We did a self guided tour through Cycle Italia a year and a half ago (in Tuscany) and loved it. They made all the lodging arrangements, transported gear, and gave us a route. Otherwise we were on our own. I have the same concerns about fit, so we took our own bikes (fortunately the tour started and ended at the same place so we were able to leave the boxes there- we did have to lug them around Florence some before/after). Flying with the bikes worked out fine (I would recommend hard cases- we bought one Thule and borrowed another- they worked so well we bought a second one this summer to take bikes to Colorado with us.) You also want to know what you're getting into fee wise- they all seem to change their policies regularly (when we went to Italy we took Air France- they were supposed to charge 150 dollars/euros each bike/each way depending on where you were- but someone misquoted it as $50- they honored that on the way out, and on the way back the person forgot to charge us at all, so I guess we got lucky). You also need to be able to take the bikes apart/reassemble them (my husband has gotten quite adept at it- I think he found some good instructions initially from Thule online- there might even have been a video demonstrating it). (Oh and make sure the pedal wrench goes in the bike box- we forgot this last trip and it got confiscated at security.)