Lonely Planet Cycling Italy thanks BikeRentalsPlus!

Monica Malpezzi Price, and the staff at BikeRentalsPlus! are thanked for their contributions to the 2009 edition of the Lonely Planet's, Cycling Italy guide. Monica, with the help of others assisted with routes and descriptions for the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. In addition, BikeRentalsPlus! is recommended as a bicycle rental supplier. The Lonely Planet's line of Cycling books are great resources for self supported riders. We highly recommend using them to plan your rides (and there are some great lodging suggestion's as well). But, if you need a bicycle to go along with that ride, check out our bicycles available for rent.

Italy's Cruiser Bike Tours Shows off Florence, Rome and Pisa

Italy's Cruiser Bike Tours offers half day, relaxed guided tours for 39 euros and half day self-guided bike rentals (including helmet, MP3 player with an audio guide, and a map) for 39 euros per person.

Interested in just doing your own thing? Cruiser Bike Tours will rent you a cruiser for an hour (4 euros), five hours for 10 euros, and all day for 15 euros. For more information on bicycle rentals click here.

Hotels and Bicycles: What Took So Long

The New York Times reports again in its Sophisticated Traveler edition Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 of more and more hotels offering free bicycles. Park Hyatt is one which announced its new "Bicycle Valet" initiative on Facebook July 20th.

According to the Facebook announcement, "the Park Hyatt Bicycle Valet program will be complimentary at most Park Hyatt locations with a refundable deposit." The service includes use of a lock, helmet, lights, pump, kickstand, bottled water, and map." Free of charge for up to four hours! Now that's our kind of hotel.

Rent a Villa for a Week of Loop Rides, Yes

But be careful to find out where that villa is located! Is it at the top of a three kilometer long gravel road? Or, perhaps at the end of a two-mile long dead end leading to a small provincial road so that every ride you take requires you to repeat the same twenty kilometers every day.

In short, some villas lend themselves to great mountain biking, others are great for racing or hybrid bikes. But if you've not seen the property or if you are relying solely on the beautiful pictures on the villa agent's web site, be careful. Ask a few critical questions and take a look at some online resources. You might have just rented the perfect villa for mountain biking. But if you aren't a mountain biker . . .

The folks at BikeRentalsPlus! have plenty of experience in matching you up with the right type of accommodation.

Rent a Bicycle in Croatia

If you are planning a bike tour in Croatia but prefer to do it yourself rather than with a tour operation we can help you find bikes, villas, and even set up your own itinerary. We've got great local contacts who provide mountain bikes, mountain bikes with road tires, and road/touring bikes. They rent panniers and can book hotels or villas for you. There's no better way to explore the islands of Dalmatia than by bicycle. So think about renting a villa or apartment and contact BikeRentalsPlus! about bikes and logistics.

Bicyle Paths, Routes and Logistics in France

France is arguably one of the best places in the world to ride a bicycle, primarily because of the dense network of rural roads and because of complete coverage of the entire country by Michelin maps at a scale of 1:200,000. Finally, the French government tourist office has provided an online resource to help you plan.

In addition check out the resources on the EuroVelo website.

Surprisingly, despite their centralized government, the French have done a terrible job of helping you find a hotel. There is no centralized data base of hotels in France to help you plan your bike tour. Michelin Red Guides are great, but contain only 60-70% of the lodging facilities in France. Normally they'll leave out the cheaper hotels or pensions - often the ones cyclists are looking for.

Logis de France, however, a marketing consortium of small, private hotels in France has a wonderful online resource where you can search for lodging using an interactive map of France. It is great for planning a bicycle tour. Give it a try!

Lodging and Logistics for a Bicycle Tour in Germany

We wrote about renting bicycles in Germany in an earlier post and we just posted a note on lodging resources for cyclists in Italy. This post will direct you toward planning resources for routes and lodging in Germany.

If you are planning a bike tour in Germany you'll eventually want to look at the Deutscher Allgemeiner Fahrrad-Club, one of the best bicycle advocacy groups in the world.

For lodging for bicyclists in Germany click here. This page is English, but eventually you'll need to exercise that high school German as you explore their site.

For bicycle routes in Germany click here.

For a great resource on bike touring guidebooks, we've written about the German series "Bikeline" in an earlier post.