Organised Bike Tours in Devon
While guided cycle tours taking in the culture and scenery of many of Europe’s most beautiful regions have boomed over the last two decades, if you wanted to explore the very best of Britain you could forget it – until now.
Chain Gang Cycle Tours has been running organised bike tours across France and Italy for years, but is now turning its attention closer to home, starting with Devon, where the company is based, and also one of the UK’s most popular destinations.
“You can find mountain-biking weekends and a few ‘self-guided’ tours around Suffolk and the Cotswolds. You can even find some worthy vegetarian tours if you look hard enough,” says Chain Gang founder Bernard Dugdale.
“But if you want to join a group of cyclists to explore one of the country’s most stunning counties, Devon, with the expert help of local guides, there simply hasn’t been anything available.
”We organise guided bike tours all over France and Italy and they’re great fun. We have customers coming back to us year after year from America, Canada, Australia, the UK, all over the world, yet when it comes to the West Country there’s nothing really.
“Sometimes you don’t notice what’s on your doorstep. That’s been the case with The Chain Gang, in a sense, because we’re based in Exeter.
“We know just how beautiful Devon is and how fascinating its past is. We know that the local food is really impressive, that there are good winemakers, cheesemakers and traditional cider-brewers. And of course nobody in the world does pubs quite like we do.”
A typical Chain Gang tour cycles about 30 miles per day. Group size averages ten, with a maximum of 15.
The focus is on exploring the most interesting features of a region; the best food; quiet back-roads. A Chain Gang guide accompanies every group ‘on the road’ to help with route-finding, local history, punctures, and the delicate business of negotiating with locals!
Chain Gang has taken the formula that’s been so successful in France and Italy, and transferred it to Devon.
Groups set off from Chagford, a beautiful village in the Dartmoor National Park, and stay at some of the region’s greatest and most characterful hotels, such as the George Hotel in South Molton.
They move on to fascinating and historic places like Totnes, Dartmouth and the Barbican in Plymouth, from where the Founding Fathers set off for America in 1620.
“The scenery of the South Hams and the Tamar Valley is as good as any across in Europe. “We’ve organised hundreds of tours in Tuscany, Provence, the Loire Valley and we can genuinely claim that not only is the cycling in Devon as good but the beer is much better,” Bernard adds.
For more information about our bike tours in Devon, as well as France and Italy, visit our website at www.thechaingang.co.uk
