We take our own bikes. We have always used hybrids. The gear ratios on our new bikes (Glen's pictured) were too high, but our bike shop swapped it for mountain bike gearing. The lowest gear should be 1:1 ratio at most.

Apart from that, make sure the wheels have good quality spokes and are properly built. If they don't, get the wheels professionally rebuilt with quality spokes.

We found this out the hard way. I found several broken spokes, on the drive side of the rear wheel, in a small town on the west coast of New Zealand. There was a bike shop, but it was closed for Christmas, and we had to take a shuttle bus back to the east coast. The shuttle bus went a very indirect route so we missed two days cycling.

Saddles are important, particularly for women. Margaret has a very comfortable upmarket Italian one. Mine is more modest, but I find it comfortable. When we got the new bikes we kept the saddles.