BIKING : Pedaling the world’s byways offers the opportunity to stop and enjoy life’s simple pleasures. Whether on country lanes from the California coast to the shores of New England or on scenic back roads of Britain, the Continent and the Orient, the rewards outweigh the effort.

For travelers who are still spinning their wheels over vacation ideas, how about biking through the Rockies this summer--or maybe the back roads of Vermont?

Scenes off an old-fashioned calendar await the pedaling pack on dozens of tours from California to the salty shores of Cape Cod.

For others with appetites for more exotic adventure, there are paths that lead through Britain, the Continent and the Orient in what promises to be the spinningest summer in bicycle history.

In New England, groups will ride by day and enjoy the warmth of hot tubs and cozy inns at sundown. They’ll dip into peaceful swimming holes and check out country villages with their old-fashioned goodness that matches the mood.

Vermont, with its rural roads and inviting inns, is a biker’s joy. Picnic lunches are spread along rivers and streams and village greens, and afterward riders pedal by split-rail fences and across covered bridges that bring to mind scenes from a nearly forgotten yesterday.

Vermont’s bikers shop for fresh strawberries during summer and tart apples in autumn when springtime’s earlier promise fades with the golden benediction signaled by the turning of leaves and the return of Jack Frost.

Vermont Country Cyclers specializes in five-day tours ($499) both for the novice and the experienced biker. Riders give high points to a trip that begins in Stowe, Vt., and follows back roads through rural regions where nary a car is seen during an entire day. With Vermont Cyclers one may travel with the pack or go it alone, joining the group again in the evening.

Inn-to-inn touring is also provided by Bike Vermont, whose riders travel individually rather than in a group. Twelve to 15 riders get together each evening after setting their own pace during the day.

“No awards are given for finishing first,” says promoter Bob McElwain. “It’s low-key, non-competitive and no one need be a ‘super-jock.’ ”

Bike Vermont, which has hosted riders ages 7 to 76, does both five-day ($455/$495) and weekend ($170/$190) trips. On one tour, bikers spend the night at an inn on the shore of Lake St. Catherine where they go canoeing or sailing; picnic lunches are spread on the village green at Chester and there’s a swimming hole alongside an old mill near Rockingham.

Others go antiquing or cool the sprocket at a sugar mill and dairy farms with red barns and Morgan horses that graze deep in clover beside lofty silos.

One tour takes off from Chester to follow a stagecoach road to the charming village of Grafton with its covered bridge, art galleries and antique shops. Bikers look in on Norman Rockwell’s home at Arlington and Calvin Coolidge’s birthplace at Plymouth, along with the craft shops of Manchester and other inviting post card-like villages.

At Proctorsville, there is a simple inn with the poetic name of Golden Stage where flowers fresh from the garden grace tables. Guests warm themselves by a fireplace and sneak naps in the parlor while the owner whips up marvelous desserts.

Blossoms lend their fragrance along Vermont’s country lanes, and meadows are choked with wildflowers. Inns on the Proctorsville route are 20 to 25 miles apart, allowing for leisurely rides and visits to village shops selling homemade quilts, Christmas tree ornaments and rock candy stacked beside old-fashioned cracker barrels filled with fresh cheeses and berry preserves.

A different twist is offered by Vermont Bicycle Touring with its five-night sail-and-cycle tours ($695) and a seven-day cruise-and-cycle adventure ($1,395) with accommodations aboard a 19th-Century windjammer that sails along the coasts of Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

VBT produces other tours using inns, including one that features picnics under a covered bridge, shopping in Woodstock, Vt., and an ex-farmhouse with wood-burning stoves, a piano for sing-alongs and ethnic meals ranging from Greek to Mexican to Oriental cuisine.

Trips Abroad

Ten Speed Tours of Van Nuys has scheduled trips this summer through France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary. One tour begins in Paris and moves south to the chateaux country in the Loire Valley. Another gets under way in Munich and continues into Bavaria and on to Salzburg. Riders ages 13 to 67 average about 35 miles per day.

These are small groups, no more than 20 riders, and Ten Speed’s Don Finch prefers groups of 15. Bikers spend two weeks ($1,595) exploring the back roads of rural Europe. Finch’s Germany/Austria trips get high praise, what with Alpine scenery and charming mom ‘n’ pop inns that provide home-cooked meals. One biker told Finch that he simply didn’t want to go home again.

For cyclists seeking deluxe accommodations, Progressive Travels of Colorado is scheduling a series of tours to France’s Dordogne and Lot Valleys, spotlighting the renowned Chateau de Romegouse, Chateau de la Treyne, Hotel Fournier and the two-starred Michelin Centenaire in the Dordogne ($1,590).

Other tours take in St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, and there’s one in Colorado (seven days for $1,675) that winds through the Rockies from Aspen to Vail and Breckenridge with sumptuous picnics by the roadside. On the St. Kitts/Nevis tour ($1,450) bikers make stops at the Ocean Terrace Inn, the Golden Lemon (operated by ex-magazine editor Arthur Leaman), Rawlins Plantation and the spiffy Golden Rock Estate.

