Tourists
People who tour on their bikes.
There are many ways to take your bicycle on holidays with you.
You may opt to take home with you with the full camping paraphernalia strapped onto your bike with change of clothes, library, cooker, food, bicycle repair kit and so forth, to what is called "credit card" touring. This latter type of touring requires only minimal gear to be carried as one will eat in restaurants and stay in pubs, motels, youth hostels and camping ground huts.
Tours may be taken completely unassisted or with a support vehicle which can carry all that heavy gear and changes of clothes and so on.
One may also opt to travel alone, with friends or as part of an organised touring package. The route one chooses to enjoy the world slowly, may be near to home, within Australia or a host of overseas destinations.
In the accompanying photographs cycle touring is taking place in America, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Hungary and Australia.
To get to one's desired first pedal stroke of a tour, one may take one's bike by train, on a bus or by air. In the latter two cases, you might be asked to package your bike in a box or suitable container. In this case you usually have to dismantle your bike to some extent (wheel or wheels off, seat post out, pedals off) and then re-assembled at the other end. Experienced overseas tourists, can do this in minutes and have the pleasure of riding out of the airport, while other passengers wait in line for taxis and buses.
Alternatively, on many organised tours, the hiring of bicycles particularly for that tour can be arranged and this undoubtedly saves a considerable amount of fuss for the traveller travelling light.
In many countries in Europe it is very easy to move around within and between countries by placing one's bike in a train, ferry or bus, often in a separate compartment specially designed for carrying bicycles.
Within Australia, there is somewhat of a cycle tourism boom occuring. Some towns and cities especially cater for the cycle tourist and seem to be profiting handsomely for that.
One winning example of that is in the Northern part of Victoria centered around the towns of Bright, Beechworth, Yackandanda, Myrtleford and Mt. Beauty. The development of a rail-trail between Wangaratta and Bright with an off shoot to Beechworth, has been the beginnig of a new life in cycling and in cycle touring.
It is certainly a great confidence booster for beginning cycle touring if you can take your first pedal on a gentle gradient with no motorised traffic to concern yourself with. Some even begin their first real cycle experience as an adult in this way and for some it becomes one of life's great pleasures.
Travelling by bike is a great antedote for a winding down of what for many is a hectic pace of life. One will never "see" ten countries in ten days on a bike but you might see part of one intensely and along the way have the time to talk to others - both local and like yourself - tourists.
Links to blogs on touring.
www.theslowandthecurious.blogspot.com/
http://www.patruvius.com/nottwo/
