DETAILS

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU WANTED TO KNOW ...

Everyone's different, and in our considerable experience, there's certainly no such thing as a typical cyclist. Some people approach cycling tours like ours with the attitude that the less they know beforehand, the better - a bit like a visit to the dentist. Others want all the "nitty gritty" and delight in digesting every tiny detail. So if you're one of the latter, this section is for you. Here you'll find all kinds of information to pore over ...

PAYMENTS
Once we receive your booking form, we’ll invoice you for the 20% non-refundable deposit. Balance is due 10 weeks before arrival. As a small independent tour operator, we are not able to get a card processing merchant account (we’ve tried, several times), because the card processors feel that tour operators are a risk. Too many people end up reclaiming the cost of their dodgy holiday from the card processing company, and we all get tarred with the same brush. So we’re very sorry, but the only way to pay us is by bank/wire transfer.

FINANCIAL PROTECTION
UK Tour operators are obliged by law to ensure that client funds are protected in the event of them becoming insolvent before they deliver the holiday their clients have paid for. There are a number of ways we could do that, but the one we have chosen is to protect your money by means of a specialist insurance policy. This means that as soon as we receive your money, it’s protected by International Passenger Protection Insurance, and once we receive a payment from you, we’ll send you a receipt with information about how you could claim in the very unlikely event you would ever need to. You can see more about our insurance policy here.

RECOMMENDED KIT LIST
One thing we can guarantee on these types of tours, and especially in the mountains, is that the weather will be unpredictable. You could be cycling in glorious sunshine, and then 15 minutes later the sun disappears behind a cloud and you find yourself in a thunderstorm with torrential rain, or even hail (we've had six inches of hail at the end of July on the Tourmalet in the space of half an hour). It's one of the reasons we always ensure we have enough seating capacity in the vehicles to be able to get all our riders off the mountain and in the warm until things improve. 

The key to dealing with this kind of uncertainty is layering and having the right clothing for the situation, and the best quality you can afford. Therefore we've put together a recommended kit list to try to cover all eventualities:

• Arm and leg warmers

• A good quality, wicking base layer

• A good waterproof/windproof jacket (absolutely ESSENTIAL!)

• As many jerseys as you can reasonably bring (because if it's really hot, or raining, you'll be so glad of a fresh, dry jersey during the day).

• A windproof gilet/body-warmer/waistcoat - not essential, but a very useful extra layer, whatever the weather

• A clean pair of shorts for every day, or enough so you can wash them as you go along. A word about shorts - you’ll probably be riding about 8 hours a day, and that’s significantly more than most people usually do in training. It’s your undercarriage that will bear the brunt of that. So it’s really important to have the best quality shorts, and particularly, pad, that you can afford. If you’ve been using the same shorts for some time, it’s probably worth buying new for your trip. We can’t stress enough how worthwhile it is to invest in your shorts, they are the things that take the most punishment when you’re riding long distances, and they are the only things between your delicate derriere and your saddle. If you want to avoid saddle sores, please take our advice. Whatever happens, never wear a pair of shorts for more than one day without washing and rinsing them thoroughly. It's the fastest way to end up with saddle sores. You may also want to invest in a tube of nappy rash cream (we recommend Metanium) - don’t laugh! Over the years we’ve had so many people who thought we were joking when we said how good it was, but who found out the hard way that we were right! You may also want to bring your own chamois cream, just in case.

• Tights/leggings, if you have them. It's a bit like carrying an umbrella - if you do, it probably won’t rain!

• Shoe covers

• Gloves, including winter gloves (you'll be amazed how cold it can be descending a mountain)

• Cap/bandana to wear under your helmet if it's raining or very sunny.

• Swimming kit - many of our tours start and finish at the seaside, and some of the hotels have jacuzzis or swimming pools for you to enjoy.

• Bun saver/Ass saver

Occasionally a hotel will have laundry facilities, and we advise you to take advantage of them. If not, we keep a bottle of hand washing liquid in the van, so you can take some to your room each evening for washing your kit. There will be washing lines and pegs in the vans, so it's best to wash your kit during the evening when we get to the hotel, after your shower, wring it out in your used towel and then hang it overnight in the room. The next day, if it's still not dry, we can hang it in the van for the day. On the Raid Pyrenean and the French Coast to Coast, we stay a night near our home base in Massat halfway through, so we're very happy to put a communal load of laundry in the washing machine for the group and return it to you the following morning, before we set off. It's useful to mark your clothing if you can in some way (initials on the care label with a permanent marker does the trick quite nicely), especially if several of you have the same club kit. And you won’t believe how many people have plain black arm and leg warmers.

