Our Vision
We aim to provide the best tour that our guests have ever experienced – if someone only has 1 tour to do in Scotland, they should choose to do a tour with Gallus Pedals.
Our tours are designed to be the most fun, memorable, and personable tour our guests have been on.
Our tours are authentic, we make our tourists feel like locals however we make our locals feel like tourists - we unashamedly want to convince everyone that we live in a fantastic place and can inspire anyone who comes on one of our tours.
We hire guides with the personality and training to entertain you, who will naturally seek ways to make your tour extra special. Finally, for us, it’s not enough to deliver great experiences – since our inception, we wanted our business to be a force for good.
Our Guiding Principles
-
Connection – forging a genuine connection between place, guests, and guide. Our tours also provide a deep local connection: our initial fleet of bikes are all named after (not so) famous Glaswegian women, the majority of whom were working class and as part of the tour and post-trip experience, guests get to take home a unique life story – written in conjunction with Glasgow Women’s Library.
-
Individuality – focus on every individual as much as possible - recognizing that everyone has a valued and unique perspective to bring which enables guides to unleash their full potential and also for guests to bring us new ideas…this helps us to discover new places, stuff going on, forgotten stories and learning things about other places in the World
-
Fun & friendly – we believe that tours and work should be both fun and friendly…we think this is the best way to do work and be more productive. We expect everyone to be on first-name terms as early as possible on our tour. We believe that engaging with people will create a much more enriching experience for everyone involved.
-
Positive impact – we believe that every business should positively impact the world around them. At our inception, we worked with charities which allowed us to source bikes from landfill and donate bikes to social enterprises in Africa. To date, we have provided over 2500 (and counting!) school meals in the developing world and have supported some local grassroots charitable organizations in delivering their objectives. Our tours are low-impact by design, offering bike, e-bike, and walking options that reduce reliance on motorized transport. For combination tours, we work with local partners who share our values, such as whisky distilleries and gin-makers prioritizing sustainable practices like sourcing local ingredients. To reduce plastic waste, we no longer provide single-use bottles, encouraging guests to bring their own or use our reusable bottles, with refill stations along our routes. Additionally, we’ve adopted a paperless booking system and provide composting and recycling at our facilities. Gallus Pedals also collaborates with local charities, including Women on Wheels, Mary’s Meals, and Bike for Good, supporting their missions and strengthening our community bonds.
Why are we doing this?
Well, we think most people we know would love our tour. We're here to show how great Glasgow is on one of our stylish bikes.
We provide a fun, safe and healthy experience on a bike, exploring and enjoying some of what we think is the best our fantastic city has to offer.
​
We've travelled and lived in different continents but have always been drawn back to Glasgow. We've looked at Glasgow through the lens of a tourist for 15 years and are keen to share our enthusiasm for it. We also think Glasgow is completely underrated as a place to live and a place to visit and love digging out little stories and places that uncover its distinctive character. Often the stories which we love the most are from ordinary people who we feel aren't celebrated enough.
Why by bike?
Well, simply by being on a bike you get to see more of the city than you would do on foot and it's more immersive than being stuck in a car and clearly there are some beautiful spots in the city (and therefore on our tours!) that wouldn't be possible by car. It's also much more sustainable for the environment too. We're keen to promote cycling as a hobby, a form of exercise and also, crucially, just a way to get around :) Quite simply, the world would be a better place if everybody cycled.
​