Since the pressure of urban life, pollution, daily stress factors and our lack of physical exercise is having some rather nasty effects on our health condition, more and more people tend to crave for running away (or cycling in this case) from all this, even for a short time. No pollution, no stress, no worries, no car, no walls or roof; sometimes it’s all we wish for after a long week. This is the point where you need to start thinking about taking a cycling holiday.
If we were to divide the term, there are many types of cycling holidays that you can choose from. Starting with taking a group of friends and simply going out of town for the weekend, on your bikes, without a lot of planning ahead. This is probably the most common of cycling holiday types and it gives you the highest sense of freedom. Others prefer organized events and there are a lot of companies that deal with such things. If you choose such an event manager for your cycling holiday, you’ll be surprised at the multitude of options they have to offer. They’ll set up your track, plan ahead where you can take short “pit-stops” for food and water, where you sleep at night, what sights are there to see along the way and so forth.
A different approach to your cycling holiday would be a mountain bike trip. If you’re a beginner you’ll want to take on a slightly less bumpy track, but of course the hardcore fans of this particular line of cycling tend to look exactly for that kind of trouble, choosing the steepest, harshest tracks they can find. It’s quite a challenge to pedal your way through the muddy, natural roads of mountain forests or to getting across the steep terrain, but the feeling you get when you finally manage to get to where you wanted is enormously satisfactory.
Mountain cycling holidays, without a doubt, include less sight seeing and more adventuring and hard work, but they are equally enjoyable in the end. Nevertheless, before taking on such trip, make sure you carefully choose your track and that you have that’s needed in such conditions on you. Since the mountain track will most likely include natural obstacles such as steep hedgerows, small rivers, muddy portions and bumpy terrain, it’s quite easy to fall off your bike and get hurt. That’s why pads, a helmet and general protective gear should be worn at all time.
Some of the most popular cycling vacation regions are European, but of course South and North America also have their fair share of such events. In Europe we can safely include Holland, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Scotland or Switzerland as having some of the most popular and breath-taking tracks. In the Americas, the United States, Canada, Cuba or Brazil also make for great cycling vacation targets.
If you prefer the sense of adventure and the feeling of being right in the middle of nature, you can skip the hotel or motel you’ve been planning on staying in for the night and camp up your tents in a safe place. Nothing calms you more after a long week of work and after a long day of cycling, than the feel of the ground underneath you, the whispering of the stream you camped near and the leaves of the surrounding forest trembling in the soft wind while you are tucked away in your tent. Just make sure you’re as far away from civilization as safety allows it, so that you don’t get the roaring sound of a truck’s motor or some nearby highway to ruin the feeling for you.
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