International Bicycle Tours

About

International Bicycle & Barging Tours provides cycling and barging tours around the world.

Story

In 1991 a new retiree tried IBT's Cape Cod trip, just to see what a bike tour was like. Eighteen tours later, having decided long ago that IBT tours are exactly right, that retiree has signed on for a nineteenth. Repeat customers, known as IBT Alumni, are frequent in the history of the company, founded in 1976 by Frank Behrendt, indefatigable bicyclist and now Nordic Walker.

Frank's intent is to provide tours at reasonable prices with the trimmings many tour companies omit. IBT participants are met at the airport, so aren't required to search for taxi or train or bus to their first hotel. Instead of being given a map and good wishes as they set off for the day; they ride as a group led by the tour guide with an appointed "sweep" bringing up the rear. The unique IBT corner system, in which a biker is posted at turns, means that getting lost is hard to do.

IBT guides know the territory and the language, important as we often stay in towns or villages with small, family-run hotels. Meals are local and seasonal and dinner makes a friendly end to each day. Expanding beyond bicycle tours, IBT's offerings now include Biking and Barging and Nordic Walking and Barging. Barging has the advantage all travelers cherish: no need to pack and unpack as your cabin is your home for the trip! Nordic Walking, the invigorating sport of walking with a special stride using long poles, meshes as perfectly with barging as bicycling does.

Experience counts. IBT has the experience. Setting out to provide the best tours in the business for people to whom knowledgeable tour leaders and safety in operation are important, IBT has grown but never forgotten the aims Frank originally envisioned.

Products

Biking tours, bike and barge tours, Nordic walking tours