New Tour in Basilicata Italy

We're awfully busy in our off-season creating new tours. Our newest is in Basilicata, the instep of the boot, as they say. Basilicata is near the Tuscany region of Southern Italy, but it's not nearly as well-known. We'll have it to ourselves.

Basilicata by Bike.

We'll visit Sassi and its ancient maze of cave dwellings carved from the limestone. They film all the movies about Christ here. We'll bike through the country's largest natural wilderness -- Pollino National Park -- formed to preserve the Pale Bark Pine tree. Who knew?

So start saving now and join us next fall in Basilicata....

Our newest tour: Blue Ridge Rambler

As many women come back to tour with us year after year, we're always working on new tours. One of our favorite guides, Kimberly, just developed our newest tour: the Blue Ridge Rambler.

It starts and ends in her home town of Asheville, North Carolina. She says it's not as "out there" as our Alaska tour, but it's as close as we can come and still be in North Carolina. Lots of quiet, rural roads with incredibly beautiful views. It's one of our more challenging tours. I can't wait to bike it next summer!

Portland Oregon - a Cycling Culture

Read this terrific article from the NY Times about the cycling culture that has developed in Portland, Oregon. How perfect that we've designed our very own 4-week Northwest Loop for 2009 to start and end in Portland.

We'll be sure to include highlights of some of the bicycling sites around the town in our tour. One of our favorite guides, Ellee, who hales from Portland, is working on the tour right now. Email us if you'd like more information about it. It's so new -- it's not even on our website yet!

Shenandoah National Park Bike Tour

Just back from a wonderful Shenandoah tour. One of our favorite guides, Laurie, hails from Virginia and revised this tour last year. It had been a long time since I'd biked it, and it was my birthday, so I took the excuse to go.

Oh, what a wonderful week. As sweep, I spent a lot of time biking alone in the back, but I did get to see some gorgeous fall colors.



catch up with Mary as she exited the bathroom.....


and catch Lois as she descended Skyline Drive....

If you're looking for one of our more challenging tours, then consider Shenandoah. Lots of rolling terrain, with some climbs thrown in to bring you to some great views. I think I recall there was 1 mile of flat road as we biked along the Shenandoah River. It was a great way to celebrate 46.

Alaska Slide Show

Click above to watch the 3-minute slide show of our Alaska bike tours.

Bicycling Alaska

It’s been 4 weeks since I returned from our Alaska and the Yukon Tour and I already long to go back. I have never seen such unspoiled land and clean water, or experienced such solitude and beauty.

This tour has everything – good cycling on traffic-free, beautifully paved roads, 24-hour daylight, geological wonders like fjords and glaciers, Gold Rush history, and wildlife I’ve only ever seen in zoos – bears, moose, Dall sheep, beavers and eagles.

It’s truly wilderness as I’ve never experienced before. I didn’t let the camping scare me off. I admit that it’s weird to not have running water or a flush toilet -- or any toilet for that matter. But it’s so cool to hear no sounds of anyone else. No traffic, no radios, no voices other than our own. Just the sound of the wind through the trees and our crackling bonfire. Putting off showering for a night wasn’t so bad when I knew I’d get one the next night.

There’s a reason all the license plates read, “Alaska – the last frontier.” It really felt like it was. Everyone should go someplace that is so unspoiled. It’s made me think a lot more about saving the beauty that still exists here back home.

WomanTours Featured in WSJ

WomanTours cross country cyclist, Holly Edwards, was featured in Saturday's issue (July 14, 2007) of the Wall Street Journal. In the retirement section of the daily paper, the article "Round and Round" discusses how the best way to see the world is often from atop a bicycle seat.

Holly has biked twice across the country with us -- in 1998 on our Southern Tier tour and this year on our Meandering Mississippi. Watch her short video with the Wall Street Journal here.