HOTELS
On all our cycling tours, our priority is to find the best hotels we can within a reasonable distance of the daily stopping point. This may be anything from a 4* hotel to a B&B -  in fact, one of the B&Bs we use has consistently been voted the best accommodation on that tour by our clients. We guarantee you'll always have a hot shower, a comfortable bed, and plenty of good food. About a month before you arrive, we'll send you the final information about your trip, and this will include a list of all the hotels we're using on your particular event. 

BIKES
All our cycling tours require road bikes with good gearing, and a compact chain set would be a good investment and ensure you get the most enjoyment out of your ride.  We recommend 50/34 on the front and 11/32 on the back. If you don't want to bring your bike, we can recommend a company that hires bikes, provided we have enough notice. It's definitely a good idea to give your bike a thorough service before you travel, and that includes replacing brake blocks and tyres; you really don't want a problem when you're descending a mountain at speed.

We will be carrying spares including tyres and tubes, and a comprehensive bike toolkit and we can help you with most running repairs. For anything more serious, we know all the good bike shops along the route and we'll do our best to get you to the nearest one as quickly as possible.

INSURANCE
It’s a condition of your participation that you have adequate insurance to cover you for third party liability, in case you were to cause an accident, as well as emergency medical cover. It’s also a condition of our liability insurance that all our clients have their own insurance.

We do everything we can at all times to ensure the security of your personal property, but we cannot accept liability for loss or damage to your possessions, and we’re not able to insure them ourselves, because they don’t belong to us. You therefore also need to make sure you have adequate travel insurance to cover those possessions, and in particular your bike. You need to find a policy that covers non-competitive cycling. If you’re coming from the UK, Yellow Jersey has a suitable policy, and many of our clients use them.

BIKE BOXES
After you've assembled your bike, your bike box will be packed into one of our trailers and will be transported with us throughout the trip, but you won’t have access to it on a day to day basis, so it’s best to make sure that you don’t leave anything inside that you may need on the tour.

BAGGAGE
We recommend that you bring a suitcase/holdall and a separate day bag in which you can keep anything you need during the day while you're riding - a change of jersey, a waterproof jacket, arm and leg warmers, sunglasses, suncream, etc. We carry sunscreen (factor 30 and 50) in all our vehicles, it will be in the passenger door, just help yourself whenever you want. Since we'll be fairly close to you at all times, you won't need to carry tons of kit with you during the day. We aim to be at the bottom of each climb so you can top up your water bottles and shed any unwanted layers, and at the top so you can grab a windproof layer for the descent. We'll also see you several times on the way up a long climb, so you can top up your bottles or grab an energy bar or a banana if you need one. 

When you arrive, we'll provide you with luggage tags for your bags, so that we can identify them if we need to. If we have two support vehicles and you change from one group to the other, we’ll make sure we swap your day bag over.

SUPPORT STAFF
We always have a high ratio of staff to riders to enable us to look after you to the very high standard we expect of ourselves. 

In all vehicles you'll find copious quantities of bottled water, energy drink powder, electrolyte tablets, a supply of energy bars and gels, bananas, plus cans of Coke, Orangina, etc. There will also usually be crisps, nuts, cakes, biscuits, fruit, dried fruit, and anything else we can think of for you to snack on.

We also always carry baby wipes, hand sanitising gel, high factor sun screen, tissues, comprehensive first aid kits, painkillers, diarrhoea tablets, indigestion tablets, plasters (bandaids), antiseptic cream and wipes, and anything else that you'd expect to find in your average family medicine cabinet.  We’re not qualified to dispense medication, but you are welcome to help yourself to them.

We generally see you every few kilometres throughout the day. We’ll also provide you with printed paper maps and GPS files for you to upload to your Garmin or other device, if you have one.

Most groups will split during the day into two or more smaller groups. With larger groups we should have enough vehicles to support each group individually. With smaller groups it's not always so simple and our main priority has to be the slower members of the group. Should we find ourselves unable to cover everyone to our satisfaction, we would contact the front riders and ask them to stop for a break or slow down and allow the others to catch up. They may not wish to do so, and we do understand, but in that case we may have to make sure they have everything they need and then let them go on to the hotel.

