Are bicycle reservation necessary on the My Way Alpine Europe tour in May

When a website is all in German, just run it through Google Translate and it will turn the whole website English for you: https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&op=websites

Also, whenever you email these companies, even though they may be in German, the employees there will 99% of the time speak enough English to read and respond to your emails.

I wouldn't worry about reservations in May, but it doesn't hurt to send emails to the places you plan to go to confirm they will be open at the time of year you're going, reservation times/prices/policies, etc.

My son rented bikes in most every city we visited during our RS My Way Alpine tour this past summer. Including while up in the Alpe Di Suisi hiking area. He never needed a reservation.... other than....
In Fussen, our tour guide called ahead with the number of people who had told her ahead of time they wanted to rent a bike while there. That was the only town where that happened. I assumed it was needed because, evidently, Fussen is THE place to ride bikes. Definitely a great place to see the countryside on 2 wheels :)

BTW, we loved this tour so much that we went twice! 2024 and 2025. I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have.

~Mitzi

Wow, Mizi, thanks so much for that information. I am wondering which locations are better for hiking and which are better for biking, if you have an opinion. I just assumed (I don't know why) that in Alpe di Siusi would be better for hiking: we would just take a chairlift up and hike around and chairlift down. Having never been there, we don't know what to expect.

It did seem that Füssen is such a small town that bikes may be hard to come by. Since we don't know which hotel we'll be at, it's hard to know where to rent a bike. It's good to know the guide will help rent a bike in Füssen.

Sounds like the Lauterbrunnen Valley is a biker's paradise. We just didn't know about the need for reservations since we enjoyed biking and one can cover so, so much more area riding. And, it's fun!

I'm not too concerned about Salzburg as I think bikes may be easy to rent. I understand from you that that's true as well as in Chamonix. Thanks for any thoughts you may have on how to make this trip go well. Joe

Joe,
Be sure to ask your specific guide about the bikes in Fussen. I can send the name of the place we rented from in a day or 2 when I have time to look up the photos. But, keep in mind that the guides all do their own itinerary on a My Way Tour. Not all the guides may do what ours did (Laurel was our guide both times). I, personally, believe that hiking, walking are absolutely the primary activities to do in the alpi di suisi but my 25 y.o. son is a bicycling fanatic and took every opportunity to cycle whenever he could.

In Lauterbrunnen the rental place is called Imboden Bike. The biking is good in the valley (takes around 2 hours roundtrip with a few stops for photos on an ebike). With an ebike you can continue up to Trachsellauenen Berggasthaus, lock your bike up there against the fence post and do some hiking amidst the waterfalls back in there.

Thank you very much. I believe I saw this name online somewhere, so good to know it's a good bike source. I will use that google translate tool to try and reserve bikes. We are sure to want to bike around that valley and up any trails that look appealing.