Bill McBride’s Earth Venture does loosely structured trips from Paris to Pompeii and Britain. Bikers visit chateaux, take a spin in a gondola in Venice, dine where Hemingway spent happy hours, swim in Caesar’s favorite watering hole and retrace the footsteps of Van Gogh and Gauguin in the South of France.

McBride’s cyclists leave at whatever hour they choose each morning, traveling as a group, in pairs, pedaling alone or hopping aboard the support van and skipping the exercise altogether. Besides biking, McBride’s Tours include ballooning in Burgundy and the Loire Valley ($1,490).

To the Riviera

Other McBride bikers visit the Italian Riviera, Rome, Florence, Naples and the coastal villages of the Tyrrhinean Sea, and the western countryside of England.

Closer to home the Wilderness Institute of Woodland Hills packages one- to four-day trips to Catalina, Ojai, Santa Barbara and the wine country. Top billing goes to a Thursday-Sunday tour with bikers bused round trip to San Simeon to check out Hearst Castle and camp along beaches.

Scores of other local trips are being booked by Breaking Away Bicycle Tours of Manhattan Beach, which sends bikers off to Colorado, Hawaii and France where they’ll follow the path of the Tour de France ($1,399).

In San Leandro, Calif., Backroads Bicycle Touring has produced a series of trips (two to 18 days) that zero in on the Napa/Sonoma wine country and Death Valley and beyond to the Canadian Rockies and New Zealand. Backroads invites bikers to “smell the wildflowers, relax in a hot tub, sample local wines, join an oyster bake and go fishing along Hawaii’s Kona coast.”

In Oregon, Backroads’ riders pedal along coastal waters and through forests and farm lands, checking out fruit stands and looking in on art galleries. Other Backroads bikers zero in on Yellowstone, Puget Sound, New Mexico, Baja, Alaska and Hawaii.

Taking in the Tetons

This year Backcountry Bicycle Tours of Montana is promoting three new tours that take in the Grand Tetons, Bryce and Zion Canyons, and the North Yellowstone-Beartooth Traverse. BBTM promises gourmet meals along with outstanding accommodations at inns that specialize in tender loving care. Bikers have the choice of six- or nine-night packages costing $689 to $969 that include shelter, three meals a day, snacks on the road and entrance fees to the parks.

Other pedalers are signing on for bike trips offered by Open Road Bicycle Tours that include dawn flights in hot-air balloons over Virginia and cycle/sailing on Cape Cod. On the Virginia trip bikers are put up in an antebellum mansion in the heart of Virginia’s horse and wine country, and those joining the five-day ($599) Cape Cod adventure will sail aboard a 65-foot schooner between Wood’s Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

Open Road is putting together other tours to Nova Scotia, Holland, Belgium, France, China and Ireland. In Ireland a 13-day spin to the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula is pegged at $1,249, including meals and a belt or two of Stout.

The Irish, bless ‘em, are waiting anxiously in the wings.

References:

--Vermont Country Cyclers, Box 145-7, Waterbury, Vt., 05677; (802) 244-5215. (VCC also does Europe tours).

--Bike Vermont, P.O. Box 207, Woodstock, Vt., 05091; (802) 457-3553.

--Vermont Bicycle Touring, P.O. Box 711-PX, Bristol, Vt., 05443; (802) 453-4811.

--Ten-Speed Tours, 7013 Haskell Ave., Suite 203, Van Nuys, Calif., 91406; (818) 786-4279.

--Progressive Travels, P.O. Box 775164, Steamboat Springs, Colo., 80477; (800) 245-2229.

--Earth Ventures, 6608 St. James Drive, Indianapolis, Ind., 46217; (317) 783-9449.

--Wilderness Institute of Woodland Hills (Suite L-10), 22900 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, Calif. 91364; (818) 887-7831.

--Asian Pacific Adventures, 336 Westminster Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90020; (213) 935-3156. (These people specialize in bicycle tours in China and Japan.)

--Breaking Away Bicycle Tours, 1142 Manhattan Ave., Suite 253, Manhattan Beach, Calif., 90266; (213) 545-5118.

--Backroads Bicycle Touring, P.O. Box 1626-H, San Leandro, Calif., 94577; (415) 895-1783.

--Backcountry Bicycle Tours, P.O. Box 4029, Bozeman, Mont., 59715; (406) 586-3556.

--Open Road Bicycle Tours, 1601 Summit Drive, Department R, Haymarket, Va., 22069; (804) 754-4152.

--Country Cycling Tours, 140 West 83rd St., New York, N.Y. 10024; (212) 874-5151.

--California Bicycle Cruises, Box 7420, Santa Cruz, Calif. 95061; (800) 222-0072.

--On the Loose Bicycle Adventure Vacations, 1400 Shattuck Ave., Suite 7, No. 55, Berkeley, Calif. 94079; (415) 527-4005.