Bruges to Amsterdam Bike Tour

My wife and I immensely enjoyed the Amsterdam to Bruges tour. We'd do another Tripsite tour gladly. Great routes, terrific information packet with paper maps, nice hotels, incredible scenery, delicious food, beer. The starting hotel, the WestCord Art Hotel Amsterdam Art, was wonderful. The trip included breakfast at all hotels, a pleasure though it varied from hotel to hotel from great to just fine, but always with a coffee machine that made lattes!

I suggest getting to Amsterdam at least two days ahead, both to enjoy the city and to have sufficient time to check that the bikes fit you. We rented the e-bikes and that was great for the headwinds out of the southwest all week. For my part, I often used NO assist once getting the bike going. The Dutch bikes were surprisingly enjoyable to ride.

About the GPS tracks, here's what I urge you do. The provided GPS route are great but do NOT include CUE SHEETS. Although I have a Garmin, I really prefer using Ride with GPS (RWGPS) on my phone. So:

1. Download RWGPS to your phone and pay for a subscription so you can save the routes for offline use. That way even without cell coverage, they work.

2. When you click on the supplied GPS route links provided by Tripsite, they will open automatically in RWGPS. There is an option to generate a cue sheet. DO THAT.

3. Save the routes for offline use.

4. In your RWGPS settings, switch to metric units. We found it fun think in kilometers for the trip.

5. Purchase a phone mount. If you have one already it will likely not fit on the Dutch bike handlebars. I got two on Amazon for $16 each and my wife and I found it was fantastic for the riding. To get what we used, search for "TruActive Premium Bike Phone Mount Holder".

6. Bring a battery back and short cable for your phone. It will fit nicely in the front bag.

7. If using an iPhone, use low battery mode. There is no need to go to Airplane mode. With low battery mode, you get all phone features; the phone will however dim when not used. That's a minor inconvenience for the super battery life it will give you.

Thanks for the wonderful trip Tripsite.

O que mais gostei foi passar pelas cidades pitorescas e lindas do trajeto, ver o mar e a natureza singular dessa região. A manutenção das bikes deixou muito a desejar, por duas vezes tivemos que parar e buscar apoio para conserto, o que também ficou por nossa conta apesar de utilizarmos os telefones de apoio. Já tive outras duas experiências com a tripsite e as bikes eram ótimas, o que não posso dizer dessa vez.

Bikes allow a good level of immersion into local culture. The Netherlands provides a great example of a prosperous, healthy and environmentally aware society. My observations are purely anecdotal but we in the US could learn a lot by following the example set by these kind and thoughtful people. I would recommend the Tripsite unguided bike tour from Bruges to Amsterdam to anyone. All arrangements and accommodations were fabulous.

The route is carefully planned to include as much rural bike paths and beautiful country side. As someone who grew up in the Netherlands, I am very impressed in the careful planning of green and agricultural area versus urbanization. The route led us via these green parts of the Netherland I hadn't experienced before. The cultural aspect in the selection of stop=over cities is also noteworthy and admirable.

All in all a great trip and highly recommendable.

The biking routes were excellent! The recommended paths of the self-guided tour were well chosen, easy to follow, gorgeous and fun.

The itinerary for this trip was very scenic with a good mix of countryside and small towns. The hotels were nicely located and appointed.

Route: nice combination of countryside and small towns. The GPS tracks that were provided worked great on our Garmin device. Getting into Amsterdam was a bit unnerving so not sure if there would have been a little less busy route to the hotel.

Hotels: all were located near city center and within walking distance of town sites and restaurants. The Hotel Mondragon in Zierikzee was wonderful; the host at Hotel Loskade was very helpful and accommodating. The NH Bruges was an ‘upgrade’ and while the location was very good, the hotel itself was worn and in need of maintenance and upgrade. All hotels provided nice buffet breakfasts.

Bikes : the hybrid bike was comfortable and well maintained. The e-bike was comfortable and the battery had a very long charge time. The hybrid bike came with handlebars that adjusted with a lever however the e-bike did not. The e-bike required a multi-tool to make this adjustment. A crank arm and pedal fell off the e-bike while riding and the thread was stripped taking some expertise to repair. Thankfully, our travel companion brought a multi-tool otherwise we would have been unable to fix these two issues in the field. Our travel companions had a couple mechanical issues and were told to find a bike shop for repair. That is fine if you are in a large town during the week, but on the road there were very few. Highly suggest including a multi-tool in the repair kit that is provided.

