There's more to delivering a successful cycle tour than just riding.
From our experience, what happens off the road matters just as much as on it. This includes assigning bikes and briefing guests. In Part 1 we looked at the details of running the logsitics including luggage, bike, shuttles and transfers services. In Part 2 we look at some of the additional in-house operations and the software features you should be looking for to help keep things running smoothly.
Briefings & Debriefings: Start and End Each Day Right
Cycle Inventory Management: More Than Just Counting Bikes
Customer Height Auto Bike Size Selector
Car Storage & Relocation: One Less Thing for Guests to Worry About
Emergency Response: Stay Calm and Stay Connected
Other Often-Forgotten Logistics to Digitise
Briefings & Debriefings: Start and End Each Day Right
Pre-trip briefings aren’t optional. They’re essential for rider safety, motivation and clarity. Whether your guests are with a guide or on a FIT (Fully Independent Traveller) tour, your software should make it easy to:
Schedule briefing times and roster your team. This way, they’ll know when to be with your customers.
Push briefing information to guests on a mobile itinerary, including location, time, inclusions.
Provide guides or customer service staff with an overview for each personalised itinerary so they have all the information about the trip, your customers, their needs like bike sizes, and the services you provide... all in one output document.
Ensure your whole team is aligned at the briefing stage, drivers, bike set up staff, and customer service... all working from one source and version of the truth.
🛠 Feature to look for: Scheduling or rostering features, Output report for each tour, and a Mobile itinerary app that connects to your Tour management software.
Cycle Inventory Management: More Than Just Counting Bikes
Not just any bike, the right model, size, and set up for each rider. When you run many tours with different bike types, sizes, and volumes, guessing isn’t enough. If you want to delight your customers you need to set up the bikes in advance, and this includes having their bikes labelled with their names. This way, everything is ready for your customers on day 1 during their briefing. You also need to know where bikes are, and need to be during the trip.
Smart inventory software tracks:
Frame sizes and their numbers alongside availability
Service intervals or transfers where bikes are not available
Individual and Tour assignments and booking conflicts
The goal? No double bookings. No unpleasant surprises.
🛠 Feature to look for: Real-time inventory status dashboards, service or transfer allotments.
Customer Height Auto Bike Size Selector
Matching the right bike to the right rider is part science, part art. But your software can handle the science. When guests enter their height during booking, your system should:
Automatically suggest the correct frame size
Allow you to check for availability within your current fleet
Allow you to reserve the best-fitting bike for the tour
No more awkward depot fittings. No more “close enough” guesses. Just smooth check-ins and happy riders. This makes selecting bikes for setting up a tour easy for your team eg Bob Med E-bike, Mary Sm Std bike.
🛠 Feature to look for: Odyssey’s size-matching tool automatically selects bikes by height. It also gives visual cues for staff setting up the bikes.
Car Storage & Relocation: One Less Thing for Guests to Worry About
Many guests arrive by car, then cycle point to point. What happens to their vehicle in the meantime?
Tour operators often offer:
Secure long-term parking
Vehicle relocation services (guest’s own car or a hire vehicle)
Coordination with third-party transport providers to transfer to end of trail.
A connected logistics system keeps vehicles, guests, and drivers informed. This reduces stress and missed connections.
🛠 Feature to look for: Car storage or transfers services. Manifests for transfer drivers.
Emergency Response: Stay Calm and Stay Connected
When something goes wrong, and eventually it will, your software shouldn’t panic. It should help you:
Pinpoint guest location by day, provider or trail
Send bulk or personal SMS notifications with safety info
Keep emergency services informed for faster more accurate response.
The goal isn’t just faster response. It’s providing confidence for your customers. They feel safer when they know you’re in control. For example, if a rider is overdue, Odyssey helps you find their trail route quickly. You can see who is nearby, where they should be, and their emergency contacts - all in one spot.
🛠 Feature to look for: Locate your customers search feature, one-click SMS emergency broadcast
Other Often-Forgotten Logistics to Digitise
Luggage Tags & Manifests: Auto-generate with trip data, not spreadsheets
Accommodation Preferences: Store customer notes and dietary needs in one place
End-of-Tour Transfers: Assign drivers and vehicles based on confirmed numbers
Client Communications: Automate guest messages and confirmations across the trip
Odyssey helps operators cut out many small manual tasks on a daily basis. This leads to big savings and smoother trips.
The best-run cycle tours feel effortless for guests, guides and your ops teams alike. But behind the scenes is a smooth-running system of software, checklists, and automation. No matter if you’re running two tours or twenty each day, the hidden logistics matter. Daily briefings, bike matching, and emergency plans can make a good experience unforgettable.
Odyssey is the only software that manages multi-day cycle tour logistics. Odyssey caters for the small Operator right through to large Operator. If you have several hundred customers each season, it really is essential to use technology to help ensure your logistics management runs smoothly.
You can read Part 1. in this series here
