How a Trip to Lake Biwa with 13 Ladies Shaped Us

"My business partner and I were not new to cycling overseas. But one trip, in 2023, taught us something we had not fully understood. There is a very wide spectrum in how people travel with a bicycle, and most of it is not built for the traveller we most wanted to serve."

The hard end of the Sport

At one end of that spectrum you have the hardened bikepackers. They tour for long stretches at a time, carrying everything they need on the bike, camping gear and all.

Then there are the long-distance endurance riders. They stay in a hotel at night and are up before dawn, riding 100km a day for ten days straight, covering the whole length of Japan.

For that group, meals come from convenience stores and small street vendors, eaten quickly before the next leg. My business partner cut his teeth riding exactly this way, and he rode with the best of them. The riding is wonderful, and there is a real beauty in the effort. But it is not accessible to everyone, and it is hardly a relaxing way to see a country. That is the gap we started thinking about.

The Gap We wanted to fill

What if you could combine genuinely good cycling trails, and make the days challenging enough that you finish with a proper sense of accomplishment, but wrap the whole thing in great hotels and fantastic meals? What if the group had room to breathe, to smell the flowers, and to get a good photo or two along the way?

That was the idea.

Not the easiest version of cycling, and not the hardest. A Vision with room in it for the place, the food and the company. We were fairly certain we could make it work. We were not yet sure how.

2023, and the Thirteen Ladies

Then, on one of our first overseas tours, we had the privilege of being engaged by thirteen ladies for their very first overseas cycling tour. Everyone had been restricted for the best part of three years and was eager to travel again. I remember it clearly. It was October 2023, and Japan had just reopened its borders.

They had practised diligently in Singapore. But their interests were different from the riders we had toured with before. Instead, they valued unique scenery, take stops to take a photo, as a group and with their bikes and a coffee & tea breaks. They were in no hurry to cover a set distance before the sun went down, and they were right not to be.

The Lesson the Lake taught us

Here is where we learned something the hard way. A normal road bike tour usually runs with a single safety vehicle, one that can take perhaps 40 per cent of the riders who need a break or are struggling. That is fine when a few people are tired out. But if everyone would like to stop cycling before you reach the destination, we will have a problem.

Needless to say, that problem taught us a valuable lesson. It was also a thing to witness a Brompton World Champion trying to rally a group of ladies to finish a distance they had decided they were done with. We laugh about it now. At the time, we were learning in real time.

The '100 per cent on board principle'

Today, every one of our tours runs on what we call the '100 per cent on board principle'. Every rider, at any point, can fold up their Brompton and be whisked ahead to the next interesting place. Not 40 per cent. All of them.

That single change gives us enormous flexibility for weather and for the change of circumstances that cycling always throws up. Everyone wants to keep to a schedule and a plan. But with cycling, one thing is certain, and it's that nothing is static. Something is going to change. How you handle the unexpected is what determines the experience you deliver.

We chase the trails, not the map

This also changed how we plan a route. We do not follow a strict town-to-town policy for its own sake. Instead, we hunt for the most iconic cycling trails a country has to offer, and we use the vehicles to carry the group to the start of them. We skip the dull roads, the dusty tracks and the heavy traffic, and we spend the day where the riding is genuinely beautiful and fun.

It is a small shift in thinking with a big effect. You spend your energy on the parts worth remembering, and none of it on the parts you would rather forget.

What they taught us

Those thirteen ladies taught us how to ride and, just as important as how to enjoy life and the beauty of the country we were visiting. They were never trying to meet anyone else's standard. They were quietly exceeding their own limits, and that turned out to be the whole point.

We learned a great deal from them about what it truly means to offer a Brompton Tour to the riders who are not competitive, who are there for the experience, rather than the distance. It shaped the company we are today.

For that, we are grateful.

[Writtern by Eugene Lim, Tour Guide]

Want to learn how we build every tour?

Message us on Whatsapp +65 8925 7912 or visit our website here:

https://www.bromptonexperiences.com/when-and-where