Details for August and Septemeber tours

[velotel]

For anyone contemplating transforming dreams of riding the Alps into memories of riding the Alps and who’s interested in the tours I’ve proposed for August and September, here’s how to make it happen.

Write me : hankbarlow at gmail

Tour slots are limited, logistics for small groups are easier.

Included in the tour price is airport pick-up and return, seven nights of lodging with breakfast each morning (at the moment each tour has 3 nights with dinners included in the prices, that may increase), pricing is double occupancy but obviously one to a room can be arranged.

One guide on all the rides (young and strong, not old and slow), second guide (the old and slow one) driving and riding when possible. The van won’t be following along behind to pick up stragglers but will be available if needed.

Rides in the August tour are loops or out-and-backs, in September most are point-to-point but sometimes with looping or out-and-back options. Flexibility is built-in so we can always shift things around if needed or desired, depending on wants. We’re there to have fun.

Not included are lunches and around half the dinners. Lunches because maybe people just want to haul something to eat along with them or maybe some spur of the moment stop will happen at some restaurant along the way, like at a refuge somewhere in the mountains. Dinners I prefer leaving to everyone because I have no idea how people eat, other than probably not like me. The exceptions to that are at hotels with demi-pension plans where alternatives are thin on the ground, or where the hotel’s restaurant is an excellent call anyway, which is often the case.

There’s also no masseur nor masseuse along for the tour. No mechanic either so best if you know your bike well. And where we’ll be most of the time no handy bike shops either.

Both tours are clearly groad oriented, or using the more common name gravel bike oriented, especially the August tour. The September tour is weighted towards fat-tired road bikes but can be ridden with normal road tires though as fat as 28mm is strongly recommended. Italian pavement is far from buff with cracks and holes and ragged repairs pretty much standard conditions, at least on the kind of small mountain roads we’ll be riding. My recommendation is running tubeless 35 mm to 40 mm tires.

Low gears are also recommended but that’s coming from someone who’s 74 years old and who now finds a 30/32 barely low enough on too many climbs, but still getting up ‘em. All of the rides include big climbs with grades in the high single-digits and sometimes ramps in the low double-digits. Believe me my objective was not finding the steepest, hardest climbs in the region for the tours; I was not an inquisitor in a previous life. But if you want to ride in the Alps, you’re going to have to ride steep grades. The only choice is how steep and whenever possible I always take the easier way, unless the hard way is just too gorgeous to pass up. The aesthetics of where we ride are always for me of utmost importance.

Okay, I guess that pretty much covers things.