Someone here a few months ago asked about Edelweiss tours. I can
happily report that the company at least in Europe (I believe they
operate as a franchise, so can't comment about their North American
operation) are competant and organise a damn fine tour. We endured a
grand total of 2km of autobahn on the tour - the guides (except for
the new guide who was there as part of his job interview) knew exactly
where to take us to avoid the bad roads and enjoy the good roads.

The hotels are all good. Nice being able to ride through snow and
rain and know that at the end of the day, your bags are already
sitting next to your bed, and the shower is not going to be a plumbing
disaster in some third rate hotel. The bikes are all near new, but
hopefully already run in (not that you care about that when it's
someone elses bike).

It's kinda pricey, but then again, so is 2 weeks of bike rental, 2
weeks of hotels and food (in fact, a few of us were wondering how they
do it so cheap. I haven't added up the bills from my other 4 weeks of
holiday, but I suspect they came out worse!). And when you DIY, you
don't get a support van and spare bike; you have to make sure
everything fits in your panniers, and you probably don't have decades
of cumulative experience in finding the best riding roads.

Now, the drawbacks:

They're advertised big in America. Virtually nowhere else (although
Europeans seem to know about their north american tours). I found out
about the company when they put 1 ad in one magazine for their "ducati
experience" tours. I went on their website and realised they
organised a ****-load more. So when I got the initial list of
participants on my tour, I realised their were 2 Australians including
myself, and 10 Americans. In reality, 3 other Australians signed up
late, so it wasn't a disaster, but all but 2 of the Americans were of
the really loud, rich (and owned their own private jets) annoying
kind. Who had retired and couldn't ride bikes safely anymore. Just
keep well back from them when they inevitably end up on the wrong side
of the road around a blind hairpin. Some of them, despite their
skills, insisted on pushing to the front of the group after every stop
too.

Our tour had no bad accidents (just a nervous nelly stopping
unexpectedly when he got spooked by a bus, causing the following rider
to sideswipe him - don't forget how wide your panniers are!). The
following tour on the same route had 2 bad accidents.

My photos and videos are trickling in over at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacela...7626831455433/

and

http://youtube.com/timconnors


--
TimC
If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have
given up being a rock 'n' roll star. -- G. Hirst

On 17/07/11 7:08 PM, TimC wrote:
> Someone here a few months ago asked about Edelweiss tours. I can
> happily report that the company at least in Europe (I believe they
> operate as a franchise, so can't comment about their North American
> operation) are competant and organise a damn fine tour. We endured a
> grand total of 2km of autobahn on the tour - the guides (except for
> the new guide who was there as part of his job interview) knew exactly
> where to take us to avoid the bad roads and enjoy the good roads.
>
> The hotels are all good. Nice being able to ride through snow and
> rain and know that at the end of the day, your bags are already
> sitting next to your bed, and the shower is not going to be a plumbing
> disaster in some third rate hotel. The bikes are all near new, but
> hopefully already run in (not that you care about that when it's
> someone elses bike).
>
> It's kinda pricey, but then again, so is 2 weeks of bike rental, 2
> weeks of hotels and food (in fact, a few of us were wondering how they
> do it so cheap. I haven't added up the bills from my other 4 weeks of
> holiday, but I suspect they came out worse!). And when you DIY, you
> don't get a support van and spare bike; you have to make sure
> everything fits in your panniers, and you probably don't have decades
> of cumulative experience in finding the best riding roads.
>
> Now, the drawbacks:
>
> They're advertised big in America. Virtually nowhere else (although
> Europeans seem to know about their north american tours). I found out
> about the company when they put 1 ad in one magazine for their "ducati
> experience" tours. I went on their website and realised they
> organised a ****-load more. So when I got the initial list of
> participants on my tour, I realised their were 2 Australians including
> myself, and 10 Americans. In reality, 3 other Australians signed up
> late, so it wasn't a disaster, but all but 2 of the Americans were of
> the really loud, rich (and owned their own private jets) annoying
> kind. Who had retired and couldn't ride bikes safely anymore. Just
> keep well back from them when they inevitably end up on the wrong side
> of the road around a blind hairpin. Some of them, despite their
> skills, insisted on pushing to the front of the group after every stop
> too.
>
> Our tour had no bad accidents (just a nervous nelly stopping
> unexpectedly when he got spooked by a bus, causing the following rider
> to sideswipe him - don't forget how wide your panniers are!). The
> following tour on the same route had 2 bad accidents.
>
> My photos and videos are trickling in over at:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacela...7626831455433/
>
> and
>
> http://youtube.com/timconnors
>
>
Watching loud obnoxious Americans crash and stelvio pass. Sounds bloody
awesome. I am super jealous.

Fraser

On 2011-07-19, Fraser Johnston (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> On 17/07/11 7:08 PM, TimC wrote:
>> My photos and videos are trickling in over at:
>>
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacela...7626831455433/
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://youtube.com/timconnors
>>
> Watching loud obnoxious Americans crash and stelvio pass. Sounds bloody
> awesome. I am super jealous.

Pffft. Stelvio is overrated as a riding road. That backside is nice though.

Col d'Izoard, the old Gottardpass, Sustenpass (and every other damn
pass around Andermatt) and a bunch of other passes too numerous to
remember (haven't gone through all my photos yet) were far better.
You *should* be jealous.

--
TimC
"Thanks to the joint efforts of OpenOffice, Mozilla, and a few others, Emacs
officially entered the category of lightweight utilities." -- kalifa on /.

On Jul 19, 11:55*pm, TimC <tconn...@rather.puzzling.no-spam-accepted-
here.org> wrote:
> On 2011-07-19, Fraser Johnston (aka Bruce)
> * was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>
> > On 17/07/11 7:08 PM, TimC wrote:
> >> My photos and videos are trickling in over at:
>
> >>http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacela...7626831455433/
>
> >> and
>
> >>http://youtube.com/timconnors
>
> > Watching loud obnoxious Americans crash and stelvio pass. *Sounds bloody
> > awesome. *I am super jealous.
>
> Pffft. *Stelvio is overrated as a riding road. *That backside is nicethough.
>
> Col d'Izoard, the old Gottardpass, Sustenpass (and every other damn
> pass around Andermatt) and a bunch of other passes too numerous to
> remember (haven't gone through all my photos yet) were far better.
> You *should* be jealous.


could not have said it better myself :-p

the Sustenpass... if its possible to make love to road...I did


mh