Difficulty Levels
Difficulty Levels
About 95% of our routes are on paved roads, and are therefore suitable for road bikes and hybrids. We categorize our bicycle tours into three basic difficulty levels. Each of them comes with recommendations about how well you should be prepared in order to be able to comfortably complete all of the mileage (see below). However, we strive to accommodate cyclists of all levels.
Should you think that you are not quite up to a certain level, it is not a problem provided you don’t mind spending some time with our entertaining and knowledgeable drivers. On any tour, you can ride as much as you want and shorten your time in the saddle based on your fitness level and desire.
You can actually be on the bike tour without even getting on the bike if that’s something you’d prefer, for example, if your partner is an avid cyclist and you are not but would still love to spend holidays together. The choice is yours.
Easy
You should know how to cycle safely and be able to ride 20-50 km / 15-35 miles per day on a mostly flat or gently rolling terrain.
Moderate
For full enjoyment of the trip, you should come prepared to complete 60-85 km / 40-60 miles days comfortably on rolling to moderately hilly terrain.
Demanding
You should come well prepared for the trip and you should be an experienced rider. For full enjoyment of the trip, you should come prepared to complete 80-110 km / 50-65 miles per day on moderately hilly to hilly terrain. You should be able to complete several climbs on the route. You also need to know how to descend long and sometimes steep down hills and how to properly use your brakes!
Which Level Are You?
The honest test is not the longest ride you have ever done — it is the ride you could do again the next morning, and the morning after that. A tour asks for consecutive days, not a single heroic one. If you can ride the lower end of a level’s daily range on a Saturday and feel ready to repeat it on the Sunday, you are in the right place.
Terrain matters as much as distance. Sixty kilometers along a river is a different afternoon from sixty kilometers over hills, and the demanding tours ask you to descend as confidently as you climb. If you have not ridden a long, steep descent before, that is worth practicing before you travel — far more than adding another ten kilometers to your longest ride.
Our registration form asks how long you have been riding, how comfortable you are on different terrain, whether you can fix a flat, and how you plan to train for the tour you have chosen. Those questions are not a test. They tell us who is coming, so the ride leaders can pitch the day properly and keep the group together.
If You Are Between Levels
Book the tour you want and use the van for the rest. Every one of our tours carries a SAG van, and you can take a shuttle for part of a day, or for a whole day, without arranging it in advance and without explaining yourself.
That is what makes a demanding route workable for a mixed pair: one of you rides the climb, the other rides to the top of it. Nobody is counting kilometers, and there is no version of this where you are left behind on a road on your own.
If you are still unsure after reading the three levels above, tell us what your riding week looks like and we will tell you honestly which tours fit.
Training and Road Conditions, Region by Region
What a level means on the ground depends on where you are riding. These guides cover the surfaces, traffic and climbs you will actually meet on each of our routes, plus how to build the fitness for a multi-day tour.
- London to ParisCycling Safety and Road Conditions from London to Paris
- BalticsCycling Safety and Road conditions in the Baltics: Tips for a Smooth Ride
- Prague to BudapestSafety Tips and Road Conditions for Cycling Prague to Budapest
- AndalucíaCycling Safety and Road Conditions in Andalucía: What You Need to Know
- Porto to LisbonHow to Train for a Multi-Day Cycling Tour in Portugal
- Porto to LisbonSafety Tips and Road Conditions for Cycling from Porto to Lisbon
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