A love of cycling and a sea change inspired Lennox Head’s Chris Boogert and Alice Tancred to ride their way into becoming fitness and travel entrepreneurs, offering a slice of their coastal life to cycling enthusiasts from all over the world.
The couple, who are in their late twenties, decided to combine their in-depth knowledge of cycling and their love for the great outdoors to create their dream business, Lifecycles Travel.
Chris and Alice came up with the idea of Lifecycles Travel while living and working in Sydney. Chris worked in the cycling industry, while Alice worked in sports management and marketing.
“We have always been passionate about fitness and specifically cycling and wanted to build our careers around that,” Alice said.
“However, we’d also had enough of the ‘big smoke’ and were looking to move somewhere that had a slower pace yet allowed us to move forward with Lifecycles Travel.”
So Alice and Chris packed up their life in Sydney and landed in the coastal northern New South Wales town of Lennox Head, a place special to the couple and where Alice had holidayed since she was a child.
Lifecycles Travel offers tours of Byron Bay and surrounds with guests able to choose from budget friendly packages, to luxury experiences including accommodation at the renowned The Byron at Byron and Elements of Byron.
Lifecycles is geared towards cycling enthusiasts who know their spokes from disc brakes, but it isn’t all about steep hills and long roads. The Lifecycles Travel tours ride through charming towns including Newrybar and Federal and guests have a chance to sample some of the area’s best produce along the way.
“We work with a number of local businesses and bring our tours through their doors to showcase what the region has to offer. We’ll stop in Top Shop Byron Bay for a coffee or to Harvest for their famous peanut butter croissants. We also take our guests to highly acclaimed waterfront restaurant Shelter in Lennox Head,” Alice said.
“This is an active holiday, but it doesn’t mean it’s only about fitness. We want our visitors to enjoy this beautiful part of Australia and unwind and relax, while covering kilometres of stunning coastal roads and scenic hinterland.”
Alice and Chris say they’ve been blown away by the popularity of their tours and have since expanded from the Byron area to Queensland’s rural Granite Belt. They also offer tours to Europe.
“We’ve started touring the Granite Belt in Queensland, which is a beautiful part of the country and has so much to offer. As well as this we host our annual European tours, which visit enchanting Tuscany and the Dolomites,” they said.
Bike safety is also a priority for the cycling duo, after Chris experienced a near fatal accident competing in 2012.
“In my early twenties I was competing and naively ignored the signs of dehydration and how dangerous this can be for any athlete,” Chris said.
“From what I was told, I came off my bike after blacking out and had a serious crash. So bad that the incident, supposedly first called in as a fatality, forced a complete redirection of the race route so that I could be air evacuated. It was a very scary experience for my family and a life changing experience for me.”
“It took me two years to race again, but since that I have raced stronger and smarter. It really changed my outlook and has also helped us shape this business and place a huge emphasis on safety for ourselves and our guests.”
In between planning these bespoke bike tours and taking their guests on the road less traveled, the couple are also planning for their most exciting project yet – their upcoming wedding!