My first Fat Tire Tours experience was in Paris, where I found their bike tour to be the perfect…read moreantidote to acclimating to the time change. In Britain, I used them successfully again, for a way to highlight London's must-see spaces without having to step inside each royal edifice. Fat Tire Tours offers a variety of guided bike tours of London and I opted for their 4-hour Royal London Tour. It showed me exactly as much as I cared to see of Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and the rest without the tedium of traipsing from room to room inside each structure. The guide, making frequent stops along the busy route, relayed informative and anecdotal information and kept things moving at a snappy pace. Halfway through the tour, a 30-minute lunch/bathroom break at Trafalgar Square is a welcome diversion then it's back on the bikes for a bit more of the same. Fat Tire Tours is a sane and enjoyable way to see things in London and I can pretty much guarantee that you'll have more fun biking to London's sites than walking slowly through them with an audio-guide. The fact that I'm a repeat customer with Fat Tire Tours should speak for itself. In case it doesn't, here's some other details to help convince you: * Access their web site and fail to purchase and when you next access it (or before) you'll get a discount code. That discount meant that my 4-hour tour was under $30US per person. Good value. * Tours can be canceled for full refund up to 72 hours in advance. Why not book it just in case? * Tours aren't canceled for rain but FTT does have rain ponchos you can rent for $1. * 3-speed bikes, helmets, and the tour guide are all included in the price. London is flat, the ride is easy, and the experience is fun. Fat Tire Tours is a great way to experience whatever city you're visiting.

The team was nice, helpful, and had good feedback. rented two bikes for me and the Mrs. Had a…read moregreat time riding through Hyde park. Reasonable priced .

I found Brakeaway through TripAdvisor and booked the Greater London bike tour for 4 on the phone…read morewith Chris. Visiting with kids age 10 and 12, wanted to book a bike tour to see the sights but avoid too much walking. This was perfect! Our guide Paul was attentive and informative and fun. The route was fine for my least coordinated kid and family of almost-never-bikers. They put us with 2 other families with younger kids (youngest was 8), which was smart. Adults enjoyed frequent stops for history and stories, while kids enjoyed the exercise. Win all around!

This had to be the highlight of my trip to London! Me &…read moreJames had booked & paid for this well in advance. We got crossed up on the Tube coming from Chelsea. Because we were in the tube, didn't get their attempts to contact us by phone, text or mail. When we got out of the Tube, we got a call from Chris; they waited for us! We were about 10 minutes late and I felt so bad but I give them credit for making the effort to accommodate us. Our guide, Heath did an excellent job giving us the Grand Tour which I would highly recommend. He knows his History of the city well and weaves in interesting story lines with intrigue and humor.

For my first day in London I decided to do the "Landmarks & Gems: London Bike Ride +Historic Pub…read more+Graffiti Tour" with Luke. This was an incredible first day activity. For someone who's coming to London for the first time, this tour takes you by the most popular landmarks and through several boroughs throughout London. Luke was everything you'd want in a guide, friendly, approachable, great storyteller, patient, and made sure the group travelled safely. Side note, London is incredibly flat, so the bike tour was "easy" pedaling, and accessible to anyone who can ride a bike.

We had Edward and he was awesome!! I would highly recommend this amazing cycle tour. The bikes are…read moregreat to ride. We saw areas in London which we might not have seen on our own.

We got about a three hour bike tour around the city. Our tour guide was George... Very informative…read moreand super expressive with his stories. Real funny gentleman. The bikes were a bit older, not the best shape, but they were very smooth and worked well. We were given excellent instructions along the route on how to follow him for utmost safety. We hit all the major stops, which I'll spare you the details. Our only critique would be a little shorter on the stops & a little more time riding. If we cut maybe a minute or two from each stop then we could've built in three more sites perhaps. As some of the stops were pushing 15 mins. Overall good value for the amount of time spent.

Had a wonderful time on our tour with Arno while in London with our family!! He did a fantastic job…read morekeeping our kids engaged and entertained for our tour. We saw several things through the city we had not seen yet and learned a lot about some of the betteI will be recommending the company and Arno to friends who may be traveling to London in the future!

