Terms and Conditions

Terms & Conditions for Bicycle Beano Cycling Holidays

Updated 26 October 2022

By booking for a Bicycle Beano holiday, you accept the following terms and conditions.

Payment

To confirm your place on one of our holidays, we require a deposit of £80 per person.

The remainder of the holiday charge is payable 6 weeks (42 days) before the start date of the holiday unless otherwise stated in the booking information. (Note: Occasionally we may offer a discount for earlier payment, in which case this will be mentioned in the details of the individual holiday.)

If you don’t pay the remainder on time we may consider that you have cancelled your booking and we may offer your place to someone else.

Cancellation

If you cancel your holiday, the deposit is not refundable.

If you cancel 42-22 days before the tour, we refund 80% of the remainder; 21-15 days, 60% of the remainder; 14 days or less, 0%. 

In the latter case, if we are able to save on our overall costs as a result of your cancellation, we may be able to make a small repayment as a goodwill gesture, but this is not guaranteed.

If you wish to transfer your payments to another booking please contact us to discuss. We will try to be helpful where possible, but in some cases we may have already made financial commitments (for example to our accommodation providers) that cannot be changed.

Cancellation can be made by phone as long as it is confirmed in writing within 24 hours and before the start of the tour, either by post or by email from the email address you gave us when you booked.

We strongly recommend that you take out travel insurance to cover you in case you have to cancel. (If you have to make an insurance claim, your insurers may ask to see a “cancellation invoice” from us; we will be happy to provide this on request.)

In the event that we have to cancel your holiday, we will refund the total amount that you have paid us. Please note that this is the limit of our responsibility: if you have already paid for travel arrangements to reach the holiday (for example, an advance train ticket) then we cannot recompense you for such expenditure. Again we strongly recommend that you take out a travel insurance policy to cover yourself against any losses.

Covid-19 and other restrictions

At time of writing we believe that there will be NO government-imposed restrictions there will be on travel and group activities during 2023. 

If government health rules and guidance are reintroduced because of Coivd-19 or any other reason, we will make our best endeavours, working with our accommodation providers, to ensure that any Beano holiday is run in accordance with guidance and regulations in force at the time. Suggested stops during the cycle rides (for example, cafes and pubs) will be checked for their compliance with government guidance, but are outside our control so you will need to make your own judgement on whether the precautions at a lunch or coffee stop are satisfactory.

If we consider that restrictions in force make it impossible to run the holiday in a safe and satisfactory manner, we may choose to cancel it and refund your payments.

If social distancing regulations force us to reduce the capacity of a holiday to below the number of people who have already booked, we will first ask all who have booked whether they wish to cancel their trip (with full refund). If this still leaves us with too many participants then we may have to cancel and refund the bookings of the last participants to book.

If we consider that we can run the holiday safely, but you are unable or unwilling to attend, our normal cancellation conditions (see above) will apply.

We ask all participants to observe government guidance, regulations and anti-infection measures in force at the time of the holiday, and to respect the concerns of other participants. If any participant persistently fails to do so we may ask them to leave the holiday (see below).

Your payments are protected

Payment protection: Under the “Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018”, we are required to make arrangements to protect any pre-payments we receive from customers, so that if the company ceases to trade before you’ve had your holiday, you will receive a full refund. 

An independent trustee holds a separate bank account containing sufficient funds to cover the cost of refunding all outstanding pre-payments from customers. The trustee is a chartered accountant with many years of experience, including roles as a charity trustee. If Bicycle Beano ever becomes insolvent (which we don’t plan to!) the trustee will arrange refunds for all customers who have made pre-payments but have not yet had their Beanos. For this reason (and this reason alone), the trustee has access to the contact details and payment information that we hold for each customer.

When we confirm your booking we will provide you with contact information for the independent trustee. Please only use that contact information if you have reason to believe that Bicycle Beano has ceased trading.

Safety

We do all we can to make your holiday safe and enjoyable. However, you cycle at your own risk. All riders must ensure that their bikes are roadworthy and safe. We cannot be held responsible for the condition of other participants’ bikes or the manner in which they cycle. Participants must obey the Highway Code and cycle in a safe and responsible manner. All cyclists should have third party personal liability insurance in case you cause an accident to another cyclist. (This is often included in house and contents insurance policies and in travel insurance policies, or can be obtained through membership of a cycling organisation such as Cycling UK.)

We do all we can to take you on safe and suitable roads, and give warnings on our route maps, route instructions and route talks where we think you need to take extra care. However, we cannot be held responsible for changes that may have taken place to road surfaces since we last cycled on them, nor for any traffic or temporary obstructions. Please do not assume that a road is safe just because it is on one of our routes; you should always judge road surfaces and conditions for yourself. Some routes may contain off-road sections; again we will advise on the nature of these sections in advance but it is up to you to use your own judgement as to whether they are suitable for you. We usually provide on-road alternatives for these sections.

We give a short safety talk before the first ride, when each participant will receive a copy of our ‘Guide to Safe Cycling’ leaflet. We will require you to sign a declaration that you have attended the safety talk before you go on the first cycle ride of the holiday. We have a very good safety record and, with your help, would like to keep it that way.

If you choose to load one of our routes into a GPS device and use that for navigation when riding, you must still pay attention to the safety warnings and advice given on our route sheets.

We reserve the right to ask a participant to leave the holiday if, in our judgement, that person is repeatedly acting a way which endangers the lives or wellbeing of other members of the group.

The holiday

We will endeavour to provide a holiday as closely matching to the descriptions in our marketing material as possible. However, events may force us to modify or reschedule rides at short notice – for example changing weather conditions, changes by accommodation providers, road closures or unforeseen closure of lunch/coffee stops. If fewer than 8 people book for a holiday we may cancel it, in which case those who have booked will receive a full refund.

Legal

Bicycle Beano is a trading name of Cycling Dragon Limited, a limited company based in the UK and registered in England and Wales, no. 09087103. Your contract with us is governed by English law.