Cycling tours have long enjoyed cult status amongst adventurous travellers across the globe. That is until the pandemic simultaneously hit the accelerator on fitness and sustainability goals for everyone, especially those with a more wine-dine-shop-spa approach to travel. Experiential, planet-friendly travel is now not just the flavour of the season, but reflective of our collective moral guilt.
E-cycles have widened the playing field for a new generation of eco-conscious travellers. They are affordable and low-maintenance with a lower cost per mile than manual cycles. More crucially, e-bicycles are beginner friendly, allowing you to scale hilltops and cover long distances relatively easily. These bikes minimise human effort by 70–80%, especially in those variants with throttle-assist features that allow you to move forward without pedalling.
Across cities, islands, backwater and mountains, these e-cycling trails will ease you into more intrepid, exploratory adventures.
Old buildings facing lake Pichola
| Photo Credit:
Sergio Capuzzimati
Old City Art trail @ Udaipur
If you think e-cycles are redundant in easily-managed city landscapes, book a Strode Experiences tour in the Venice of the East. The three-hour Fusion Trail is a multiple-terrain affair that begins with a ride on the sun-dappled waters of Lake Pichola aboard Roopmati, a private, heritage boat named after the legendary poet-queen of Mandu.
You will then pick up your Strode e-cycles that boast of a proprietary on-bike tablet which facilitates micro navigation and access to music, local podcasts, and audio books.
Then, breeze through the historic Chandpol gate, head to Jagdish Mandir and explore Amar Kund, Ghanta Ghar and Gangaur ghat. Unsuitable for cars and tedious for walkers (especially in Udaipur’s sultry summers) the maze of narrow gullies in the Old City are perfectly tackled on the Strode e-bike, even as its software pinpoints local food and shopping joints for you.
The trail winds up at Udai Kothi, a boutique hotel over a frothy mug of the home-grown lager at Kalali, the hotel’s own brewery. Namit Jain, founder and CEO of Strode Experiences, who hails from Udaipur, recommends you customise your trail — that can be taken year-round — by browsing your on-bike tablet to choose from a slew of experiences for a deep immersion into the city’s artistic legacy.
While on the trail, you can choose to attend a hand block printing workshop or a 20-minute rendezvous at Sikligar, the city’s only surviving handcrafted sword maker’s workshop, where you can learn about the Zawar code on Damascus knives and absorb talwar tales.
Upwards of ₹2,400 on strodeexperiences.com/
Cyclists on a tour by Offbeat Pedals
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Backwaters tour @ Kerala
Cycling on flat routes alongside paddy fields in blissful Kerala does not seem particularly taxing, but a tour extended over six days can do with some geared assistance, only so you can fully immerse into the countryside joys of God’s Own Country.
Kochi-based Offbeat Pedals offers a Kerala backwaters and fishermen villages’ tour — ideal between November and January — that is perfect for beginners of any age or fitness level. Perched on an e-cycle, you can traverse from the beaches to the backwaters and misty tea hills to cardamom forests in a single day’s ride.
“The routes are flat and easy, and we ride along the backwaters, paddy fields and the coastal fishing villages and get to know village life up close,” says Sujith Sudhan, cycling enthusiast, retired sailor and co-founder, Offbeat Pedals.
Some of the highlights include cycling to Champakulum in Kuttanad, a backwater hamlet famous for its 427 AD Portuguese church and being the birthplace of the mother of all snake boat races, held annually in June-July. You will also cycle close to the beaches near Trikunnapuzha and Varkala, stopping for toddy breaks, lunch, kayak tours and canoe rides through fish and shrimp farms. Despite the idyllic overnight home stays and relaxed pace, this six-day tour sneakily accomplishes fitness goals.
₹1,30,000 for two on offbeatadventure.in/
Cyclists on a tour by Offbeat Pedals
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Palace of Fairies trail @ Kashmir
If you are in two minds about visiting Kashmir and adding to the burden on its fragile eco-system (J&K saw a post-pandemic surge with over 18 million tourists in 2023), you may want to adopt an e-solution to the problem.
