Bike Options on Your Tour

The Importance of Tuning Your Bike

While we carry tools, parts, and even spare bikes to keep you rolling it’s really important to make sure your bike is in tip-top shape before you arrive. Your bike is a huge part of your bike tour, and if it’s dialed on day one you’ll be able to get the most out of every ride. Imagine spending your day listening to a skipping chain or squealing brake instead of immersing yourself in the scenery and history on your ride. 

Depending on the tour we’ll cover 120 to 320 miles over the week, that’s a lot of riding! If some parts of your bike are on their way out before you arrive, they’re certain to fail part way through the trip. It’s a bummer to be out on the trail or road and distracted by a poorly tuned bike, or worse have an accident or injury due to an unsafe machine. 

The absolutely essential items to have checked by your mechanic are your brakes, wheels, tires and steering components. In detail, this is the full Pro Tune service we recommend. You can give this list to your bike shop and ask them to run through it. It’s worth it!

Pro-Tune Checklist

• Torque all fasteners—including stem, cranks, pedals, hoods or brake levers, brake fixing bolts, and seatpost
• True wheels and make sure quick releases and thru-axles are greased and torqued
• Adjust and grease hub bearings as needed
• Adjust brakes, bleed hydraulics or replace cables and housing as necessary  
• Replace brake pads with less than 70 percent of their life remaining
• Adjust front and rear shifting—align derailleur hanger and replace cables and housing as necessary
• Check chain and drivetrain, replace parts as necessary. If a chain is badly worn the cassette and chainrings should be replaced as well
• Check bottom bracket and replace as necessary
• Replace tires that are more than half worn
• Test ride bike and address any creaks or noises
• Replace grips or bar tape as necessary

This may seem like a big service, but it’s one of the first steps in making sure your adventure is a fun and safe time. As an added bonus, it’ll also make your bike more fun to ride at home. 

If you’re unsure about the condition of your bike and can’t get it into your local shop, we have a fleet of rental bikes ready to roll for you.

Some Personal Bikes We Cannot Accommodate on Tour

There are a few styles of bike we’re unfortunately unable to accommodate. This list is due to safety issues and the experiences of past guests. We’ve tried it all, and use those past experiences to make sure everyone’s trip is better and more enjoyable.

Trikes and Recumbent Trikes

Many of the rail trails we ride have a grassy middle section that doesn’t accommodate bikes with three wheels. Imagine dragging your inside wheel through the slow grass all day. No fun!

On road tours, trikes are too wide for many narrow country roads. We’ve had dangerous close calls with motorists passing trike riders in spots where it isn’t an issue to pass a rider on a two-wheeled bike.

Recumbents

Recumbents are more challenging to handle than upright bikes on dirt trails and winding hilly roads. Additionally, a rider’s vision is restricted by the laid back position and even with a flag riders are lower and less visible to cars and other riders. Since the safety of the entire group is our main concern, we unfortunately can’t accommodate recumbents. Additionally, our van rack system is optimized for upright bikes and can’t handle the extra length and unique shape of a recumbent. 

E-bikes

We only allow Class 1 pedal assist e-bikes on trips. These bikes don’t have a throttle and are speed limited to 20mph. This is to ensure a fun trip for the entire group. It’s difficult or impossible for riders on analog bikes to keep pace with high powered e-bikes from brands like Rad Power and similar. In addition, some high powered or scooter style e-bikes are too heavy for our guides to safely load and transport. We only allow e-bikes that are under 50 pounds, battery included. 

If your personal e-bike doesn’t meet these requirements, no problem! We have a fleet of Class 1 e-bikes with high end Bosch and Shimano drive systems available to rent. And all of our tours are van supported, so if you decide to ride an analog bike you can always take some miles off. There’s absolutely no pressure or reason to ride every mile if you don’t want to! 

E-bikes are not for beginner riders

Although it’s tempting to think that an e-bike might help turn a less experienced rider into a hill conquering big mile munching machine, this unfortunately isn’t the case and can lead to very unsafe situations and even bad crashes.

E-bikes are more difficult to control than analog bikes. This is because they’re heavier, faster, and more powerful. If you find it challenging to handle an analog bike on corners or rough ground, imagine amping up the speed and throwing a powerful motor into the mix. It’s not a good combination.  

An e-bike will help you ride faster- however, it isn’t self riding. It won’t help you brake, balance, corner, or navigate loose surfaces. 

Although our bikes have a 20mph motor cutoff, that doesn’t mean that the bike will stop accelerating downhill. E-bikes pick up speed faster downhill and are more difficult to stop due to the added weight of the motor and battery. This doesn’t mean that they’re unsafe bikes, all of our rentals have stable handling and powerful hydraulic disc brakes. However, those powerful brakes need a confident rider pulling the levers.

E-bikes are not more comfortable than analog bikes

The riding position, fit and saddle on our e-bikes is the same as our analog bikes. 

A long day on a bike seat is a long day on a bike seat, electric power is no substitute for getting your butt used to the saddle!

Class 1 e-bikes don’t power themselves  

All of our e-bikes are Class 1 pedal assist. This means that the bikes don’t have a throttle or gas pedal, and won’t provide any assistance if the rider isn’t pedaling. 

Additionally, the Bosch and Shimano motors on our bikes are equipped with a device called a torque sensor. A torque sensor is like a scale that measures how hard the rider is pedaling. Then the motor will take the amount of power a rider is contributing with their muscles and amplify it.

This means that when you’re riding an e-bike, you have to meet the bike half way. It makes the experience of riding one more like being able to turn the resistance down on a spin or exercise bike. You still have to work a little and there are no free miles. 

It’s nothing like riding a motorcycle or scooter, to get a pedal assist e-bike to provide assistance requires roughly the same amount of muscle effort as riding an analog bike at 5mph on flat ground- but instead of 5 miles an hour you can wizz along at 15!

However, if you’re not used to handling a bike at 15 miles an hour, a week-long tour isn’t a good time to try it out. A crash is no fun for anyone.   

Who is an e-bike really good for?

E-bikes are excellent for experienced riders that have seen their power levels drop over the years (everyone gets there). Many of our guides and riders have described the experience as “Taking 20 years off your legs.”

Experienced riders don’t have many problems handling the extra weight or power of the e-bike, since they’re already used to controlling a bike at the higher speeds an e-bike is capable of.

For riders that are confident and capable bike handlers, an e-bike can really make a trip a great experience.

But new riders that are still learning to handle a bike are much better served riding analog bikes and taking advantage of the support van. All our tours are van supported, and there’s never any pressure or reason to ride every mile of the trip. You’re on vacation! Relax and have fun