For Indian riders
Cycling Tours Abroad, for Indian Riders
Ten destinations across Asia and Europe, priced in rupees, designed and led by a company registered in Hyderabad.
You ride four or five times a week. You have a bike you trust, a Garmin with years of history on it, and a growing sense that the roads within a weekend's drive have stopped surprising you.
Most international cycling tour operators are not built for you. They price in euros, assume you are flying from London or Sydney, and answer none of the questions that decide whether an Indian rider can make a trip work: what the bike costs to fly, whether the visa is a problem, whether anyone at the other end will pick up the phone.
Barnowl is an Indian company, registered in Hyderabad. We price in rupees. Krish designs and leads the tours, and answers the phone himself.
The destinations
Where we ride
and what it takes
Distance, climbing and grade are the tour's own figures, so what you read here is what the itinerary adds up to. Prices are per rider sharing a twin room.
| Destination | Days | Distance | Climbing | Grade | Best months | Nearest gateway | Price from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuscany Italy | 9 | 334 km | 6,243 m | Intermediate | Sep | Florence Airport Peretola | €4,040 25 Sep – 3 Oct 2026 |
| N. Thailand Thailand | 9 | 525 km | 3,225 m | Intermediate | Dec to Jan | Mae Fah Luang – Chiang Rai Airport | €1,470 Dec 2026 & Jan 2027 |
| Vietnam Vietnam | 10 | 438 km | 5,791 m | Intermediate | Feb to Mar | Da Nang International Airport | €1,440 27 Feb – 8 Mar 2027 |
| Mae Hong Son Thailand | 11 | 693 km | 15,279 m | Advanced | Dec to Jan | Chiang Mai International Airport | €1,190 Dates to be announced |
| Sri Lanka Sri Lanka | 7 | 430 km | 4,471 m | Intermediate | Aug | Colombo, Sri Lanka | €1,350 Dates to be announced |
| Girona Spain | 8 | 434 km | 4,761 m | Intermediate | Apr to May | Barcelona El Prat Airport | €3,220 Dates to be announced |
| Mallorca Spain | 9 | 506 km | 7,104 m | Intermediate | Apr | Palma De Mallorca Airport | €3,060 Dates to be announced |
| Portugal Portugal | 10 | 488 km | 4,831 m | Intermediate | Oct to Nov | Humberto Delgado Airport, Lisbon | €2,750 Dates to be announced |
Closer to home
Two of our tours are in India. No visa and no bike box across a border, and a good way to ride with us before committing to a trip abroad.
| Destination | Days | Distance | Climbing | Grade | Best months | Nearest gateway | Price from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goa India | 5 | 340 km | 2,769 m | Intermediate | Aug | Goa International Airport, Dabolim | €800 Dates to be announced |
| Meghalaya India | 7 | 271 km | 5,261 m | Advanced | Aug to Sep | Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati | — Dates to be announced |
Timing
When to
ride where
Pick the month you can get away, and start from there. These are riding seasons rather than departure dates, so a destination can be right in a month we are not currently running it.
January
February
March
May
June
Nothing listed. Ask us.
July
Nothing listed. Ask us.
October
November
December
Getting there
Flying out, and
getting your bike there
The number of stops matters more than the fare. Every extra leg is another chance for a bike to arrive late or damaged, so we plan around connections rather than the cheapest ticket.
Direct from all five
Well served direct from Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. The easiest of our destinations to reach with a bike.
One connection
Vietnam needs a connection from any Indian city. Worth choosing the routing with the longest transfer window rather than the shortest total journey.
Via a European hub
Tuscany and the European camps connect through a European hub. Book the bike on the same ticket rather than as two separate bookings.
Your bike, or one at the other end
A hard case protects better and costs more to carry. A soft case is lighter and easier to store at the hotel, and asks more of how you pack it. Either way, tell the airline the bike is coming when you book rather than at the airport.
