Go Cycle Tours
How the minimum criteria of the responsible travel standard was met...
Economic responsibility
Go Cycle Tours is a collaborator and founding member of the rural regional commerce associate of the North Gredos region (ASENORG) where we started our flagship tour, Go Cycle Gredos. All elements of our tour involve and support and locally owned businesses/individuals (hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, guides, cleaning services, transportation, other activity and service providers (spa, ziplining, horseback riding, etc), food and beverages including local breweries and wineries) to build our tour package. We purposely stage our tour out of one place to make a bigger impact on the local economy and reduce our carbon footprint driving from point A->B->C, etc.
Environmental responsibility
We state that once you arrive, you only need your bike and feet to move around for the rest of the week as all rides, restaurants, activities are within walking distance. If there is a cultural or winery visit that requires transportation, we hire one or two vehicles (locally) to transport all people.
As cyclists and hikers, we are already aware of our footprint on the environment and limiting our carbon impact. Go Cycle actively promotes reusable drinking bottles, encourages conserving water at hotels by reuse practises, etc (as our accommodation partners do), collecting any waste or packaging when in nature and recycling/disposing of it correctly. We typically will do coffee/snack stops and lunches at cafes/restaurants, when possible, along the way to avoid consuming any prepacked foods and to support local businesses.
Our guides brief on regional park, wildlife, and other preservation practises avoiding any restricted or sensitive areas.
We also strive to reduce the use of paper and printing in our office opting for ebrochures and digital media to promote. We do print a very small quantity (under 500) of one-page leaflets for people who are less digitally connected.
Social responsibility
Go Cycle Tours is a collaborator and original member of the rural regional commerce associate of the North Gredos region (ASENORG*) where we started our flagship tour, Go Cycle Gredos. One of Go Cycle’s cofounders is the Founder and President of ASENORG – both ASENORG and Go Cycle Gredos were incubated in parallel. It is part of our DNA to partner with local businesses and individuals to give people an authentic experience of what the region they are visiting, is all about. We bring the people on tour together with the locals and by mid-week everybody knows everybody. This is a key differentiator of Go Cycle Tours; as founder, I leverage the relationships I have built locally and my direct involvement in each of these areas and bring it as a cornerstone piece to our tours.
Go Cycle has promoted charity projects (Trampled Rose), our cyclists have attended local gastronomical events and awards ceremonies, supporting local initiatives such as the mountain broom festival in June. We promote the local Tapas Festival via social media and all activities related to our local partners. We have agreed to promote a crowd-funding initiative to be launched in Gredos in the new year. We do tours of the UNESCO sites near our tour base. We visit local breweries and wineries (small, off the grid projects) that promote recovery of old grape varieties and brewing or winemaking traditions. We also try to provide a connection between the different regions where we stage our tours in order to bring people in different regions together so that ideas and experiences can be exchanged and leveraged.
* The objective of ASENORG was to identify, promote and elaborate offerings around the key differentiators of the North Gredos region, involving its local businesses. These differentiators centred around cultural or geographical attributes such as the mountains for outdoor adventures, transhumance as a cultural practise to migrate cattle, gastronomy, dark skies, or the variety of birds or spectacular mountain broom. Different leaders and businesses aligned with each area to build out a strategic plan to promote these regional treasures with the objective of attracting more sustainable tourism and fighting depopulation of the area.
