Friends to Founders
Andreas and Roberto have been friends since 2011, having met while sailing from Cartagena to Panama. Both guys needed to return to Colombia, only to discover that flights were above their budget. What followed were several days and several attempts to get from Panama to Colombia through the non-government zone of El Darién. It turns out that the adventure of buses, leaky log boats, hitchhiking, and military obstructions can form a great friendship.
Loop Tours began in Copenhagen in 2018 from a culmination of experiences lived and learned by the founder Andreas. After returning from a not-so-short ride along the Silk Road from Istanbul to China, Andreas began designing his own tour combining classic Danish-designed cargo bikes with an exploration of Danish culture.
The tour gradually became a success and several journalists wanted to cover this unconventional tour. By the end of the summer, it became clear that the concept of an urban cargo bike experience is the missing piece in the European travel puzzle. Cargo bikes are really fun and exciting to ride. They allow anyone to take part, including people with walking difficulties, small children or pets. The bikes also allow us to cover considerable areas in a relatively short space of time, granting the user more time to see the city! It is also a great social experience because people can talk to each other while exploring.
After visiting Andreas in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2018 and trying the tour for himself, Roberto was convinced to take the unique experience to his hometown in Lucerne, Switzerland. While Lucerne is famous for its pristine alpine lake and magnificent mountain views, its idyllic medieval town wasn’t created with electric cargo bikes in mind. Yet the success of the tour in Lucerne has proven that the tour can work in cities all over Europe! Come and join us on one today, we would love to have you on board!
Our Mission
Loops Tours wants to support positive urban development and assist in the creation of life-sized and revitalized cities. We do this through our cargo bike experiences, which display positive examples of development so that we can share great ideas on how people can live together into and beyond the 21st century. Our belief is that cargo bikes are a key ingredient for making cities car-free and therefore, more liveable. The best way to convince world citizens and politicians that cycling infrastructure is a great investment, is to let them experience the joy, freedom and social aspect of biking for themselves. We endeavor to make our guests ambassadors for cycling infrastructure in their own communities and aim to achieve this by providing a memorable and fun activity on our cargo e-bikes.
Additionally, we realize that many travelers these days are not really interested in the historical details of a city’s past but are looking for something beyond the typical tourist experience. We believe that the interesting stories can be presented entertainingly but should also be told in a way that is thought-provoking and prompts reflection. Everyone travels to gain a new perspective, a new angle and a new reflection on their own position (maybe even change their behavior).
We know that this is a fairly ambitious goal but demonstrating positive examples and interesting scientific facts all within an entertaining tour has the potential to inspire even one person to make a small change in their life. These could be things like deciding to take the kids to school by bike rather than by car, spending more time with family and friends, joining an organization with a positive social cause or even voting for a politician (please vote!) that supports creating green urban planning. There are many examples of positive urban development and they can be found not only in cities like Copenhagen but almost everywhere. It is our job to find these examples, wrap them neatly into an entertaining tour and excite our guests to support life-sized cities.
It goes without saying that we want to contribute to the communities we work within and the environment as well. We aim to do this by paying fair wages to our guides, cooperating and partnering with social businesses that share our values and reducing our footprint by removing single-use items from our equipment and tours. Our impact on the planet and on individuals should always be an important variable in every decision we make as an organization and ourselves.
If you want to find out more about who we are, what we do and why we do it, or if you’d like to contribute to our mission – please get in touch with us in Lucerne or contact us in Copenhagen!