Thomson Bike Tours
All about the ride.
Client
Thomson Bike Tours
Role
Strategy, creative direction, identity design, website design, brand copywriting
Team
Lettering by Rob Clarke, illustration by Anje Jager, maps and climb profiles by Owen Delaney
Year
2019–21
Studio
Conductor
Thomson Bike Tours has been creating cycling trips since 2001 and is the Premier Official Tour Operator to the Tour de France. Its reputation came from the riding and the people. The brand, the website and the booking process hadn’t kept pace, and in a category of happy cyclists under blue skies, nothing marked Thomson out. I led the work from the first workshop through strategy, identity and a new website that moved booking online, then stayed on to roll the brand out across print, film, social and the newsletter.
We started with a workshop and a survey of Thomson’s guests. They were avid cyclists, mostly from North America, and they said the same thing in different ways: the ride is the point, and they want nothing to worry about but the riding. The audit showed a category that looked alike, blue and black, picturesque photography and functional copy, with no one owning a colour, a typeface or a voice. Thomson had what nobody else could claim, its status as the number one Tour de France operator, and a team who ride every route until it’s right.
Let’s Go Again. It comes from how Thomson works, riding a route again and again until it’s the best it can be, and from what guests do when a trip ends: book the next one. It’s an invitation, it’s motivational and it’s positive, and it sets the tone for everything else: dry, warm and encouraging, never grand.
Note
A wordmark hand-lettered by Rob Clarke, drawn from the signwriting on the shopfronts and cafés of the Alps, Pyrenees and Dolomites. A cobalt blue that evokes azure skies, with colour otherwise left to the photography. Parnaso, a high-contrast heritage serif, for headlines, and Suisse for the abundance of itinerary detail.
Hand-drawn illustration by Anje Jager, and maps and climb profiles by Owen Delaney, add a tactile layer no competitor had. They explain kit lists, routes and gradients without reaching for another landscape photo.
The roll-out was everything Thomson touches. On screen: the website, newsletter, social and presentation templates. On the road: cycling kit, van livery, posters, flags, guest handouts and merchandise. I’ve looked after the brand ever since, so it still holds together at every stage start and every send.
The website is the business. Built from the ground up, it moved all booking online: trips, departures, three ride levels, spectator trips and group bookings, with automated emails, the Journal and a library of climbs. Guests can switch an itinerary between ride levels and watch the route, distance and climbing change, flip miles to kilometres, and see every gravel sector and climb mapped metre by metre.
The website moved booking online, and online became the business. In its first year it took $1.6M; by 2024 it was taking almost $6M, with orders up more than threefold. Trips fill, there are more of them, more brand partners have come on board, prices have gone up, and in 2025 Thomson was bought by a bigger group, Milky Way Park. The newsletter list has grown from 12,000 to 20,000, and Instagram from around 4,000 followers to nearly 22,000. “Throughout the time we’ve been working with Conductor they’ve created high quality compelling content through all of our channels. We consider Conductor as an integral part of our business and count on them 100% to manage all aspects of our future business strategy.” Peter Thomson, Owner, Thomson Bike Tours
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