tish4398

I’m looking for 3-6 bicycle touring buddies that have the MEAN$ and the TIME to ride epic bike tours in foreign countries by a mutually driven SAG wagon, staying in hotels, and dining at restaurants. We would rent a vehicle and split evenly the cost$ and driving. For example, if there were four people, it would be your turn to drive every 4th day. The SAG driver would assume all the duties a SAG driver would do at a commercial cycle touring company. We could further reduce costs by having a roommate or you can go it alone. I’m looking to travel to Spain fall of 2020 for 10 weeks. It would be fun touring the Camino de Santiago and Spain/Portugal by this method. I used this style in Japan and it worked fairly well. We stayed at various types of hotels and ate at a lot of nice restaurants. Sixty miles (100km) per day worked out well for us. At 10mph, that’s 3 hours of riding before lunch and 3 hours after lunch which leaves plenty of time for sightseeing. The ideal candidates would be a person(s) of mean$, self-sufficient and reasonable.


My definition of a SAG supported bicycle tour is where rider’s gear will be transported to the next overnight, stay in hotels, and dine for every meal. It is designed to be an independent, self-sufficient tour. There won’t be any set schedules. Everyone would be on his/her own time frame. This will accommodate the early bird, the rider who likes to be out at sunrise and the late dog, who can always count on IHOP for serving breakfast all day long. While everyone is responsible for himself or herself, we should all look out for one another. Participants will be required to make their own motel/hotel reservations, airplane tickets, and bicycle shipping.

alan s 

Can you even have 4-7 people listed as rental car drivers?

tish4398

It varies from country to country, company to company. In Japan, drivers had to have an International Drivers License and names are listed on the contract. When we went to pick up the car they did not take all our names since we bought the max insurance.

alan s 

So then some of the drivers were not insured? Sound like a risky proposition for the drivers not listed.

tish4398

No. We were all insured as someone had a fender bender and it was covered. Only the credit card holder was on the contract but we were all covered.

PedalingWalrus

Seems like a complicated way to travel just to save a few pounds and have this security blanket. But all power to you 👍 ... better than not going at all

axolotl

I have a couple of unrelated comments about your plans. First, I've toured in the northern half of Spain. Occasionally, my own route coincided or overlapped with a Camino route, though I had no interest in the Camino itself. My favorite sections were not along the Camino. You need to be cognizant of the meal times in Spain, which are not particularly conducive to touring. Lunch is in mid-afternoon (as late as 4pm), and restaurants don't open for dinner before 9pm, and often at 10pm. As a result, I got most, and sometime all of my riding done before a late lunch, and had a late morning snack during the day. There were always fixed price inexpensive and filling lunches available at restaurants. Dinner was much more expensive and because of the dining hours, I typically didn't eat dinner in a restaurant. Sometimes I'd go to a bar and have a beer or glass of wine with a tapa, if I was hungry. Or I'd stop in a bakery, since they were open late, though not open sufficiently early in the morning for me to get something before I started biking for the day. The mealtimes in Portugal are closer to what I prefer, and logistically it worked out much better for touring.

As for your hope to find some touring partners here, it doesn't hurt to ask, but I'm guessing that there are very few people here whose touring styles meet all of the criteria you've laid out: Lots of time, lots of money, willingness to drive a sag part of the time, and wanting to bike the same distance you mentioned.. And that's not even getting into compatibility.

You might want to check out the "Bicycle Adventure Club". I'm not a member and I've never gone on any of their tours, but if I understand correctly how they operate, members generally organize the group trips, and they're closer to what you're describing.
https://www.bicycleadventureclub.org/html/

indyfabz

+1. Hardest thing to deal with other than the hills. I usually liked to buy supplies to make sandwiches for lunch. Since markets close between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. I had to make sure I shopped before 2, which wasn't always easy in sparsely populated areas. One day I made it to town just before 2. The woman running the market was in such a rush to close up she accidentally sliced some of the foil holding the jamon. I dinner out on some occasions. One night, it a small mountain town, I was nearly chewing off my fingers waiting for the restaurant to open at 9 p.m.

djb

re meal times etc, heck its been 25+ years since I biked a bit in the Basque part of Spain and I have clear memories of how tricky it was at times to find places to either buy stuff to eat for lunch, or to find a place for supper (as noted, especially in small rural settings).
Maybe its changed a bit, and I'm probably better at planning than I was back then, but for fuel needing cycle tourists, its certainly something to be aware of.

mind you, if you really actually organize a sag type tour with diff people, it would be easy to plan and have back up supplies/groceries in the vehicle.

djb

Tish, this fellow took the time to put down a reasonable and realistic take on your idea. I have to agree that its quite an ask to find multiple participants that meet all the criteria, especially when you take into account the risks involved financially (and as Axo rightfully brings up, the whole compatibility thing, which is a huge factor here, especially when sharing costs/driving responsibilities etc etc.)

this is why folks with the means will go on supported group trips, to avoid any and all of this very real, logistical stuff.