Arctic Cycling
Three years ago, when Peak Cycling was created, a business friend contacted me to organise a cycling tour in the land of the midnight sun, north of the Arctic Circle, in mid summer. This would be for his business team, from around the world, and would be a once in a lifetime thing.
Well, several planning iterations later, a job promotion for my friend John and 3 years on, we’ve only gone and done it! Yes, Peak Cycling started to offer cycling adventures in The Peak District and Derbyshire, but we can now add The Arctic to our palmares, and not many can do that.
Starting a year ago, I pitched the concept of a midnight sun bike ride in The Arctic to the team of senior professionals from Transitions, the global optical lens people. We had them moving around the office like a chain gang, which was hilarious for the others in the room to see, and a combination of John’s passion, the images from Tromso and the whole package on offer was enough to tip the balance; we were going up North!
Roll forward a few months, we were into the detail; business hotel in the right location, with meeting room facilities for the work bits, tick, bike hire availability, including E-bikes, tick,
a great cycling route with somewhere amazing for lunch, tick, and some brilliant evening activities (magic ice bar, and “Smak” the very best restaurants in Tromso), and we had a package to be proud of. Tick, tick, tick.
As we got closer, SAS went on strike the week before we were all due to fly to Tromso - panic stations, but what could we do. Lots of fingers got crossed, and the pilots settled - phew. Still on.
Weather? Well, that far north, its hardly ever hot and sunny, but with clients coming in from Florida, LA and Singapore, we spent a while helping answer the “what do I wear” questions. Always a cycling challenge that one, and Graham and I took kit to span all weather possibilities. Happily, we only had a bit of rain on the test ride day, and for the main ride, it was dry, not too windy and the sun came out for the afternoon. Perfect.
Our brief was to organise a bike ride, but we went much further than that. We sorted the hotels, meals out, bike hire, local support vehicle, airport transfers and led the ride. At Peak Cycling UK, we have the skills and experience to make your corporate cycle ride package very simple for the client - all they had to do was fly in and fly out.
I would like to thank
- Transitions International Lens Manufacturing team, and John especially for trusting us to deliver his dream
- Radison Blu Tromso, for looking after us so well
- Tromso Outdoor, for getting the right bikes in the right sizes for our group
- SSP a local taxi firm for being so flexible with our support vehicle needs - it worked perfectly
- Restaurant Smak for the best dining experience I think any of us had ever experienced
I hope you enjoy the photos enclosed; there are so many, several on instagram/twitter also, and on our website. If you’d like to take a look, please visit peakcyclinguk.com and if this story starts your own dream, or firms up a daft cycling idea you may have had once, please get in touch. Peak Cycling UK; cycling adventures in The Peak District, Derbyshire, The Arctic and [insert the location fo your dream group ride].
