2015 adventure planned

[OakLeaf]

Sounds wonderful!

[Veronica]

That does sound great. I've never considered doing a trip with Trek. I'll have to add them onto my list of companies to check out.

We have lined up a couple of trips too. We decided to put Iceland off until 2016 in favor of doing a road bike tour of the Colorado Rockies and spending a week at a lodge in British Columbia. Last year we had to jam our trips into a short space of time, so we're hoping to spread them out a bit this year.

Veronica

[Crankin]

The service we had on our previous Trek trips was fantastic, the leaders were excellent, and they knew their stuff about the local areas we were in. Now that we know what we know, the things we didn't like (the bragging riders, etc) we can sort of eliminate by choosing certain kinds of trips/options. We are both different kinds of riders, too. DH is more relaxed and I am just a better rider. When we go on tours, we tend to do almost all of the hard stuff, but a very slow, touring pace. Of course, some of the things we didn't like, like cliques of people who do the tour together and heavy drinking, you can't really account for. There was a group of friends on our Portugal trip and they were very heavy partiers, but they were nice; all different levels of riders and no snobbism about that. That made a huge difference. Funny, both this group and the very obnoxious group we had on our trip to the Czech Republic and Austria were from Colorado. There's probably no correlation, though!
The trip is giving us some motivation to train a bit more than usual and by going in June, we have the rest of the summer free to do local stuff. We always go to the Berkshires for riding, at least once. Also, we've kind of just decided to ramp up our traveling a bit. We aren't getting any younger... I am very excited also, about our nordic ski trip to the Methow Valley at the end of February. I know there will be snow! We've had a few trips up to Vermont and NH where that has not been the case.
Veronica, Iceland is on our list, too. It is very cheap to fly there from Boston and DH actually flew Icelandic Air to Paris last fall. He had a few hours in the airport there and got to see some scenery. They also encourage you to make a 1-5 day stop over there on your way to Europe, without any financial penalty.

[ny biker]

I looked into the Trek trips a while back, after the owners of my LBS did the California wine country trip. I think it was actually about 10 years ago now -- hard to believe! I liked the flexibility that you had in deciding how much to ride each day and that the logistics were all taken care of by Trek. Unfortunately I didn't have the money at the time, and still don't, thanks to the never-ending need for condo renovations.

One of my friends did a cycling trip in France a few summers ago with her husband, and they rode up Ventoux. I think she stopped a few times on the way up.

My only trip to Paris was back in the mid 1990s. We spent 9 or 10 days there doing typical touristy things. My favorite part was the gardens at Versailles.

[khg]

I'll second NY Biker that if you're interested/can make time, Versailles is definitely worth going to. The gardens are free during the week, but on summer weekends they charge admission for the "Musical Gardens". The last time I was there, I didn't know this and went on the weekend, and was grumpy about having to pay, but it was more than worth it. They have speakers hidden in the bushes/plantings around each fountain, playing 17th century chamber music, and the fountains are coordinated with the music. I though it would be really hokey, but it created this magical atmosphere that transported you back in time to when they really would have had musicians roaming the grounds to entertain the nobility. And the combination of music, water, and beautiful growing things was so restorative. It was a wonderful day, and that's how I'd re-experience the gardens if I had the chance.

I'll also put a plug in for Cinghiale Cycling Tours cinghiale.com They have a variety of tours in Italy, from super-relaxed to super-difficult. The people who run it are absolutely wonderful, and they seem to do well at keeping the azzhole quotient down I did one of their tours this summer, and have all of my fingers and toes crossed that my schedule will work to do it again (and if I could, I'd do each of their tours--they're all different, and all sound amazing).

[emily_in_nc]

That sounds fabulous, Crankin!

[AppleTree]

Cycling. Provence. Two of my favorite words. What a fun adventure to look forward to!