1. License our routes
   1. Provide “Route Sheets” (day-by-day detailed riding suggestions)
   2. Provide detailed, bicycle-appropriate, road maps
   3. Offer our opinion of the best en route sights and lunch stops
2. Rent bicycles
3. Rent or sell cycle accessories
   We also have the Lonely Planet “Cycling in France” guide available for sale in our Paris office, current edition edited by Ethan Gelber, one of our founders.
   
4. Arrange for transfer of your cycle(s) to or from Paris airports
5. Store cycles, cycle cases, or luggage in our Paris office
6. Ship bikes (ours or your own) and luggage between your arrival airport and your trip
7. Help you travel by train with your bike
8. Forward luggage within your cycle trip
9. Give you our restaurant recommendations for the towns of your night stops
10. Suggest hotels
11. Make hotel reservations

At the bottom of the page are indications on how to get started with your project.

If your group is formed of 6 or more people, and you want most or all of the above services, your trip will tend more towards what we call a “charter” trip, even if you do not wish to have us send a Trip Manager.  See our page describing the staging of charter trips for details on how we do this.

Some of these services are costly for small numbers of travellers.  For example, if a truck moves your suitcase from one hotel to the next, it can carry additional cases for virtually the same price (only insurance and a minor labour component change).  So the cost of baggage transfer for one person, or for four, is close to the same — meaning that the per-person cost is 4 times higher if you are travelling alone.

It is best to be realistic about this:  if you are travelling on your own, or even in a couple, and wish to keep to a reasonable budget, you should plan on investing a lot of your own time in setting up your trip.  And if you don’t want to carry paniers, well, perhaps it’s time to start making some cycling friends who can travel with you and share the costs of the bag movement.  Indeed, our ferociously independent scheduled trips are much more about mutualizing set-up costs than they are about group travel.

Details of our different services can be found by following the links.  Some are on this page.  Others, which also concern our scheduled trips, are on other pages.



I.  Licensing our Routes

Our itineraries can be licensed for a one-time use fee of 350€(uros) per trip week, rounded to the nearest whole week, plus 40€ per additional rider beyond the first (so, for instance, 390€ for two for a one-week trip, 780€ for a two-week trip...).  See here for conversion to your currency.

For our fee, we provide the following.

• Our suggested route or routes from town to town.  These are carefully researched to follow the smallest available roads, or cycle paths.
  Our routes offer scenic beauty, predictable topography, safe riding conditions (in the local context), and our appreciation of the region’s most interesting towns and villages.
• Our daily, copyrighted “route sheets.”  Our route sheets offer an overview of the day, including...
  - Interesting sights...
  - ...route variants, which permit you to lengthen or shorten your ride...
  - ...detailed schedules and instructions for use of local trains that will accept your bike should you tire or get caught in a shower.
  Route sheets are provided in their current format.  That is, they will have been updated for our previous regularly-scheduled trip operating on that route.
• Detailed maps, generally 1:200,000 scale (one set per two riders).
• Suggestions for en route stops (touristic or scenic), including lunch suggestions.
  

II.  Cycle Rental

Follow the title link for details.


III.  Cycle accessories for rental or purchase

Follow the title link for details.


IV.  Transfer of luggage and / or cycle(s) to or from Paris airports

Follow the title link for details.


V.  Storage of cycles, cycle cases, or luggage in our Paris office

Follow the title link for details.


VI.  Shipment of bikes and luggage between airport(s) and your trip

Follow the title link for details.


VII.  Help with travel by train, with your bike

Getting on European trains with your bike can be complex.   Many fast trains (most in some countries) do not allow bikes.  Those that do severely restrict the number that can board a given train, require that you reserve your cycle spaces, and often sell out those cycle spaces far in advance, especially on weekends.  Reservations for cycles on trains are not generally available outside the country of travel.

This is a domain of expertise for us... if you would like information on making a trip with your bike or bikes, we offer our consulting services for a flat fee of 20€ per trip (regardless of the number of travellers making the trip).  For the same fee, we will instead provide general information pertaining to a specific country.  If you then wish detailed schedules for a particular trip, however, an additional charge will apply.