The State’s first and only e-bike system, Curve Electric claims tohave contributed to the reduction of 80 metric tons of carbon emissions. The 200-strong fleet is distributed across 15 strategic docking stations in Srinagar.
Co-founder Sheikh Yameen recommends you rent a couple and plan a two-day trail with a pal to Dara Harwan and Pari Mahal. “The electric-assist feature is especially valuable for conquering steep inclines, making the overall experience less physically demanding,” he avers of the trails best taken in spring (April, May) or autumn (October, November).
A snapshot from the Palace of Fairies trail in Kashmir
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
On Day one, a picturesque ride to the hamlet of Dara Harwan on the outskirts of Srinagar, takes you cycling alongside a beautiful river to the Dachigam National Park. On the second day, Pari Mahal (Palace of Fairies) a Mughal garden beckons. With captivating views of Dal Lake, this trail combines history with ethereal natural beauty.
₹900 per person for e-bike rentals on curveelectric.com/
Divar Island treasure trail @ Goa
If you day dream about a Goa vacation far from the beaches, party spots and Instagrammable cafes, pencil this three-hour retro-style cycle treasure hunt — ideal during monsoon and winter — in your itinerary. Organised by BLive, pioneers of EV tours in the sunshine State, it takes you cycling across mangroves, churches, temples and off-the-radar historical sites.
On a manual cycle, you would work up a sweat wandering around a pleasant but unexciting landscape and chance upon a few interesting-looking sites. But the GPS system on your e-cycle leads to the real treasures on this three-village island.
“An e-bike ride saves up to 900gm of CO2,” says Samarth Kholkar, CEO, BLive, who co-founded the company with Sandeep Mukherjee in 2018. In Piedade, you can hit the throttle of your e-cycle up a hillock to visit the impressive, Baroque-style Church of Our Lady of Compassion. The bike GPOS system leads you to the ruins of an abandoned 300-year old fort in Naroa, a popular Hindu pilgrimage site.
Divar also hosts an impressive community of birds including Asian open-billed stork, purple heron, roller jay, shikra, and small blue kingfisher, so you may want to carry your binoculars.
BLive takes you cycling across mangroves, churches, temples and off-the-radar historical sites
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Your e-cycle also leads you to the whereabouts of a traditional Goan poder (baker) in Divar where you can stock up on local poie, crusty undo and doughnut-shaped kankon.
Upwards of ₹2,500 on tours.blive.co.in/
Mega adventure @ Meghalaya
An 11-day cycling tour in the ethereal land of clouds is not meant for lightweights. Bengaluru-based The Art of Bicycle Trips organises hardcore cycling adventures around the world and their Enthralling Meghalaya tour is magical, but taxing.
Thankfully, they offer e-cycles which allow travellers with lower fitness levels to tackle the slow immersion into a landscape of bamboo trails, virgin forests, tumbling waterfalls, living-root bridges across rivers and mysterious limestone caves. While sturdiness and pedal-assist features of the e-cycle help you traverse unfamiliar terrain, a support van is available should you choose to hop off for a while.
Tourists on a The Art of Bicycle Trip in Meghalaya
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Amongst the highlights on this adventure is cycling to the edge of a jaw-dropping cliff on the Laitlum Canyon, rolling into the grasslands of the tiny hamlet of Mawphanlur, cutting through a canopy of thick forests in Mawkyrwat and steering clear of India’s only carnivorous pitcher plant species – the Nepenthes khasiana – crouching near freshwater springs at Mawlyngbna.
Best opted for between April and June, you will end on a high note at the Seven Sister falls in Cherrapunji and a 1 km ascent in Jowai to arrive at a Myndtu river, known locally as the Khasi ‘guardian angel’.
Upwards of ₹99,000 on artofbicycletrips.com/
Published – March 03, 2025 05:41 pm IST
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