Hi Andrea,
We have a lot of good memories and saw a lot of great things on this trip. Here are a few comments:
Organization: The communication with your company for planning the trip was excellent. Everything was very clear and the answers were very prompt. In the early days of choosing a company to go with, I found that yours was willing to give good information on exactly what hotels you were aiming to book, which I really liked.
Hotels: We enjoyed your choice of hotels. Many hotels, like in the Loire Valley, were centrally located and easy to walk to the central part of town after the day’s cycling was done. And of course in the very hot weather we really enjoyed the hotels that had pools, as with many in the Dordogne.
Logistics: Luggage transfer went very well, our bags were always there waiting for us. Our information package was very good. We really liked the booklet put together for Dordogne, along with maps it had step-by-step instructions which was highly useful. We belong to a cycling club and for each ride, both a map and step-by-step instruction is circulated. It can certainly help when there are unexpected events like road closures for events or construction, etc. to reconnect with the route.
Bikes: The touring bike was fine for conditions in Loire Valley, but in the Dordogne it was not realistic for the climbs required to get to castles and higher elevation towns. We cycle considerable elevations in high heat here in Quebec during the summer, but we use road bikes and it makes a world of difference. A heavy touring bike created quite a challenge to be able to get to the higher elevation attractions. We are quite proud of what we did accomplish given that the majority of bikes that we saw in most Dordogne parking lots were electric bikes (unlike the Loire, where we saw a more even distribution of pedal versus electric assist bikes).
We both think that in all other ways yours is an excellent company. Our main piece of advice would be that if one wants to pedal the Dordogne route without electric assistance, a road bike is the realistic way to enjoy this trip to its fullest.
Best regards,
Darlene Marshall & Jean-Francois Halin – June 2025