Big bike tours eyeing city

Photo: Smile Cycle Tours

A unique Kelowna business is eyeing Penticton for expansion this summer.

Smile Cycle Tours provides tours to up to 15 cyclists at a time on a single large quadricycle, also known as dutch pedal bike tours.

Company owner Stuart Lang visited Penticton city council Tuesday to announce his plans and take questions from councillors.

“We say beaches and peaches in the Penticton area, and I think there is a real nice play here with the waterfront and really being a summer town,” he said.

The two-hour tours in Kelowna offer stops at several local breweries and wineries, something Lang hopes to replicate in Penticton on a daily basis this summer.

“I was very careful to constantly touch base with my delegates in the City of Kelowna, we had zero issues raised from a public perspective,” he said, referring to how the car-sized bike interacts with other vehicles on the road.

“When people are going down the road and they are smiling, even if you are inconvenienced for ten seconds by needing to pull around, we often see those people smiling right back to us,” he added.

Lang said he would be approaching the city with a formal business plan in the near future, but wanted to take the opportunity Tuesday to announce his intentions to the community first.