Touring Tuesday - Ten Best Cycling Holdays

See the world best by bicycle

I ran across an interesting article on the website of the London newspaper The Telegraph entitled "10 of the Best Cycling Holidays of 2017." All of these ten are commercial tours:

• River Roaming, Czech Republic & Germany (Chapters Experience Holidays) - Starts with a day of sightseeing in Prague, then follows the Vlatava and Elbe Rivers to Dresden. They say along a river in Germany, you will always find a castle and a bike path.
• Winelands & Whales, South Africa (KF Adventure Travel) - An eight day exploration of South Africa's western cape. Highlights include vineyards, whale watching and penguins on Boulders Beach.
• Best of the British Isles (Wilderness Scotland) -  A twelve day ride through five countries (Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland).
• Backroads of Burma (Intrepid Travel) -  Here's a chance to spend two weeks in a country that was closed to outsiders until recently.
• Finland in Winter (Exodus Travels) - Here's one for you cold weather fans. Fat tire biking on frozen tundra, watching for elk and reindeer.
• Bikes and Barges in Provence,France (Saddle Skedaddle) - Eight days in France. Along with beautiful views of other sites, you will get to see (but won't have to climb) the dreaded Mount Ventoux you've seen in the Tour de France.
• Classic Cycling Tour of Nepal (Mountain Kingdoms) - Ten days of cycling with views of the Himalayas, plus a chance to see rhino, crocodiles and tigers in Chitwan National Park.
• Seville to Porto (Explore!) - An eight day ride from Seville in southern Spain to Porto in northern Portugal. Along the way you can see sites left by the Romans and Moors.
• Classic Wales (The Carter Company) - Most of the cycling is offroad. Highlights include Brecon Beacons National Park, St. David's Cathedral and a boat trip to Ramsey Island.
• Vietnam End to End (Freedom Treks) - Here's a challenging 17 day, 1,000 mile trip from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Hanoi inn the north.

While I have no doubt that these trips are all fantastic, I can't help but notice the anti Western Hemisphere bias. No tour in North, South or Central America made the list. There also seems to be a home country bias as well. The British Isles, which have about the same area as the state of New Mexico, have two of the ten tours.