Renting at the other end is often the better call, and what you would be renting differs by tour. Tuscany, Girona and Mallorca are road tours and rental there is a road bike. Vietnam is written around a hardtail or a gravel bike with 40 mm or wider tyres, with hardtails available through our partner in Hoi An. Each tour page lists what is available and what it costs, and rental has to be reserved in advance everywhere.
Why it is easier
Booking with
an Indian company
Priced in rupees
The tour cost is a rupee figure, so there is no card forex markup on it. You pay an Indian company from an Indian account.
€50 by UPI
A €50 deposit starts the booking, and the balance goes in instalments by Indian bank transfer. No international wire, no intermediary bank fees.
A GST invoice
Our prices include GST, charged under GSTIN 36ABBFB8272B1ZP. You get an invoice from a registered Indian business.
And the tours are ours. We scout the routes ourselves, ride them before we sell them, visit the hotels before we book them, and lead every departure in person. Nothing is passed to a wholesaler, which is why the person answering your question is the person who chose the road.
Paperwork
Visas for Indian
passport holders
Requirements for Indian passport holders change often, and for several of these countries they have changed more than once in the past year. We would rather send you to the current rule than print one here that has quietly gone out of date.
Tell us which tour you are looking at and we will tell you what the process looks like today, including how long an appointment is taking. For the European tours that wait is usually the thing that decides how early you need to commit, so it is worth asking before you plan around a date.
Private groups
Bring your own
group of eight
8 riders or more and we will run any of these destinations on your dates rather than ours, with the week built around what your group actually rides.
The week that suits you
Not the departures listed above. Tell us roughly when, and we will work back from the season.
Pitched at your group
The same roads can be an easier week or a harder one. We will set the days to the riders coming.
As long as you have
Most of these run 8 days or more. If you have fewer, say so and we will tell you what fits.
Questions
Asked by riders
planning a first trip
If yours isn't here, ask us directly.
Do I need to be a strong climber?
It depends which tour. Climbing is what sets the grade here, not distance, and the range across these destinations is wide. An Intermediate week is very different from an Advanced one, and the grade on every tour page is worked out from that tour's own average climbing per day.
If you can comfortably ride 50 to 80 kilometres in a day you will be fine on an Intermediate tour. The difficulty page sets out what each grade means in metres climbed rather than adjectives.
What if I have never ridden abroad before?
Most of what makes a first trip abroad daunting is logistics rather than riding: getting the bike there, knowing the roads, and what happens if something breaks a long way from home. All three are what a supported tour is for. There is a van with water, fruit and electrolytes, the route is scouted, and somebody who has ridden it is riding it with you.
If you are riding four or five times a week at home, the riding itself will not be the hard part.
Can I bring a non-riding partner?
On most of our tours, yes. Tell us who is coming when you enquire and we will tell you how it works on that particular tour.
Vietnam is the exception, and we would rather say so before you book than after. Much of that tour is the ride itself, several nights are spent in simple accommodation in remote places, and parts of the route involve ferry crossings and private boat transfers that a support vehicle cannot follow. The days are long, so there is little time for sightseeing afterwards. The full explanation is on the Vietnam tour page.
How far in advance should I book?
Earlier than most people expect. Tours fill from the waitlist and from returning riders, usually months ahead, so the departure you want may be spoken for before it is widely advertised.
For the European tours the visa appointment is often the real constraint rather than the tour filling up. Ask us early what that wait looks like, because it decides how much time you need.
Can I pay in instalments?
Yes. A €50 deposit starts the booking and holds your place while we sort the rest out. The balance is then paid in two instalments by bank transfer, with the timing depending on where the tour is: the balance is due 30 days before an Asian tour and 60 days before a European one.
The full schedule, and the cancellation bands that go with it, are on the payments and cancellations page.
What happens if a tour does not fill?
If we cannot run a tour, your deposit and any tour costs already paid are refunded in full, or moved to another tour, whichever you prefer. That is our side of it and it does not depend on why.
It is also why a departure is not marked confirmed until we know it is running. A tour page tells you which of those two a date is.