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We take a moment to chat with Clare Dewey, founder of Epic Road Rides. Clare was named as BikeBiz Woman of the Year in 2020 and as one of the 100 Women in Cycling by Cycling UK in 2024. Here we talk about her business, how cycle tourism has evolved and plans for the future.
Tell us a little about yourself
My name is Clare, I’m a cyclist with a passion for travel. I’ve spent the last 20 years exploring the world by bike. Before Epic Road Rides existed, it was laborious for cyclists to find information about new routes and destinations to cycle on holiday. I founded Epic Road Rides in 2018 to make it easy to get honest, reliable information so cyclists can just get out there and ride!
Your Cycling UK women in Cycling bio mentions you’ve transformed the cycling travel scene. Can you elaborate on what inspired you to start Epic Road Rides and what gaps you saw in existing resources for cycling travellers?
I created Epic Road Rides because I couldn’t find the information my husband and I were looking for to plan and go on cycling holidays. There were lots of tour operators selling tours in certain destinations and route sharing sites with tons of route options (perhaps too many?!), but no independent resource with inspiration and information on lots of different destinations. I decided it was time to change that!
What emerging trends in cycling travel are you seeing, and how is Epic Road Rides adapting to meet the evolving demands of the market (e.g., gravel cycling, e-bike touring, sustainable travel)?
Initially, we focused on road cycling, but as the years have progressed, our community has grown and our readers are looking for information on off-road riding (particularly gravel riding), e-biking and touring as well as road biking. We’ve adapted to meet the demand and try to help cyclists with different options in each destination.
It’s also exciting to see that tourism boards in many countries are embracing the benefits of cycling travel. Many tourism boards are developing routes for cyclists and bike-friendly services accreditation schemes. This is positive for those looking to explore a country by bike as, assuming it’s done well, it all adds to the experience for cycling visitors.
Epic Road Rides emphasises impartial advice and avoids directly selling tours. How does this approach contribute to building trust with your audience, and what are some of the challenges of maintaining this independence?
Our mission is to provide the most useful information on the web for cyclists who want to travel. We provide opinion-led guides to 100+ destinations worldwide and provide a level of detail that is unmatched. As cyclists, we are passionate about what we do, and I think this passion shines through in what we create.
Most of the content on our site is created by the Epic Road Rides team based on firsthand experience. We are also lucky to have a team of contributors who write articles sharing their experiences of regions and routes in various corners of the world; these wonderful people write for us on a volunteer basis and are motivated by their love of cycling and helping fellow cyclists. This builds trust within our community.
Continuing this approach is important when working with business partners such as tour operators and tourism boards. We maintain our ethos by ensuring the person we are interviewing is an expert on the topic. We are transparent with our readers and make it clear when content contains a commercial link. We also only work with tour operators we would want to go on a holiday with ourselves, which means we don’t work with everyone that approaches us.
We are very clear with our clients that our approach is ‘information generous’. This means that even if content is sponsored, clients will share a lot of detail and information that would help anyone – even if they aren’t looking to purchase support. If they are looking for support, they’ve just read a detailed article that’s given them more insights into the brand and its values. So it’s a win-win.
Balancing family life with a passion for cycling can be tricky. What advice do you have for cyclists with children looking to plan a cycling holiday, and what are some of your favourite cycling destinations for families?
My children are now 9 and 12. The 12-year-old is competing on the track and road and is significantly faster than me!
What is realistic for a cycling holiday changes a lot depending on the age of your children and how “into” cycling they are; there’s no good making everyone cycle if they don’t enjoy it, or you’ll have a horrible time!
My kids have had a pretty thorough indoctrination in cycling, and fortunately, both love it. We recently went on a road cycling training block at FeelViana Sport Hotel in Portugal. Last summer, we cycle toured the Hebridean Way in Scotland.
When they were younger, cycling holidays in the Loire Valley and the Voie des Vignes around Beaune in Burgundy were brilliant. We’ve also done tag team holidays, where one of us cycles while the other looks after the kid, and made full use of hotels with kids’ clubs too!
How important are elements like great photography and detailed GPX downloads in inspiring cyclists to explore new places, and what goes into creating such comprehensive resources?
Great photography is vital. For us, it’s about a mix of inspirational shots that capture the imagination and accurately help cyclists understand what a destination is like.
GPS routes are important in giving people a sense of the kind of rides they can find, but we see ourselves as a starting point, as the requirements of different cyclists are so variable. It’s less about providing every great route and more about sharing a curated set of routes that will give you an excellent starting point, depending on exactly what length or type of route you’re looking for.