We had a pleasant week exploring!

Your website should warn people if they choose a tandem bike, that only one pannier is provided for two people. No handle bar bag is provided.
An additional very low cost tool that should be included in every pannier is a bike multitool. You are riding a bike in the countryside and most times not near a bike store, let alone one that is actually opened when you need it. We had parts fall off bikes (e-bikes and tandem) that were not able to be fixed unless you had a multitool. A pedal fell off while riding, and of course no town in site for miles. We happened to have a bike multitool so we could continue on our ride.
The hotel provided in Willemstad was not satisfactory. We had low angled ceilings that you can easily bump your head on when turning around. The sky light leaked. The room had a bad smell.
The tour instructions for Amsterdam could have been updated to reflect all the bike path closures in the city. These paths had been closed for a long time, so alternate instructions to maneuver around the city would have been very helpful.

I loved the scenic routes through multiple towns every day. Take some time to stop and walk around in some of the along the way each day. The hotel accommodations far exceeded my expectations. They were all fantastic and in great locations. The staff at each were very helpful.

Be prepared for any weather. The weather can be unpredictable, so it's better to be prepared for anything!

Great to be able to see the sites at a manageable rate and to cover a lot of ground in doing so.

This is a tremendous bicycle tour. The coastal routes on the first two days were very nice, the small towns we stayed in were charming, and the ride from Gouda to Amsterdam on the final day was very memorable. The GPS routes were very reliable and the paper maps were helpful as well. The only negative was that the bicycles should have been in better shape.

What a lovely 6 day bike trip. The hotels, routes, and towns along the way were all special and memorable in their own way. My wife and I and our two teenage children loved it. I recommend doing it from Bruges to Amsterdam because by the time we reached Amsterdam, we were prepared to bike around that bike crazy town with the locals. Having my own GPS using the pre-programmed routes was incredibly useful in navigating the sprawling Netherlands cycle system. We loved that there was a protected/designated bike path often removed from cars for the majority of the time. Would absolutely do it again.

Loved how beautiful and open and green the landscape we biked thru was. Picturesque towns, lovely houses farms and gardens.
The most polite people when it comes to cycling and everyone in the Netherlands does it!

This was a great trip even though we had a far amount of rain. We enjoyed the challenge. So many memories. Going thru the Dutch country side and how clean and neat all the houses looked. Out in the middle of nowhere in a field a cow was giving birth to two calf's. My husband and I were self guided and we had fun finding all the little water crossing. Riding into Amsterdam on our last day was intense but now I feel I can ride anywhere. All our accommodations were unique and wonderful. This was our second trip with Trip site. Thank you.

Most memorable is simply the experience of riding through beautiful countryside and getting a feel for the landscape, towns, farms, etc. One suggestion for others/the trip planners - we loved all of it but would have enjoyed a layover day now and then to really explore a particular city or area (like Gouda). Overall, fantastic trip and well organized.

It was truly wonderful to see the countryside and bike through the small towns.

This was a fantastic trip. The combo of GPS and descriptions helped us get to our next stop. We saw and did things off the beaten path. It was great!

Meeting the native people from the Netherlands and Belgium. Meeting other cyclists on the tour routes.

Middelburg was the highlight for us - the town, our hotel, and the surrounding countryside were beautiful. Overall we had a great time on our bike trip. A few details:
- I had to reschedule our trip after initially booking. Tripsite staff were super helpful and I was relieved at how easy rebooking was.
- Our bikes didn't come with waterproof panniers, GPS, or a repair kit as promised. We got the repair kit and GPS at our third hotel but were bummed we never got the panniers
- Our original itinerary had a mistake that had us riding 100km miles the first day and 10km the second day. It was fixed after we pointed out the issue.
- The route was very pleasant and well-paced.

The most memorable part: The views and experiences we shared together as we ride along.

The most memorable part was biking into Schuddebeurs in Holland after a long but beautiful day of cycling to discover we were staying in the most beautiful inn in a lovely village setting.