the paddies and craft villages. Tokyo for the back streets and shrines. San Francisco for the Golden Gate. Rome for the Appian Way at dawn.
By country
Every country worth a day in the saddle.
From the rice terraces of Indonesia to the Mekong delta, the shrine towns of Japan to the vineyards of California, Tuscany to the orange-tree lanes of Spain. Browse by the country whose roads you want under your wheels.
Dawn to dusk
A perfect day in the saddle.
New in town and want to fill a day on two wheels? Here is how it flows, from a quiet morning spin through the city to a last golden-hour descent.
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