It’s also worth saying that if we find there’s one person who’s blatantly not fit enough to complete the ride, and we’re constantly having to wait for them, we reserve the right to ask them to get into the vehicle so we can take them back up to the group. Everyone pays the same and it’s really not fair if one person is taking up all the resources and everyone else is suffering because of that.

Since we started in 2009 we've only had to do this a few times, but we want to ensure that everyone knows the situation. 

FOOD
Most of our clients are committed athletes and take nutrition very seriously, and you can't ride something as demanding as any of our cycling tours without eating well, so we'll make sure you never go hungry.

Breakfasts are usually buffet style. Dinners are all 3-4 course and usually you have a choice. Occasionally they're a fixed menu, but if there's nothing you like, we can get something substituted for you.  We also allow a limited amount of alcohol with dinner - beer, soft drinks, or wine. 

Lunches are the only meals we don't include in any of our events. There’s a reason for this! When we first started, in 2009, we used to include picnic lunches - and our picnic lunches are legendary! All our clients who’ve had them before, request them again. But if you get bad weather, there’s nothing more miserable than sitting out in the rain, trying to eat (or even organise) a picnic. So now we leave it until the day before the tour, when we can check the weather forecast. If it’s going to be nice, then we’ll offer to do picnics for you. We can make a decision each evening about the next day. If there’s a day with bad weather forecast, you’re probably better to get something hot in a cafe. There are also places where we recommend you eat in a restaurant - for example, there’s nothing quite like enjoying an omelette on the top of the Aubisque. Or the chips and crêpes on the top of the Peyresourde.

Our picnics are charged at €10 a day, and include everything we can think of to get carbs and protein into you. Bread, crackers, crisps, nuts, local cheeses, cold meats, paté, cured sausage, chicken legs, tuna, various salads (green, rice, couscous, pasta or potato), tomatoes, rice pudding (usually a favourite), whatever fruit is in season, and whatever else we can find. We try to mix it up a bit, so you get some variety, and it’s great to try all the local cheeses as we go along. We’ve been doing them for more than a decade, and people always ask for them.

ENERGY BARS & GELS
We include a reasonable quantity of good quality energy bars and gels on all our events. Brands differ from year to year, but we'll let you know what will be on board before you come. If everyone uses them responsibly, there will be plenty to go around, but when they're gone, they're gone. If there's a brand you can't live without, it's a good idea to bring some with you

COMPRESSED AIR CARTRIDGES
It's become increasingly common for airport security staff to search cyclists' luggage and bike boxes, and confiscate compressed air cartridges. Since you don't want to give anyone an excuse to tamper with your precious bike, we recommend you leave them at home. We can loan you cartridges to carry for the duration of your trip, and you can simply return them when you leave. 

MAPS
You'll be provided with detailed, printed maps to follow, but also GPS files that you can upload to your own device in advance, although we aim to always be within a couple of kilometres of you. 

PHONES
It's really useful if clients carry a mobile phone and keep it on at all times while they're riding. If you're coming from outside Europe, you need a tri-band phone, otherwise it won't work. If you're concerned about roaming charges, it's possible to buy prepaid SIM cards for around €50, including €30 of calls, from any tobacconist or post office. 

BROOM WAGON
We do our utmost to let everyone complete the day's ride, and usually we achieve that. On the odd occasion (a handful of times since we started in 2009), we've had to ask a rider to stop and get in the van - usually because we're losing daylight, or because they're now so far off the back, that they won't get into the hotel in time to get dinner or any measure of recovery. Safety always has to come first. 

Obviously this can be disappointing, but perhaps if you're struggling, you're better to get to the hotel and try to get some rest and a good meal and carry on fresh the next day. And if you were doing something like the Raid Pyrenean, the pressure's off from that point, because although you'll no longer qualify for the medal and certificate, at least from then on you can pick and choose whatever you want to ride and save your energy for the best bits.

ENJOY THE RIDE!
With all our European cycling tours we want you to have a wonderful holiday and go back and tell all your cycling friends what a fantastic trip it was, and we'll certainly do everything we can to help you achieve just that. At no point are we going to get the whip out and make you carry on when you've really had enough. We always make sure we have plenty of space in the vehicles - it's one of the reasons we have such a high ratio of support vehicles and staff to riders - and if you're struggling, you're always welcome to put your bike in the van and ride with us as long as you want to. Often people just need a bit of a break and the opportunity to catch up with the rest of the group, and then they'll feel up to getting out and giving it another go. It's happened quite often, so don't feel embarrassed or that you have no option but to carry on struggling, because after all, this is supposed to be an enjoyable holiday!