Cascade Bicycle Club: International Bicycle Tours: Iron Donkey: Self-Guided Bike Tours in Europe

Self-Guided trips to England, Wales, Ireland and Tuscany

Iron Donkey Bicycle Touring offers self-guided bicycle tours for independent, adventurous cyclists in Ireland, England, Wales and Italy. The tours are very competitively priced and are great value for money. If you thought Europe was out of your price range this year, think again! Whether your group is 2 or 10, just pick your own travel dates and Iron Donkey will work out a great trip for you and your gang.

Itineraries are specifically designed around regions that can provide all of the components of a great bicycle tour. These are:

1) Linear routes start in one town and end in another
2) Circular routes start and finish in the same town

Most routes comprise a core and one or more extensions. The core is designed to offer a great day’s riding while still allowing time to stop and explore the local attractions and sites of interest, and perhaps to indulge in a leisurely lunch. The core distances depend upon terrain – with 35 to 40 miles being an average.

Extensions are circular or out-and-back additions to the core, giving the option of extra miles to more ambitious cyclists. Some extensions can be very challenging in terms of terrain, distance or both! The combination of core and extension routes enables a cyclist to choose just how far he or she wants to ride on any given day.

Generally, a tour itinerary consists of alternating linear and loop routes. It is also possible to choose itineraries comprising only linear routes - this involves moving on to a new location every day.

Iron Donkey tours allow for a great degree of flexibility. Some of your choices include your preferred type/classification of accommodation, the start date and duration of your tour, whether to bring your bicycle or to rent, and whether to have your gear transferred between accommodations or to carry it with you.

At the Iron Donkey we will help you find the tour itinerary that is just right for you. Our comprehensive knowledge of the tour regions and routes enable us to give you the very best advice in this respect. We are always happy to call you to discuss options, answer questions and make suggestions.

While you are on tour you have the reassurance of knowing that help, advice and assistance is only a phone call away.

Note: If you mention the Cascade Bicycle Club Webpage when you book your trip you will receive 20% off any rental bike fee. Note that you must be a new client of Iron Donkey (plus a Washington State resident) OR be a member of Cascade Bicycle Club to redeem this offer.

For Booking Information please visit the Iron Donkey Webpage; be sure to mention you heard about them through this website to be eligible for the discounted services.

Touring Ireland with your support made for the vacation of a lifetime. Every road we turned on, every hill we climbed over, every river we crossed introduced us to scenery more spectacular than we had seen before. The trip planning was phenominal, the support excellent and the B and B's you booked were first rate. As we said to each other daily and I now repeat to you, this was the best vacation ever.

John and Joyce Grady, California, USA
Self-Guided Connemara and The Burren, Ireland, June 06

The tour was just what we wanted! We enjoyed seeing all the attractions that we had read about (it has always been one of my ambitions to see Stonehenge!), we loved the quaint B & B's, we loved the English pubs. Most of all, we loved the cycling routes! How did you manage to find all those wonderful country lanes?

In 2006, my wife and I and another couple rode a self-guided tour of Tuscany and Umbria with Iron Donkey. The trip was excellent. We have
done more than a dozen week-long tours over the years. From our experience, I highly recommend Iron Donkey. The outfit is well organized, well priced, and based on very local information. The routes were bike friendly and scenic. The restaurant recommendations were great. And the hotels were clean, comfortable, and ideally located.

We picked a self-guided tour with Iron Donkey primarily because we wanted to tour without a large tour group, but didn't have the time or resources to do the research necessary for a great trip. The extended Tuscany trip we did through Iron Donkey was flawless. Our accommodations were fantastic every night - much nicer than we could have afforded if we'd booked the trip ourselves. The places Iron Donkey chose for restaurants far exceeded my expectations. We were eating in Michelin 3-star restaurants. Fantastic! Lastly, there wasn't a single wrong turn or hard to figure out direction in any of our directions…we also found the distances to be just right each day. We would get to town in the early afternoon, with enough time to shower and sightsee for several hours before dinner. Molto bene!

Worried you might not be in good enough shape to tackle this tour? Join Cascade Ride Leaders in the Cascade Training series. We'll be leading rides every weekend geared to getting YOU ready for this summer's big CBC rides. Visit the Activities Calendar for more information and ride listings.