England

Self-Guided tour with my friend, it was amazing, Ride-with-GPS was perfect, did not get lost anywhere. Ride Inn to Inn, picturesque villages, stone houses, just like Downtown Abbey. Felt very safe every day, Pubs and food were delicious. We had no problem with our bikes, it was a perfect trip! Note there was no leaders on this Self-Guided tour but the VBT local host that set up our bikes and make sure our luggage was delivered at every Inn was great, very helpful and friendly.

This is a difficult review for me. This was my 10th VBT tour but first self-guided. I had 2 friends join me on this tour. This was the first tour for one and the 2nd tour for the other. The biking on the first day out of Oxford on the "tow paths" was not a good experience. The group should have been transported out to the Blenheim Palace area to start biking. The path from Oxford to our first paved road was terrible. Many walkers, path overgrown with bushes (very hazardous), decrepit house boats along the canal, fishermen who would not move. I have never experienced this on a a VBT tour. There were no mirrors on the bikes which caused problems. There were problems with the rear rack coming down on the rear wheel and locking it. Several people had this issue. We lost 3 hours on the first day because of this (waiting for someone to come help us with the bike) and lost our tour of Blenheim Palace which we had tickets for which we had paid for. Because we had no mirrors I could not watch my friends and it was impossible to stop along some of the roads. I lost them and they arrived at the hotel around 8 p.m. One of my friends bike battery died so she had to bike about 8 miles with no power. We did not bike the next day because the one bike needed to be fixed because of the rear rack and my friends were so exhausted from being lost the day before. The VBT guides who helped us were fantastic but busy with a guided tour. We would not consider a self-guided tour in the future. . VBT really must consider eliminating the ride out of Oxford, it is absolutely dreadful and one of my friends fell due to the overgrowth. Please consider biking people out near Blenheim Palace to start the tour.

We had great hotels and guides and interesting cities and towns to explore. The big negative is that the roads and country lanes had roads covered in potholes, loose gravel at the bottom of the hills and drivers who at high-speed drove by leaving not much room. We had 15 riders and eleven falls of the bikes. I had one when a person knocked me off my bike by putting his elbow out to hit my mirror when I rode by with no room to move over. All the other trips I have rode on had safer roads. The biggest complaint we had was when we landed at Heathrow, Terminal 2, we saw no driver to pick us up. We came out from baggage claim and no one with a VBT sign. We looked around for 15 minutes and then went to The Currency Exchange Kiosk as noted in our travel paperwork. After 10 minutes standing there, a man offered his help and called the Company on our paperwork. They said someone was on the way and to stay there. It took them a couple minutes to recognize our name and pickup information. After 30 more minutes waiting at the Kiosk, my wife walked around again and spotted a man holding a VBT sign and he told us that he had been there for 50 minutes. We knew that wasn't true and we both had searched for anyone with a VBT sign. The second incident with ground transportation came when we were scheduled to leave our hotel in Dublin. We were supposed to be picked up at 11:00am for a two-hour ride to Heathrow. At 11:10, our hotel desk person called APL Cars London and they said they would be there at 11:20am. At 11:30, the desk lady called again for up and they Company told her the driver was almost there and not to worry as our plane was taking off late. Our desk person to her that she checked, and our flight was on time, so we knew the ride person was lying. Our ride finally showed up at 11:50 am, 50 minutes late. We did get to the airport in time for our flight nut we were nervous with the rushed ride, worrying about checking in our bag, and finding our gate. We would have been more comfortable if we had started on time. VBT should reconsider using this ride company and they were late both coming and going on our trip.

Beautiful scenery, charming villages, local lodging, hilly rural roads, quintessential Cotswold .