Spoke 'n Motion is a great little bike tour company that runs out of Bermondsey and currently…read moreoperates a couple of tours. Sights at Night and Hidden London. I went on the Hidden London tour and enjoyed it immensely. Ian the tour guide was exceedingly knowledgeable and you could see he loved what he was doing. The only thing I enjoyed more than the tour itself was the post tour tipple.

What a fabulous ride!…read more Short story basics that you should know: The bikes are Brompton (excellent quality and super portable), the guides are knowledgeable, the pace and routes are easy and safe regardless of athletic ability or 'wrong' side biking, and it ends with a pint! For the longer version... We met at Bermondsey tube and walked to the pub that would be the start and end of our trip The Old Justice. Ian, our guide, along with his sister, Jacquie, set us up with bikes and helmets (optional) and we set off on our tour of Hidden London. As an Eastender myself, this was a great tour of areas I've never had an opportunity to visit on both sides of the river. The tour hits destinations like the Mayor's office, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Wapping, Shadwell, Canary Wharf, Canada Water and Bermondsey. I'd hate to give it all away, since these special places are 'hidden' for a reason so you can go on this tour and feel like you must be the only one to know about them, appreciate them and understand what it is that makes them so special. (I do!) What makes the tour even more special is that you really get a unique view of the city (forget the hop-on-hop-off) and cover so much ground in a relatively short amount of time. If you have questions, both Ian and Jacquie are filled with an amazing amount of knowledge about the areas. Occasionally, Ian would pull out an iPad and supplement our view of the area with historical photos or paintings. It really puts things in perspective on how much London has changed. If you are debating on whether this is the tour for you (or any of their tours for that matter), may I just say that this is an incredible value for the money. I've been on plenty of day trips and the cost for mileage, knowledge, and fun cannot be beaten. I would suggest any one of the tours to my visiting friends for a great day out and I'll definitely be signing up for the Greenwich tour in the near future!

Best. Experience. Ever! If you want to get to know the "real" London while zipping around on a…read morebike with an extremely knowledgable guide, sign up with Bike Tours of London pronto! By chance a friend saw a magazine article about BToL and we decided to give it a shot. At £18 (£15 for students) you get a bike, helmet, and 3 hours with one of the best guides the city has to offer. Our guide knew all the standard history, but also offered an "insider's look" at some of the fun places like "The Street that Time Forgot," and "London's Rudest Pub." I'll admit, I was a bit nervous about riding around London on a bike--visions of me under a double-decker bus flashed through my mind--but luckily, our guide was patient and we stayed off the highly populated roads, though still got to hit up the big sites. Compared to exploring London through the Tube, being able to bike around and feel the distances made London seem less huge and more accessible. I wish I would have done this the first day I was here! To book a trip, go to the website, choose one of two tours, and either call or email the address listed. Payment is due after the tour, so if you have to cancel it's not a problem. The tour starts at what's basically a garage under a bridge, but don't be fooled--You're in the right spot! We decided to take the Sights of London tour which included some of historic London, as well as a special trip through China Town and a stop for a coffee in the hip Soho area. The tours take about 3 hours, which might sound like a long time to be on a bike, but it's a very casual pace and there are enough stops that it's not taxing. That said, because it IS a bike tour and you have to keep up, you need to be in somewhat decent physical shape. It's probably not great for young kids. If you're feeling that the bus tours are a bit too inactive and would like to cover more ground that a walking tour, definitely book a tour with Bike Tours of London!

All I can say is it was great. This is the way to see London…read more. I was Bummed what it was over and would recommend this highly.

Interesting, fun and informative tour. Great way to see and learn about some of Londons well known…read moreand lesser known sites. Especially good if you like history like me! The route is flat and the pace is easy going! At the end of the tour I was really pleased I'd gone on it and felt it was a day well spent. Would recommend to anyone who is sepnding a few days in London as a tourist or Londoners looking for an interesting day out. Very reasonably priced too.

We booked a private tour for our family of 5 to see Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, and Averbury…read moreStone Circle and it worked very well. Definitely recommend booking a private tour especially if you're a large group - costs can compare favorably vs. a bus tour. Plus, the big bonus is the convenience and time savings. We were picked up right at our hotel (instead of having to trek to a meeting point), we could plan our own itinerary as we wished - and modify it along the way (which we did) and enjoyed the flexibility of staying as long as we wanted and choosing when and where to have lunch. Our driver was pleasant and not only was he on time for our pick-up, but he was early so we got a quicker start on our tour. We also appreciated that he was a safe driver too as well as very amenable and flexible to our ad-hoc changes but also offered suggestions to our itinerary that worked out well. The only thing I might suggest for added convenience of private tours is if International Friends wcould offer to book entry tickets for sites like Stonehenge for you instead of having to book such things separately yourself. However, we were very pleased with their service and how well it worked out.

