razzman1

Hello, all. I am looking at a bicycle trip to Glacier National Park in summer of 2024. I have been hovering over the Trek Travels web page for a while now trying to justify the cost on one of their organized trips. At $4,600 per person it seems really expensive. But it seems well organized, and everything is done for you--travel/routes, most of the food, accommodations, shuttle service, etc. I recognize that it's pricey, but I'm a little afraid of trying to plan it myself and coming up short and regretting it in the long run. Has anyone here done a Trek Travel trip (or any organized bike trip similar in nature)? Was it worth the cost?

Thanks

tomato coupe

There are three possible answers to your question:

1) Yes, it's worth the cost.
2) No, it's absolutely not worth the cost.
3) It depends.

I'll cast a vote for #3.

veganbikes

They are better than disorganized bike trips.

If you don't love planning and would rather just pay someone to plan it all go for it. If you like planning or want to do something different than I probably wouldn't.

Jughed

Hotel rooms are easy.

Food is easy.

Renting a minivan is easy.

Doing those things is cheaper.

With things like Strava heat maps, Gravel Maps, Google maps - planning routes and downloading to your computer or phone is fairly easy. Gravel maps allows you to manually click on roads/trails and it will give you distance, elevations, grades.

PJAMM lists and details all the proper climbs in the park:
https://pjammcycling.com/zone/233.Glacier-National-Park


Do they provide bikes? Flying your own bike can be a pain. That could be a positive. Support on the road is a positive. Only you can decide if it’s worth the money.

I like planning the trips almost as much as doing them.

Steve B.

Some of the trips do complete support including moving your baggage from stop to stop. They also provide SAG support and sometimes food support. Some provide lunch, etc…. Is it worth it ?, I think so. I had friends who did an inn to inn ride in Vermont, no lunch, they stopped at the plethora of country stores. The tour provided different daily routes of varying mileage, that was useful if you were tired or the weather sucked. I can see doing this in a foreign country as it takes some of the stress out of planning good routes.

Pearson100

I've done many tours with Adventure Cycling Association and have enjoyed their tours (fully supported and van supported). I like not having to carry my gear and meeting cyclists from around the country. Having planned water/lunch stops are helpful, especially in remote, dry locations where convenience stores are hard to find. For me, it has been worth the cost. (Note: I've camped on the ACA tours. I believe Trek Travel tours stay in hotels?)

Wildwood 

Yes, Depends!
If you hit it off with the support team, if the food is good, if they fix your 2 flats, SAG you thru a hailstorm, bring you snacks, deliver camaraderie, the group motivates you and maybe helps make a 'friend'.

And if one can afford it.
Or, at least, stomach the expense, when not perfect.

indyfabz

Not in and around Glacier at this time of year for a 2024 tour.

indyfabz

IMO, the first question you need to answer is whether the itinerary suits you. I would not pay $10 for a tour that offers daily routes that are too short for my liking. If I’m going to schlep my but somewhere for a tour I don’t want to ride 35 miles/day and spend the rest of each day “relaxing” at the hotel.

indyfabz

I did their Cycle Vermont tour back in 2010. I’ve also camped with their Cycle Montana tour twice while I was rolling my own self contained tours. Those tours were fully supported. If you don’t mind camping but want to have someone to carry your stuff, feed you, and provide mechanical/SAG support, I think they are a good value.

indyfabz

BTW…Glacier is unbelievable. I’ve ridden in the park 4 times, but don’t think conditions will always be ideal. You have variable weather. And if you go at a time when Going to the Sun will almost certainly be open, which I suspect any organized tour will be scheduled for, expect traffic, albeit slow traffic in many places. Crowds have been so intense post-pandemic that the park limits the number of vehicles allowed in the park each day during most hours.

Ghazmh

I didn’t know.

Alan K

I thought they have stopped allowing individual cars and one must use a shuttle/bus… or was it an proposal that didn’t materialize!

pdlamb

Well, in addition to Yes, No, and Depends, how about Dunno?

I've ridden trips with five organizations, of various luxury levels in different areas. Adventure Cycling was the least expensive, but some other outfits are pretty close to an AC trip's cost with walls and air conditioning. It's worth something to have all the details laid out, but as noted above, mind the distances. Five or six days in a row of just 10 miles/day too much is just about as bad as the same time of 15 miles/day too little. Of course, in some areas like Glacier, a group overnighting in lodges or motels is pre-determined to an extent by what's available. If you're inclined to tour for a week around Glacier next summer, stay in nice lodging, and enjoy good meals, you should probably plan on spending a week or two over the next six weeks laying out your route and getting reservations lined up. I dunno if it's worth the extra cost to you.

