Guided Touring?
 

Does anyone know of a reliable guided tour group? I'm toying with the idea of doing a cross country tour next year and would like to hear what people think about guided tours. I have been poking around a few websites, but haven't found anything conclusive. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

How supported do you want to go? Look into some of the tours put together by Adventure Cycling Association.

Totally different experience from self supported.

If I was going to do a guided cross country tour, I would do it with Pactours, I've done their one week training camps. they are geared towards strong athletes, with high miles and great service. they do hotel based tours. Not cheap.

I wouldn't do a camping tour, personally. If I'm camping, I want to control my own schedule so I can let the weather tell me what to do. With hotels it doesn't matter as much, as you always have a way to get dry and warm (or cool) at the end of the day.

Also, remember your guided group tour happiness will depend largely on how well you get along with the other people on the trip - total crap shoot.

They aren't super cheap. The self contained is around $4600-$4800 or so...shared kitchen gear load, food shopping and cooking for fifteen. Like Valygirl stated, a crapshoot on the social dynamics front...and sometimes a forced march of sorts...must go from point a to point b every day, but gives solid structure to a tour if one needs that. Many great stories and times with those groups...only a few bad stories, but some none the less.

Supported is almost twice the price as self contained, and I think there is still the shared cooking requirment. Social dynamics are what they are...

Neither of them are my cup of tea, but still a good way to go.

wonder if AYH/Youth Hostel international still does? I helped on a Cal coast trip in '87

backcountry bike tours, , Cycle Oregon, and several other business ventures
, do the heavy lifting , and sag and haul your stuff.
as far as across the continent,.. maybe ACA ..
at least you might find a travel companion off their classifieds to do the trip too..

Solo, I've landed at the airport or ferry terminal,in foreign countries
and just got a paper map, an winged it myself,
wouldn't think it that difficult .. except .. you have been reading and seeing
the sensationalist news about your own county,
and not much
about the un dramatic things people do for each other all the time.

Most organized groups parse into compatible pairs / solo singles within a few days anyway. If self supported, it's not that much more of a stretch to organize (and thus customize) your own shelter and food. If touring someplace "scary" then the stretch may be more than you're willing to gamble on, however. http://www.tourdafrique.com/

I did AC's Northern Tier group tour. Not quite on the point a to b every day. We had a general idea of where we should be at certain points during the trip in order to finish within the maximum 93 day timeframe without having to pull long days near the end, but we typically planned week by week, and there were numerous times where we changed plans on the fly for various reasons.

Social dynamics were definitely at play in our group of 13, which included the leader. Our original leader was a total dolt (and not physically up to the task) who we eventually had "fired." To its credit, AC handled the situation very well. The trip was finished by two different replacement leaders who were excellent. I have since met a couple other AC leaders who were also competent and nice people. Our original guy was hired at the last minute after the slotted leader had to back out. The only other choice would have been to cancel the trip.

One participant was a racist alcoholic who crashed twice and nearly got arrested twice. Each day, two people were responsible for cooking, washing shared cooking equipment and taking care of the trash at dinner and after breakfast the next morning. One guy apparently believed that cleaning up was beneath him and often left his partner to do the lion's share. Another point of contention grew around the original leader. The older folks in the group expected a higher level of competence and responsibility from an adult who had been hired to assume a leadership position. The younger kids were sort of like "whatever."

But, as noted, it wasn't all bad. People tended to ride and hang with people of similar sensibilities. I became good buds with one guy and we had a lot of great experiences during the trip.

And option 3 would be to spend the 10K it cost to do one version of a trans am above, on the unsupported version. That extra 5+K would smooth out pretty much any problems one anticipates having on the unsupported tour.

We tag-teamed a "van supported" Adventure Cycling group a couple years ago on the TransAm. That meant the van carried their gear, but otherwise it was mostly camping. Their leaders were good about finding churches, fire stations, etc. across Kansas so the participants didn't have to sleep outside in the heat wave (we were a day ahead of them, and blew our budget on motels).

PacTour is another option, but I'm frankly intimidated by their long days.

I'd suggest you request a free copy of Adventure Cycling magazine. The back of the magazine has classified ads that include 4-6 companies running some sort of cross-U.S. tours. (Then join the AC organization, but that's another post!)

Two other supported options:

http://www.abbike.com/

http://cycleamerica.com/

Personally, I did not want to go supported because the days are typically longer. I had no time restriction. The only reason I did a group tour was that I had zero loaded touring or camping experience.

I am glad I went the route I did. I used the experience and confidence I gained to do two long, solo tours the follwing year.

here is another option........

www.bubbaspamperedpedalers.com/coast-2-coast