Participated in the Downtown Abbey tour early August. Our guide was Tony and he darn near ruined…read morethe experience. I found his opinions offensive and his driving scary. While still in London we witnessed the aftermath of a bike accident and he exclaimed: "There are too many bikes on the road! Look another (accident)! I love it!" He then proceeded to get involved in fender bender he caused by being overly aggressive behind the wheel. It did not help when he pointed out the other driver 'drove like a woman'. En-route to Highclere we all learned his opinion of the US presidential candidates. Needless to say they were not positive. I don't know about you but when I am traveling away from the US, I do not need a lesson in good/bad politics. Just show me the sights. As soon as I could, I walked away from Tony becuase even his opinions of the characters of Downton were annoying. ("Mary was a slut. Mathew was a wimp".) But if all of this was not enough, post-tour a travel companion wrote a letter to the owner of this travel tour company describing her discontentment. Instead of getting a response saying thank you and we will look into this matter...hope it will not discourage you from traveling with us again...she got a less than satisfactory note defending Tony; attempting to discredit her views because according to Tony none of these things happened. He concluded: "You did not like your driver/guide but I guess, not everyone gets along with everyone." I am not fond of writing this type of review and would have been willing to pass it off to just an annoying guide during an otherwise great day. But after seeing the owner's poor response, I have concluded I cannot support a company that has miserable customer service policies.

Well, that was fun! Decided to do a bike tour of London on a recent vacation there and opted to…read morebook with Red Bike Tours. Owain was a great guide who took us to the less visited spots. He pointed out nuances of the places we cycled to and answered all our questions (and we had a lot). The bikes were easy to ride and comfortable and, being flat, London was a cake walk. Kept to less traveled roads so traffic wasn't an obstacle. We stopped in a park for a warm up with coffee (late April weather was chilly) and Owain shared his thoughts on life in London and shared some of his favorite pubs to visit during our trip. Really delightful experience!

reposting my review....why was my last post moved to 'not recommended?!'…read more Arranged a long weekend in London for a large group of friends to celebrate my 40th, and wanted to plan a few activities. Took a chance on Red Bike Tours, and knew after talking to Owain (who runs the tours) on the phone that we'd have an enjoyable and relaxing afternoon seeing some beautiful areas of the city, rather than just trying to hit all the big attractions (I'd done a bike tour in London years ago and was a bit stressed when battling some crazy traffic in places). Firstly - the bikes. Obviously fairly new and well looked after (and so pretty!) The bright red helped us easily spot group members. Next up, kudos to our guide Owain for sharing some interesting facts at places of interest and having a good instinct for knowing when to get the ride moving again. He clearly knows a lot about the city and we enjoyed testing his knowledge with silly questions! Owain took us through some truly beautiful and fascinating places in London (some of those mews streets - picture postcards!!). Importantly, the route he took felt very safe and there were many parts of the ride where 2 or 3 of us could ride side by side and chat. Owain incorporated a mini picnic in the park at my request and even offered to play some fun tunes on his portable speaker. He really made the day fun and set the tone perfectly for my party weekend. Thank you Owain! Definitely recommend booking a bike for a fun and interesting day out.

The punter was a student. This was during their exam week so we saw students in graduation gowns…read moreand students celebrating the end of exams. The punter told us interesting anecdotes of the school and its history. They also have the option to allow you to steer the punt, but we saw that it wasn't easy to steer because some of those people got stuck in the wrong direction. Highly recommend for a relaxed boat ride on the river to enjoy the scenery of the school grounds.

Tommy (as in the former student from Colorado but native to Cambridge) is THAT PUNTER. Truly elite…read more We had a wonderful experience with him. Learned a lot about the town. He was outgoing, answered all of our questions, and gave great recommendations. His punting was skilled and safe. If I could give him 6 stars I absolutely would. Sending cheers to Tommy and Scudamore's from Kansas, USA.