Hooked on Cycling & Walking - Bathgate

Ken W.

Our Cotswold cycle trip was our first land bike trip in Europe as all our other bike trips had been bike and boat trips. As a result we were a bit apprehensive about having to pack on certain days and traveling to the next place. As it turned out our trip was fabulous and everything went smoothly. Hooked on Cycle did a great job organizing the trip and the trip itself was wonderful. Every place we stayed at our hosts and their staff were very welcoming and the places were right in the heart of the 'action'.

The Cotswolds were extraordinarily beautiful and in my opinion the best way to see the region is by bicycle. Most of the cycling was on quiet country roads. Also, everyone we met in the Cotswolds was very friendly and helpful. This really helped our trip in finding places and assisting with our navigation.

The bikes provided by Ty's cycle where excellent and were very well prepared. The excellent condition of the bikes was certainly necessary given the hills. For a group of four people all in their mid-70s the trip was a bit of a challenge as the Cotswolds are very hilly. However, we completed the trip thanks to the excellent cycles and the determination of our team.

Thanks once again to Hooked on Cycles for the excellent trip they provided.

Martin S.

My wife and I booked the Italy Coast to Coast bike trip and everything was fantastic; we strongly recommend them. The cycling was challenging but all the lovely views going through Tuscany made it worthwhile. The folks at Hooked on Cycling were great in helping us book an extra night at the start and end of our trip, and made sure that our Co-Motion tandem traveling suitcases made it with us, along with our normal bags. This is our third trip with Hooked on Cycling and we're trying to figure out where to go next year.

Dave P.

My wife and I had a wonderful self guided tour down the Danube from Vienna to Budapest in late September. It was wet and cool, but the panniers provided are large enough to carry a rain jacket, rain pants, and rain booties. We stayed warm and dry. The accommodations were nice and sometimes very unique. I recommended the Danube self guided tour with Hooked on Cycling.

Paul L.

Amazing experience and service from Steve during a diagnostic check on my e-bike. Incredibly easy to deal with, very impressed and will use the services again. Absolutely brilliant! Thanks so much Steve.

thomas S.

I would highly recommend hooked on cycling they are always happy to help, I just needed brakes and gears looked at before a cycling event and steve was happy to fit me in which was much appreciated and now they are mobile it’s going to be even more convenient.

Steve R.

I used this operator during a 1 week in Austria back to back with a 2 week self guided bike tour Passau to Budapest. There was a noticeable difference in the quality of the two trips. Both trips offered interesting hotels well located and adequate. I felt that the organization of the trips was lacking in general. Both trips incorporated contractors and third party information, which was not particularly well blended into the trips. At one time we were told to disregard information regarding baggage delivery guarantee in a third party application that we were provided because it wasn’t valid for us. This disorganization put a burden on my group trying to shuffle through and make sense of what was necessary and what was not needed. Another sore spot for us was the condition of rental bikes on the Danube trip. Bikes were not ready to be rented being in disrepair. I would rate the Sound of Music tour in Austria, 3.5 stars. The Danube trip for deflecting blame rather than addressing the problems at hand, 1 star.

roger G.

Summary of Issues Experienced During Hooked on Cycling Sound of Music and Danube Holidays

