Hi fellow travellers

we are planning a trip to the south of france and looking for info as far as renting bicycles or even joining a bike tour. any help would be appreciated.

Regards

The "south of France" covers a pretty big area. Are you looking for easy riding ? hills, mountains...?

Bikes are available to rent everywhere - and they aren't terribly expensive. If you'd rather explore on your own and take each day as it comes, I'd recommend renting bikes and staying in one place to explore.

Bike tours can often have a pretty grueling schedule - and not always go places you want to go. Although most of the time you can ride in the van if you're tired or don't want to go over a mountain. I see the vans picking up people around here all the time... especially if it starts to rain.
You might check out bike tour companies like "Backroads"

PB

There are a few different tour groups. I have been looking also. You can look at this site http://www.biketour-reviews.com/index.htm which reviews several. There is also http://www.cyclingsafaris.com/
http://rotalis.com/

When are you going? If it's summertime, you might want to reconsider the venue.

I would appreciate any advice I can recieve regarding good bike tours in Provence. My wife wants to do a high end tour. Two names that have been mentioned are Butterfield and Robinson and Backroads. Also, any specific tour routes would be appreciated. The bike tours review site is good information. Thankyou Jim

Did you look at http://www.bikeriderstours.com/trips/italy/
I thought their trip looked really nice. Also the http://www.ciclismoclassico.com/trip/42/provence/ or http://www.duvine.com/provence.html
I thought the prices better than butterfield and I like that duvine and bikeriders have small groups. The hotels also look nice. Let me know if you go and which you choose.

We will be doing a bike tour soon, in the Dordogne with EEI: http://www.eeitravel.com. I chose them because they had the best itinerary, and the price was right. I did a lot of research, and figured out where we want to go, and had to narrow our choices down severely because of the various fitness levels of our group. (And, I’m still concerned, although everyone says, "they are training...”) So, once I knew about where we wanted to visit, I could make a better choice as to tour companies.

I decided to go with a self-guided tour because I figured that a tour guide and a group might get on my nerves after a while. Also, I am pretty fluent in French and my husband is an excellent bike mechanic, so we should be fine being independent.

The web sites mentioned above are all excellent. What you should keep in mind is what kind of people you would like to be with in the tour, so the research you’re doing is good.

Have fun!!! I think this will be one of our best vacations ever. We will be able to really do some eating, and still stay in shape. The best of both worlds!

Oh, and for routes try this for ideas: http://www.routes-lavande.com/.

The Loire Valley is a wonderful place for cycling. The terrain is easy, flat to gently rolling. And there are so many chateaux to visit. Lots of bike tours go to the Loire. You can cycle at your own pace, and it's nice to have the support of the van to carry your luggage, and you, if necessary.

If you want to simply rent bikes in the Provence region, I would recommend Telecycles in Eyragues. Telecycles is very well run and they will come rescue you if you have a flat--at least if you are in their general region. So, if you wanted to ride around that area, they would be a good contact.

Have Fun!

I'm with Momliz...a self guided tour is the way to go. My bride and I did one in the Provence area in 2004, and had the most wonderful time. We used www.discoverfrance.com.

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