How does cycling tourism impact the local economies of the destinations you feature, and what role does Epic Road Rides play in promoting responsible and sustainable tourism practices?
One of the joys of cycling is the fact it enables you to discover the parts of a destination far from the overcrowded hotspots; you see places and meet people there’s no way you would meet if you were in a car or any other form of transport.
Cycling UK research from 2020 shows that cyclists spend 9% more than the average visitor. The fact this money is often spent with local businesses rather than internationally owned resorts feels like a good thing; buying your coffee and ice cream in a tiny village or staying in a B&B in the middle of nowhere spreads the tourism dollar in a way that suits a cyclist and is highly effective.
We love the fact that our library of information makes it easier for people to go on cycling holidays (or even just spend a day cycling on holiday) and we’re always striving to be more useful, cover more destinations and generally do better!
The cycling world is constantly evolving. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve observed in cycling travel over the past few years, and how has Epic Road Rides adapted to these shifts?
The consequences of climate change seem to be having a significant impact on where people want to cycle and when. We see May and September as two of the most popular months for cycling holidays, and we see increasing interest in Northern Hemisphere destinations like Norway, Sweden and Iceland. We also see seasons extending in Southern Europe; October and even November are increasingly popular months for cycling holidays in the southern regions of countries including Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and Cyprus.
Over tourism is leading to the destination dupe phenomenon; readers wanting to know where they can stay that’s a great alternative to a more famous, busy and expensive option. For example, Friuli Venezia Giulia rather than Tuscany or Alentejo rather than the Algarve.
As we see such changes, we evolve our content creation strategy to adapt to the change and search out opportunities to create top-quality content that will help cyclists.
What are some of the most common questions or requests you receive from your customers?
Our customers are tour operators and tourism organisations who are looking for exposure to our community of cyclists in order to increase the number of holidays they sell or increase the number of visitors that visit their destination.
Cycling tour companies and holiday operators are typically looking for our help with building their brand recognition and with lead generation. Tourism organisations want to know how they can raise the profile of their destination amongst those looking for cycling holidays.
We are delighted to help our clients with this and build close working relationships with them to achieve return on investment. I am pleased to report that our repeat client rate amongst tour operator clients sits at around 85% – always room for improvement, but I think it shows we’re doing something right!
What are some of the most memorable or impactful cycling experiences you’ve had through your work with Epic Road Rides, and what lessons have you learned from these adventures?
In 2023, we went on a cycling tour through Sarawak, the southern region of Malaysian Borneo. We flew to Kuching and spent a week cycling through Sarawak. It’s not somewhere that’s famous for its cycling, but we found some beautiful roads, and a cycling holiday was an amazing way to meet local people and see some incredible wildlife.
We stayed with a Bidayuh tribe in a longhouse, at a Buddhist temple and a boutique hotel in a restored 19th-century mansion. We met members of a (former headhunter) tribe at Annan Reis, we learned how to shoot poison arrow darts through a blowpipe and spent a day trekking to some waterfalls. We got up surprisingly close with orangutans, proboscis monkeys and spiky tree lizards. Cycling in Borneo was an incredible mix of great riding, cultural immersion and tropical sunshine.
The trip got us behind the scenes of the country, we felt far away from other tourists and got the feeling we saw a side of Borneo that not many get the chance to experience. It was one of the most memorable trips I’ve ever done!
Looking ahead, what are your predictions for the future of cycling travel, and what role do you see Epic Road Rides playing in shaping that future?
I see the demand for cycling travel continuing to grow as cyclists continue to combine their passion for cycling with their holidays – and those who are new to the idea of cycling on holiday embrace the benefits of this way of seeing the world. After all, it’s an excellent choice both from the responsible travel perspective and for the unique view of the world you get when riding a bike.
I very much hope we can continue to provide cyclists with the best resource for inspiration and information to help them plan road, leisure, gravel and touring holidays all over the world.
With your site gaining 1.5 million page views a year, what strategies have been most effective in building your audience, and what are your future plans for Epic Road Rides?
Our main strategy has been the same from day one: to provide the most helpful answers on the web to the questions our readers are researching – whether that’s inspiration for where to travel or the practicalities of how to make it happen.
By being consistently useful to our readers, they stick around, tell their friends and search algorithms notice too. In this way, we organically and sustainably grow our readers and our business year on year.
We remain dedicated to helping more people take holidays by bike and are excited for the future!
