A new online start up aims to offer something off the beaten track and fast-moving road cycling is its latest addition. Sally White reports

Peddle-power is becoming a formidable force in world travel markets. Cycling tourism’s contribution to the global economy was estimated to have reached an annual $57 billion by the European Cyclists’ Federation even five years ago. Its rapid growth and fragmented structure seems to have deterred updates on those numbers!

However, while many of the online adventure sites are offering cycling options, a market of that size has no trouble in accommodating start-ups. One of the latest is Much Better Adventures. This London-based company specialises in active with holidays with independents and started life in 2010 offering holidays in European skier-run chalets. It has just secured £400,000 in seed money for expansion that includes launching a second vertical  - road cycling.

Cycling has become one of the world’s major sports when valued commercially. So, with over $130 billion a year being spent on buying bikes globally, there would seem to be plenty of scope for online cycle-tourism to grow. That certainly would seem to be the view of some who should know. Much Better Adventures’ backers include Simon Lambert (ex-Lastminute.com and Treatwell – formerly Wahanda), Fred Ahlberg (ex-Ebay and King), Brett Akker (founder of Lovespace, Streetcar and ex-Zipcar) and James Kent (ex-Google). The Mayor of London’s Co-investment Fund is also in there.

Also investing was early-stage investors Seedcamp, where partner Carlos Espinal commented: “There are some very positive trends in the active travel market which has seen a growth of over 65% a year, with 78% of travellers wanting to try new experiences and activities and 86% wanting to book directly with locals.

Much Better Adventures’ name is an indication that it tries to offer something off the beaten track. It was co-founded by three keen skiers and cyclists - Alex Naracott, Sam Bruce and Guy Boden. Their aim is to help time-stressed cyclists discover, compare, book and review cycling holidays with the best local and independent hosts, guides and tour operators.

Their own experience, they say, showed that cyclists must plough through piles of directories and classifieds or rely on word of mouth to find something out of the ordinary in the way of online specialist holiday providers.

Sam Bruce says that they are “very excited about the cycling holiday market”. They are looking at numbers that show over 25 million overnight trips taken each year in the EU alone.

He adds: “Much like the rest of the active holiday industry, it’s still incredibly fragmented and poorly served by existing online platforms. We’ve spoken with a lot of cyclists and found a clear demand for a service that takes the pain out of organising cycling trips and makes it simpler to discover and book more unique cycling experiences abroad”.

Global coverage

By the end of the year, Much Better Adventures hopes to be able to offer global coverage of biker-friendly holiday accommodation. There will be, too, supported and guided tours as well as training camps hosted by ex-professionals.  It is also planning watch-and-ride events.

Reassuringly for their backers in their new venture is experience - they can show that they have done it before with their skiing business. With that, they actually moved to the French Alps and stuck Wifi in a rented chalet to get started. Says Bruce: “It was a great place to bootstrap a business. We lived and worked together, skiing and riding when we weren’t locked to our laptops. It was pretty cost-effective and we moved back to the UK when we’d got the traction we needed to raise funds to scale the platform.”

Specialist hosts sell via the platform and are charged 8% in commission

By the end of their first full season more than 24,000 people had used the website to ‘bid’ for a chalet-based ski holiday. It did not take many years before it had expanded into a staff of 12 in offices in Bristol and London and the sales being generating were scaling up in millions.

Operating a typical online marketplace, Much Better Adventures partners with specialist hosts. These sell via the platform and are charged 8% in commission for every holiday booked. Operators listed on Much Better Adventures are “hand-picked” and comprise local, independently owned businesses in the best spots to ski and ride, says Bruce.

He adds that since 2000, there’s been a 40% growth in small travel companies starting up, but they’re hard to find and book with. For Much Better Adventures, the attraction of working in this market is that the operators are “...lifestyle entrepreneurs with great local knowledge and a genuine passion for sharing their favourite spots to ride, climb, surf or ski”.