Simply submit your request in writing (to avoid misunderstanding), along with your name, e.mail, a phone number where you can be reached, and a postal address.  One of our advisors will reply with the details of bike transport on the route or routes you are contemplating.

Satisfaction is guaranteed regarding the quality of our information, not regarding the quality of the railroad services on offer.  In other words, if we cannot reply fully and accurately, no payment is due.  If cycle transport by train is simply impossible on your route, no payment is due.  However, if we reply with the method, and you do not like it (the railroad requires that you travel by local train when you would have preferred an express, for instance), our consulting charge is nonetheless due.

We can also reserve bike spaces aboard continental European trains which require such reservations.  Bike reservations on trains are not always required, but where they are, they must generally be purchased simultaneously with the rail tickets.  Please do not buy your tickets or railpasses elsewhere, and then ask us to reserve bike spaces for you.  It will not generally be possible, and where it is, it will cost you more than it would have to book both together.  For information on having us reserve your bike travel, please see the relevant sections of our train travel page (concerning reservations, and our fees for making them).


VIII.  Shipment of luggage within your cycle trip

We can organize this for you, using a variety of local shippers, taxis, and our own personnel.  Confiding this work to us saves you time, and helps you avoid language issues which can lead to misunderstanding and misdelivery.  Our reliability is excellent:  in 20 years we have yet to lose a single bag.

In addition, we can arrange economical alternate shipments schemes, as compared to an every-night transfer.  For example, if you are willing to carry one night’s affairs in saddlebags on your bike, you can avail yourself of a service equivalent to the “Half” service offered on our scheduled trips.  Follow this link to see how our scheduled trip Baggage Transfer Services work:  we can organize similar services for self-guided trips.

Per person costs are, of course, highest for small groups or solo travellers.  And, costs are higher if delivery / pick-up must take place in very isolated, rural locations.  To attain the approximate levels of pricing seen for our regular route trips, your group must have at least four travellers, and baggage stops must be in villages and towns, rather than on tops of mountains.


IX.  Restaurant recommendations for the towns of your night stops.

A list of the restaurants we have selected in each town for each of our trips.  There are often several choices per town, described in some editorial detail.  This list will be of most worth to those seeking to hew as closely as possible to the local culture.  Its presentation is informal, and not at all “sanitized.”  It is, essentially, an internal document used by our trip coordinators.  Cost is 80€, plus 20€ per additional trip participant beyond the first. So, for example, 100€ for two, 120€ for three, etc.

This service is only available if you are following one of our regular routes.


X - XI.  Suggest hotels, and make hotel reservations

Follow the title link for details.  You may opt for our suggestions alone, or to additionally have us make the reservations.

If you have us make the reservations, you pre-pay the room charges to us, and we settle the bill with the hotel.

If you prefer, you may make your booking directly with the hotel, and pay your invoice locally, or however the hotel requires.  The linked page explains why you might prefer one or the other system.

How to Sign Up for a Self-Guided Trip

Full payment is required to license our itineraries.  There is no deadline to do so (we have people license our routes just days before they set out), and no refunds are available once you do, so you should be sure you are travelling before you take the plunge.  But, the earlier you do, the more you can use the information we send to plan or reserve lodging and make other plans, through us, or on your own.

You may use our Standard Trip Application to give us your data.  As “Name of the Trip,” enter the words “Self-Guided” and the route you are licensing (for example, “Southern  Burgundy”).  You may also communicate bike size information by mean of this sheet, if you are renting our cycle(s).

Accommodation advice / booking must also be prepaid (20€ per stop).  The cost of the rooms themselves will be invoiced once known.

Other services must be paid when ordered.  No service is considered reserved (nor is its availability confirmed) until it has been formally requested and paid for.

This is an important detail:  if your trip depends on our cycle rental, order the cycle when you pay for the route license.  This avoids having us give you the route...  only to tell you a month later (when you get around to asking) that we don’t have a cycle in stock for you!  We do not refund the route license fee in this case.  The same applies to luggage transfer:  if you want us to handle it, order the service when you license the route.  It avoids discovering that we no longer have the personnel available when you finally plan that aspect of things....