The first problem that we encountered was the fee Hooked on Cycling charged each of us to roll the trip back a year during the covid pandemic. With a non-refundable deposit already made, we paid the required additional fee, but have always felt it was completely unjustified, as this was not our fault.
Handlebar bags. We’re told we each would be given handlebar bags for the Danube trip in emailed documents. "A gift to you" the material stated. When we pointed out that we were short four bags, we were told that each hotel room booked gets a bag, not each person. This was very misleading. Again, in the previous week tour we had handlebar bags and were counting on the space and access of this type of bag.
Rental Bikes were not ready to rent and in poor condition when we arrived at the bike pickup. About 90 minutes was needed to adjust and repair bikes. This was a very poor way to begin our Danube trip. Even more time could have been taken on the bikes but the older head person, in addition to doing shoddy work was obnoxious and disrespectful. We could only take so much of being around him
When we documented our concerns to HOC concerning the problems when picking up the bikes, it was pointed out that we were given vouchers to take to a bike shop so we could bring any bike in for repair. This is a great idea for problems that occur during the tour but does not make up for neglecting to check the bikes before renting them out. This was a very poor response by HOC.
Navigational APPs were a great idea and they did help us to navigate efficiently through places that would have taken much longer using the paper method, but... On two back-to-back trips, one two week and one week, we were given 3 different GPS based navigation methods. We found this cumbersome using a different system each week even when on the same trip on the Danube. Additionally, we had constant problems with the first two systems in particular and the second system, Passau to Vienna, was a website not an APP, which was quite difficult to use. On the first two systems, the position curser would intermittently freeze, or the map would not update, or the position curser would disappear entirely. We found ourselves closing the APP or website, reopening it, which was most annoying and time consuming. After that we would need to set it up each time. This varied from one source to another.
Several Ferry crossings were required in order to stay on the planned route. These were drawn on the course we followed (purple line) but not mentioned in the written instructions all the time. We would be riding along to discover that there was a ferry we needed to take right now. We were not provided vouchers for several of these crossings. Fortunately, we had enough cash on us to cover them. Crossings were usually located away from towns (ATM machines) and rarely took anything but cash. This could have been a very bad situation if we didn’t have cash.
Late bag delivery twice. Information within APPs stated that bags were guaranteed to be delivered to the hotel by a certain time. When bags arrived 2 1/2 hours late one night we complained. The response was “we don’t guarantee bag delivery” the APP is a second party APP (implying that the guarantee doesn’t apply because of this). Take responsibility for the information you provide your customers, don’t skirt responsibility and blame someone else.
In Summary, it was HOC’s responses or lack of responses to our issues that created our greatest dissatisfaction. Rather than comforting their clients during holidays in a foreign country, HOC defensively made excuses rather than addressing the issues at hand.

Wendy

My husband and I have been touring and traveling for many decades, and we have never had an experience like this before. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend Jon Hook or Hooked on Cycling to future customers.

Jon had poor communication and was consistently unprofessional. An example of this follows. When we asked for assistance loading the GPS app he accused us of already loading two logons and told us that if this didn’t work, we were going to have to pay for additional logons. I am familiar with the app Ride with GPS and use it. We had only loaded one logon. Additionally, I am not sure why all three of us were not given logons as we all paid for the tour. This seems very strange to us and his overall communication was unprofessional. Having a pre-ride video call, could have sorted a lot of this out at the front end. This was not done.

On one day our luggage was delivered to The Gower Hotel in Saundersfoot instead of our lodging at Harbourlight. We retrieved our luggage by foot in the rain.

We were not satisfied with the tour route and would not recommend sections of this ride in Pemrokeshire Wales. The ride around Saundersfoot had a lot of traffic. The ride from Saundersfoot to Haverfordwest had a lot of traffic as well as riding through urban environments. It is curious to us why he has this as part of the tour. At times, he took us off, known bicycle routes, like the Euro Velo 1 and national bike routes in the United Kingdom, and put us on A roads. There is no secret to route finding here. Much of the Cycling is on EuroVelo 1 and or using national cycle routes that are posted for free in the United Kingdom. Komoot is one app that will guide you seamlessly through this area. There are also paper maps you can purchase clearly showing bicycle routes to include national cycle routes in the United Kingdom.

The GPS tracks for this tour all started at much nicer accommodations in town. We were not booked into these inns. While the innkeepers where we stayed were all very nice, they were not the level of accommodation that we were expecting. We would rate them as 2 star. If Jon was having difficulty booking us into inns, this should have been communicated to us ahead of time. We spent many nights in Goodwick instead of Fishguard. Goodwick and Fishguard are very different communities with most restaurants and events happening in Fishguard, Wales.

One rental bike had a bald rear tire with no tread left. This was dangerous.

My bicycle was rattling with what appeared to be loose fenders. We tightened bolts, however, could not seem to fix the problem. Jon uses a local company for rental bikes. The employee was friendly and helpful. However, the rental fleet was average at best and it appeared they were struggling with keeping bicycles serviced.

Wales is a beautiful country with lovely cycling opportunities. We were very disappointed with the overall experience provided by hooked on cycling for the reasons provided above. If you want, a self guided ride, pick another tour company that understands customer service. Better yet, rent an electric bike, or use your own and follow the EuroVelo 1 and mix in some riding on the national cycle routes in the UK.