Bicycling in France - guided vs. self-guided?

I have cycled twice in the Loire ( I had cycled twice n my ownmin Germany before ) One of the trips was a week with a group and the rest on my own. The Loire is a great place to cycle and was easy to poan on my. own

What kind of bike touring do you have in mind? For example there is riding 30-75 miles a day depending on hilliness, there is riding 5-20 miles per day with plenty of time to stop for lunch, museums. There is touring with camping, touring with carrying all your gear but staying at hotels, touring where your luggage is brought hotel to hotel and you just ride, touring where a guide is along and they may have a sag vehicle. Some people bring their own bike (generally if they have a nice road bike), others rent locally.

I did a self-guided bike tour in the Alps with a dozen or so friends which worked out great. We rented a van and people took a turn one day driving the van with all the bags to the next hotel when we changed hotels (every 2 or 3 days). One day we'd ride to the next town, the next day or two do loops in the area. The people organizing the tour were very serious riders and had done guided tours before in the Alps, they realized they knew the area and could plan a trip on their own for much less. This kind of trip may be harder to arrange on your own if you haven't been to the region before, but you may have a local bike club with people who have been. There are also companies that sell itineraries, some can also arrange transport for your luggage between hotels. One book you might be interested in is http://books.piaw.net/touring/index.html

That is the $64,000 question, adjusted for inflation to, say, a round million today!

Such a decision comes down to personal preferences and your personality, time frame, finances, your sense of independence, what you want to see and do, where and how far you want to bike and, perhaps most important, the flexibility to do whatever, whenever.

Do you enjoy meeting new people and spending a good part of the day and night with them as a group? Or are you more comfortable with one or two others, such as those you already know.

How much time do you have or want to take? Is your schedule open-ended or limited? Many guided trips cater to those with limited time, leaning toward one- and two-weeks' duration.

Is money an important factor, since a guided tour will be significantly more expensive (depending on various factors) than a self-planned and -guided trip? Do you want to camp or stay in B&Bs, guesthouses, hostels or hotels? Do you want to cook your own meals, have them catered by a tour operator or eat in pubs and restaurants of your choosing?

Would you rather be on your own or have the security and convenience of biking with a group of ten to twenty others for example? How skilled are you doing basic bike repair and maintenance tasks? Do you want to carry all your stuff or have someone else deliver it to your hotel?

How do you feel about following a proscribed route and daily schedule? Or is picking and choosing your own daily routes - and overnight spots - more to your liking? Organized tours often offer short biking days (30 miles or so) so as to allow more time to explore various towns and attractions. On your own, you bike as far as you wish and are able.

What cities, towns, places, sites and the like do you want to visit and see? Do you want to sleep in a different town and facility each night or base yourself out of a few towns for more localized day rides?

Lots of food for thought, with pros and cons for each style of travel.

I've led and gone on many short and long organized trips with AYH back in the day when outdoor travel was its mainstay. Bicycle touring is a very social activity and was the heart of small-group AYH trips.

Mostly though I've planned my own trips all over Europe and other places. If you have a liking for logistics and planning, are good with detail, prefer flexibility and serendipity over structure and friends over strangers, then independent travel is the way to go.

Either way, I'd say you can't go wrong.

Bill AND David ... good questions.

We are 15-40 mile per day riders; seniors who will rent e-bikes ... not schlepping our own via air. In terms of self-guided, my thinking involved (a) companies that rent bikes and transport your luggage for you - and you are on your own during the day, or (b) where you simply rent a bike and operate out of a central base, such as Sarlat or Les Eyzles in the Dordogne - or Amboise, Azay-le-Rideau or Chinon ... in the Loire.

One week in the Loire. 10 - 15 days Bordeaux and Dordogne. Retired and comfortable enough to want to stay in 3-star accommodations.

Fred,

The other option you mention - renting bikes and cruising on your own - is certainly a good one as well.

One bit of advice for biking the Loire River Valley: stick to the roads. In 2019, I began my trip in Orleans, cycling along the eponymous bike trail through Amboise, Chinon, Tours, Samur, et al before continuing on in Brittany and Normandy.

Amboise is a pleasant enough town for a night or two with plenty of dining options and river access. And it boasts the intriguing home - open for visits - in which da Vinci spent the final years of his life.

However, shortly after leaving the town, the bike trail ventured up into the hills to the south, meandering through villages, town parks, farmers' fields and often on gravel, leaving sight of the river behind. I rarerly saw it again and was sorely disappointed.

Chinon also merits a night or two. The castle overlooking the town - also open for visits - sits next to something I'd never heard of before: an outdoor elevator. It drops you right in town and saves hoofing it down some rather steep hills, if that's where one's B&B happens to be, as was mine.

I'll plug a company with options for both: Cycling County! We haven't done the France routes, but we did a self-guided tour with them in Andalucia and loved how great their materials and organization was. They have a guided option and a self-guided option. I really want to do the Route of Kings to the west of Tours as it looked like a great set of towns - Chinon, Azay le Rideau, Saumur. It's fairly flat route. We liked the self-guided simplicity, could stop when we wanted, lower cost but they still moved our luggage from hotel to hotel each day. And we had a few adventures in the towns or on the roadside exactly because we didn't have a guide - missing turns etc that turned into funny stories now. But I do feel like you get some nice company and the guides provide nice context to the places you are visiting.
https://www.cyclingcountry.com/bike-tours-in-france/