Some rambling 2004 thoughts on the “Best of Three” and French Alps Tours.

I've offered the "Best of Three" UK trips for the last 4 or 5 years (in different guises), starting mainly because this is exactly the route that friends & I would take for a weekend away on our bikes.  Then a few Bike Tours guests would tag along, and I started to run it purely as a mini-tour (but friends still come along as well!).

This "Best of Three" is actually a very good training ground for people thinking about going to the Alps.  You'll cover over 500 miles in the weekend, plus whatever distance is involved getting to the start point and home again.  You will also encounter pretty steep hills & mountain roads - nowhere near as high as in the Alps - but narrower and equally as challenging.

In the “Best of Three” evenings, we tend to eat, drink, and spend the full evening in the pub (not compulsory of course).   The George & Dragon actually has a proper restaurant (which is less of a pub) - and after a few drinks in the bar first, we often just retire to the restaurant for the rest of the night.  As pubs go, The Sun Inn is better.

Regarding riding abilities, that is a question coming up a lot now.

I've been riding for many years (30!), and so have many of my friends.  I suppose we're becoming quite competent now.  These tours of mine began with friends & I riding these routes, and "making progress" as they say.  However, as the Bike Tours business has grown, word has got about, and more and more people have joined the trips.  I am getting more and more people who are "older and steadier" shall we say.  While pottering about slowly is not my normal preferred riding style, this is what a good 40 or 50% of guests prefer to do.  So, I have to try and cater for this as much as is possible, although it's certainly not my natural style.  I don't like to ride in a large convoy, nose to tail.  We'll normally split into small sub-groups of 4-6 riders.

On a trip, there will nearly always be a disparity in the abilities and preferred pace of the various riders.  So, we often split up into smaller groups, where people can ride with others of a similar ability or riding style.  On longer trips, my helper often goes off with the fast group, while I try and stay back with the steadier ones if possible. It may well be vice versa of course.

It is something that people do worry about, and for this reason I'm starting to make an attempt to dictate the likely pace of a particular trip.  It may not work of course (it doesn’t), but I'm suggesting that the April "Best of Three" tour will be the slower paced one, and the May one will be for more confident or experienced riders.  (Some people can only make a particular date however, irrespective of ability, and besides, self-assessment of your riding ability is only a guide - sometimes it can be far different from the reality!)

Finally though - you've got to start somewhere - if you think you're a "novice" and not capable of riding in the French Alps, then, true to your own predictions, you will never do this.  It's a mental state;  if you believe you can, then you're halfway there already. 

I have noticed a difference in style and attitude though, from people who’ve ridden a bike on and off for most of their lives, and those newcomers who’ve been conditioned to sit in a queue for 30 years, and have yet to discover the real freedom that biking gives.  Road rage amongst bikers is a rare thing – there’s rarely ever a reason to be stuck in traffic on a motorcycle.  It just doesn't happen.

The first time I went to the Alps on a bike, I was 19 and had never even been abroad (except for a schoolboy French Exchange visit at 15), and I had absolutely no experience whatsoever.  I rode down to Grenoble alone, in June 1978, on an unreliable 1969 Triumph Bonneville 650.  I had several punctures and the bike broke down frequently.  I had no recovery insurance (couldn't afford it), and just had to get on and fix it when things went wrong.  Things often did go wrong, but I sorted it out & learned from the experience. 

This is how we all learn. 

I haven't stopped going to the Alps ever since.

On a scale of 1 to 5 (for challenge, pace & adventure), the Alps tour would be a 4 star rating.  The Best of Three (UK) tours would be rated 3 star.  The Dordogne & Picos tour would be 3/4 star, and Thailand would be 5.