Along with picturesque rides through vineyards in Spain, travellers with Butterfield & Robinson enjoy stays in luxury hotels and intimate meals as they explore the places they’re visiting.Courtesy Butterfield & Robinson
Tom Hale and his 21-year-old daughter recently took a biking trip through the Basque country, regions of France and Spain, with his tour company Backroads. Hale hopped on a standard performance bike and he used brute strength to power through the hilly terrain. His daughter, Georgia, opted for a less-gruelling experience.
“It’s the first time she’s ever ridden an e-bike,” says Hale, who founded Backroads in 1979, noting he and Georgia’s mother nixed the idea of putting her on one when she was younger. He won those early pedal-power battles, but he thinks he lost the war. “I don’t think she’ll ever go back to a standard.”
There used to be two speeds for biking. The childhood pastime version with BMXs and banana seats that competed for neighbourhood pavement, and Lance Armstrong wannabes (minus the doping), whose Spandex shorts took over country highways. Now, an aging boomer population and a new comfort-first clientele are changing what active travel looks like.
Lighter bikes, easier climbs and a slower pace mean that almost anyone can go almost anywhere, Hale says. “Fifty-five per cent of our guests are using e-bikes on [family] trips now and that percentage has been going up steadily.”
Mike Scarola, CEO at Canadian tour company Butterfield and Robinson, says e-bikes have been a game changer for travellers. “Five years ago, e-bikes were less than 25 per cent of our bike reservations. This year, they’ll be over 60 per cent.”
Among those hopping on e-bikes are travellers who are entirely new to biking tourism, says Shannon Stowell, CEO of Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA). The association’s 2024 report on the state of the adventure travel industry found that families, women and travellers over 50 are the most sought-after demographics by adventure-travel providers. Scarola estimates that 25 per cent of the people taking Butterfield and Robinson biking trips are new to the concept of biking vacations.
They are often spouses who in the past would have stayed home while their cyclist partner took a trip with friends, he says. Families with kids who typically couldn’t keep up are also joining in, as well as people who weren’t – or didn’t believe themselves to be – fit enough to enjoy a biking vacation.
Now guests can be all levels of fitness, clad in comfort wear, with wallets at the ready for stops at local antique shops and gourmet food counters. And this new breed of biking tourist wants to spend more time seeing the places they are passing through.
Backroads founder Tom Hale, right, with family, from left, Avery, Georgia, William and Liz on a cycling trip. Hale notes e-bikes are an increasingly popular choice for travellers.Courtesy Backroads
“I find there’s more of an emphasis on wanting to slow down and immerse themselves in a region and the culture to create more memorable connections,” Scarola says, pointing to intimate dinners and overnight stays in castles among their offerings.
“They want to go to a place that is unique, [on a ride] they cannot recreate themselves, and they want to do it in impeccable style.”
Similar reports are coming out of Quebec, where bike tourism generates annual revenues of close to $790-million, of which $108-million is spent by visitors from outside the province, says Eastern Townships tourism communications specialist Lysandre Michaud-Verrault. She adds biking tourists spend an average (per household) of more than $1,600 a holiday, they stay about seven nights, and they spend more than $275 a day on meals, accommodation, transport and entertainment.
The average stay for non-biking tourists is two-and-a-half nights, although international travellers usually stay in the region for longer. They come for things like the Veloroute Gourmande – a 235-kilometre route between Sherbrooke and Montreal that includes potential stops at gourmet cheese shops, local markets, chocolate artisans, microbrewers and more – which adds money directly into the local economy. Luxury travellers spend even more.
According to a forthcoming biking study from ATTA (in partnership with the European Cyclists’ Federation and CycleSummit, a community of cycling-tour operators), more than 75 per cent of respondent outfitters are now offering three-, four- and five-star accommodations. It suggests these groups are choosing comfier stays.
Winery visits and gastronomical touring are among the top five tour activities. Stowell says the average adventure trip costs about $3,000 a person, and high-end biking trips can almost double that cost. Yet, operators he’s spoken to suggest that luxury biking trip bookings are exploding. Backroads cites a 40-per-cent growth above its pre-COVID high.
The adaptations that luxury bikers demand are good for everyone, Scarola says. Among the changes: routes that literally take cyclists to new heights, and options that allow aging traditional bikers an alternative to giving up the sport altogether.
“We bike some routes that they just could not do on a regular bike,” he says. “It keeps them on the road longer.”