We really believe the Cycle Touring Festival is different.
Unlike other festivals, we don’t have rows of stalls selling you stuff. Our focus is on stories and practical workshops. If you want to buy stuff, you can go to a shop.
Unusually for a cycling event, it’s not about bike rides. You are more than welcome to bring a bike (and certainly encouraged to ride your bike to the event), but the focus of the weekend is on talks and workshops. It’s as much about exploring the world, as it is about riding your bike.
We deliberately don’t sell day tickets. Part of our ethos is about building community. People arrive on Friday as strangers, and leave on Monday as friends. We believe that day tickets would take away from this sense of community.
All tickets include food for the whole weekend. We believe that eating together brings people together. We’ve shared meals with people around the world and we think it’s a great way of building new friendships.
We avoid tales of bravado and macho competitiveness. Cycle touring is accessible to anyone and we want to spread that message. It doesn’t have to be about going fast or far. It’s simply about exploring the world by bicycle. That might be for a weekend, or for several years. All are welcome at the festival.
Cycle touring is a niche discipline and the festival exists to bring us together. Visitors to the festival have often commented that they’ve found their ‘tribe’. Over the course of the weekend, an incredible sense of togetherness is created through the sharing of experience and knowledge, and lifelong friendships have been formed. Many people come on their own, but aren’t alone for long.
It’s hard to express in words what the festival is like – you’ll just have to come and see for yourself.