Vintage Bicycle Tours

Just did this bike tour yesterday with 5 girlfriends and we had a great day! The weather could not have been nicer. I agree with other reviews that it may not be as leisurely as you would think because there are parts of the ride that are on 25A which does get busy, but it was manageable. The ride through the back roads was beautiful and very peaceful. We were also a group of 40, all ages and we were all able to keep up. The staff was great, especially Walter (photographer). He was entertaining and added to the experience. Not sure I’d pay full price, it’s a bit steep, however there are deals out there if you look for them.

A fun experience with friendly guides, good food, and plenty of wine!
Even with our group of 14 girls celebrating a bachelorette party, the guides could not have been more nice or patient. It was a great day and certainly worth the price.
I would highly recommend Vintage Bicycle Tour for a ladies day out!

This place may have moved one block down the street and clearly they were running by the same group of people as the one at 12 900 Main Rd based on the same website.
The entire experience was not terrible as we went on a sunny day and the fields and the neighborhood were tranquil and nice. However, the people who were running this tour had bogus advertisement on their website and listed a bunch of activity items that were not carried out during the day. The tour was not relaxing while you were biking: first of all, there was no bike routes and most of the time you would be riding along speeding cars on the highway in a single file, which was windy and dangerous! Second, the staff rode really fast to get to the next winery in order to sell you stuff and get kickbacks from the sale I suppose. There was no introduction or description of the scenery or the sites you viewed along the route. They were riding so fast that many people could not catch up. Instead of waiting for everyone to catch up, they just rode along themselves.
I would not suggest this tour to anyone who has spent more $ 30 on a groupon/​living social deal. You’d be better off to get a refund or credit for this purchase.

HEADS UP: It’s a TANDEM bike tour!
My friends and I purchased vouchers from Living Social for the vintage bike tour on the north fork of Long Island and were extremely disappointed. After spending $ 44 each on round trip on transportation to the tour (and going out of our way because the voucher had an outdated address) we learned that the bikes for the tour were first come, first served and there were only tandem bikes left.
My friend was especially nervous about the tandem which made me not want to give it a try. One of the women was really nice and tried to make us feel better about riding a tandem, but watching my other friends struggle to get going made us even more nervous. I asked if maybe they could ask some of the riders who got there early enough to secure a single bike if they were willing (not force them, but never hurts to ask…) to swap, but they weren’t willing to even ask.
The manager was not as nice and argued that we should have known this would be tandem ride. In fact, nothing in the write up mentioned that:
I was able to find a note about it on the FAQ section of the vendor site — a little buried, considering it’s such a big part of the experience.
They offered us to ride our own tandems with no second rider the bikes were just too big for me (I am 5’0) to ride safely. We ended up leaving the tour and making the best of our time on the north fork. The vendor offered to honor our certificates at a later date but thankfully, we were able to get a refund from Living Social instead.

Buyer beware: you will be taking this tour on a tandem bike. It does say in the FAQs that you will be riding a tandem bike, which I discovered after the fact, so I’m not sure it is fair to dock them points for this. But seriously. A 12-​mile tour on a tandem bike? They do have limited single bikes but we were fifteen minutes early to the tour, and still, I was stuck with a tandem, by myself. It was heavy. I was annoyed.
The scenery is beautiful, and the tour is well-​organized. The tour guides are friendly. I’d really like a company like this to succeed, because it is a beautiful spot and well-​suited to bike riding. But I probably wouldn’t go back without my own bike.

I used a Living Social deal for this tour and I still don’t think it was worth the money. If I could give zero stars I would, but I’m giving 1 because the tour guides are ‘nice’ and they do provide service (i.e. «here is your water bottle!»). If you are looking for a bike tour to 1. Have a good time 2. Get even the slightest bit tipsy 3. Drink good wine 4. Be around fun people… then DO NOT sign up for this tour, because you won’t get it. I’m lucky I did this tour with some friends that were able to find a way to make it fun. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have finished the tour.

We purchased a Living Social deal for $ 119 (normally $ 239) for a 12-​Mile bike tour of Long Island wineries. Overall, I gave it a solid 3 stars — we had an enjoyable time and would probably recommend it to others at the $ 119. Not certain I would pay full price unless it was a smaller, more intimate group (there were 40 people on this tour).
Good:
Easy to find, accessible location with onsite parking.
Incredibly friendly and helpful tour guides. They were super nice and immensely patient.
Clovis Point, one of the wineries, had a manager, Kelly, who was extremely knowledgeable about the wines, the history of the area, etc.
For the most part, the bikes were in good shape. They seemed relatively new, and like they had been well taken care of.
The farm stand was a nice addition to the tour.
Nice pace that was easy for everyone in the group; we had a wide range of ages (mid-20’s to mid-60’s) and everyone was comfortable.
Room for improvement:
The train schedule changed and it was set to arrive at 11:43am. We called and were told to not take the train, that the tour left promptly at 11:30am. Unfortunately, others in the group didn’t get that memo. The tour didn’t leave until about 10 minutes after 12pm, because we were waiting on those that took the train. A word of advice to the organizers: start the tour on time, and have one person stay behind and wait for the stragglers. While it was nice that you were willing to accomodate those who had no other method of transport, it wasn’t fair to the rest of us to stand in a parking lot on an 85 degree day when we were there on time.
One of the bikes in our group had gear issues. 12 miles of sticking gears, made for an uncomfortable ride. The guides were very nice and made every attempt to fix the issue; however, apparently, it wasn’t easily fixable, and it was something that had to be dealt with for the remainder of the tour.
A better explanation of the destinations would have been helpful. The first stop was at South Jamesport Park. We were a bit confused about why we were there. We stood under the picnic pavilion for 10 minutes, then listened to a detailed explanation of the rest of the day and then left for the other two destinations. Had the detailed explanation happened at the very beginning, that would have been helpful and minimized confusion.
Raffle. It was phrased as a «thank you» to participants; however, the tickets were $ 5 each. I truly don’t care about having to pay for raffle tickets, but don’t phrase it like you’re doing us a favor. On top of that, none of the «prizes» were actually prizes; there were items like $ 50 off $ 300 in catering, etc.
Lunch. The food was decent, but it wasn’t labeled. People were picking through the sandwiches, taking them apart, trying to figure out what was on them.
The 15% and free shipping off does not apply to the olive oil tasting.
None of the venues had live music, as described on their site.