Traveling around the world we noticed, that nowhere people love to ride the bike as much as they do in Europe. It doesn’t matter how cold it is or how much it rains: There are always bikers everywhere. When I say everywhere, this is what I mean: in the cities, in the villages on the fields, and there are many reasons for this love we have.
1. You are faster than you think!
The many reasons for riding a bike in the cities is obviously that you move way faster, you protect the climate, and you spend less money. The most nerve-wracking part of traveling by car is finding a place to park your car – not a problem with your bike. When going by train the worst is waiting for the train to arrive if it runs late - with the bike you will not have to wait. So, in theory, you are way slower with riding a bike, but in reality, you save all the time for searching and waiting and arrive faster.
And even better: you already did your exercise for the day if you go everywhere by bike.
DID YOU KNOW? The bike was invented by Karl Drais in Mannheim. It is a german invention from 1817.
2. If you love nature, protect her as well!
If you see a lot of people driving around the woods, the parks, or the rivers with bile the reason couldn’t be clearer: they love nature. And just as easy, they just enjoy being in and around nature like so many other people. And you know what: they take care of mother nature, whom they love so much, by not polluting it with motors and gasoline. And why we are not walking? We like that too, but on a bike, it is more fun and you can get to know new, further away places.
3. And if my tourist group likes to ride bikes?
Now that we are talking about all those crazy Europeans that love to ride the bike, we should also talk about what that means for us- the tourist guides and tourism in general. When you are planning a trip in Europe or with Europeans it can be a great option to make a part of the tour a bike ride or even do the whole tour by bike. Something that we always see is: a tour has to be perfect for the kind of people you are taking with you. If they like to ride the bike: that is great. If they prefer to go in a car: perfectly fine as well. The idea is to understand and accommodate the people you take as much as you can. Just as a small tip from tour guides.
4. The extreme bike tours in Europe
Now maybe we shocked you a bit before by talking about the complete tours by bike. This is most likely something that you have never done before, but yes, it exists. In Europe, the most famous complete bike tour is along the river Danube.
DID YOU KNOW? The river danube is 2850km long and travels through the countries of Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Moldavia and the Ukraine.
Yes, you read that right, it is 2850km long. This is a complete tour you can do by bike, traveling through all those countries in about 6 weeks. Obviously, most people do not do this tour at once. The most common route, for example, is traveling in 2 weeks from Passau to Vienna and the next year the second part from Vienna to Budapest and so on. Seems extreme if you are not used to riding a bike because daily you need to ride 100km approx., but the views and the experience are more than worth it.
If you like our article, maybe even want to do an extreme bike tour, feel free to contact us here or on our social media.