I don't usually depend on mechanical support, but on one Cycle Greater Yellowstone (a victim of the pandemic) trip, I was grateful to have a good mechanic find a mis-assembled headset. My wife had a bad reaction to some aloe goop she bought along another route for sunburn, and was grateful to get transport to the nearest hospital (and then the nearest urgent care facility) from that group's support vehicles. That would have been a 120 mile or so day ride without support, on a ~50 mile/day trip. And of course this is in a remote spot miles from cell service, with one or two vehicles per hour on the road. With the support, only a minor bump in the trip. Those two were worth the premiums for us over self-supported rides. Will you need that kind of support next summer, which might make it worthwhile for you? Dunno again.

And some of your answer is going to depend on your financial situation. Are you a broke college kid saving up what's left of a MacDonald's paycheck after rent, food, tuition, and books, or do you have a nice annuity of $25k/month, or somewhere in between? You know better than me, I dunno.

Do you have experience and are you prepared to handle the worst thunderstorm, headwind, or July snowstorm you can imagine? How would you get back home if it happened the day before you were to supposed to get to the airport to fly home? A supported tour would answer, let us put your bike on the rack, you get in the van, we'll get you there.

One more personal note. My family is willing to support my riding if I'm with a group, like Trek Travel in your instance. Because of health problems in the past, it's probably not a good idea for me to ride solo in some of those beautiful, remote areas.

Finally, if you want to ride in and around Glacier, other groups also have trips there, and most of them are less expensive than Trek. Of course, they may not overnight at Macdonald Lodge. How bad do you want to stay there? I bet by now you can guess my answer to whether or not it's worth it for you: I dunno.

50PlusCycling

Come here to Japan, you’ll find better scenery, safer roads, and tour prices are cheaper. What’s more, the dollar is very strong against the yen, and as Japan has experienced only a fraction of the inflation which has hit America, things are very reasonable. The current price for a 7 day Hokkaido tour from one of the mainstream tour companies is 344.000 yen per person, which is around $2500. This includes a rental bike, meals and accommodations.

indyfabz

There is a shuttle, but you can still drive in. During a stretch in spring/summer, you now need a reservation to enter by car between something like 6 am and 6 pm. A reservation is included if you have something like a hotel reservation inside the park. The reservation requirement doesn’t apply to entry by foot or bike. And I don’t think it applies to areas other than the Going to the Sun corridor.

staehpj1

I actually like to organize gear and have the right stuff, but being a bit disorganized in the schedule and route planning suits me fine.

To the OP:
Is it worth it? That depends on what you want and what you can afford. A self supported solo trip is a different animal than an organized trip. You may like one better than the other. It could be either. I've never been inclined to go on an organized tour. Some only go on organized tours.

wolfchild

Is it worth it ?....It all depends who you ask. For some people it's worth it for others it's not worth it. Me personally I would never pay for a bicycle ride, just like I would never spend any money on a vacation to fly to some tropical paradise, it's just not my thing..... I like to be in charge and control of my bike rides. I make decisions which route I take, how fast I go, what and how much I eat, how often I stop, how much distance I cover each day and how I spend my time out there...It's your money, spend it anyway you want it.

staehpj1

I haven't done an organized trip, but the ones that I saw. it looked like they could split up and ride their own pace. I am sure no one told them how much they could or had to eat. They could stop when and where they wanted to during the day and spend their time as they chose.

They did have to make it to the same end point every day as the rest of the group, but didn't have to ride as a group. Days that they had kitchen duty or something they may have to arrive in time to perform their assigned tasks. That said they generally had a lot of freedom to do what they want during the day. Also they seemed to trickle out of camp from early to late and roll in from early to late at the end of the day. Some chose to ride together some didn't. I don't know if the groups I saw were like all organized groups. Some may be more or less structured.

indyfabz

Yep. That's pretty much how it works on a supported trip. Aside from having to eat breakfasts and dinners at certain times (and those times are usually not so regimented), you do have a lot of freedom. And ACA is the only organization that I know of that offers supported trips where participants takes turns preparing meal. That happens on their "Van-Supported" trips. "Filly-Supported" trips serve catered meals.

indyfabz

Eye candy from my 2017 trip to the park, where I rode from camp on the west side of the park to Logan Pass and back down.

2old

My wife went on a Western Spirit tour about 15 years ago and had a great time for $1200 (or so plus tip, driving to NV from CA, one night's lodging the day before the trip started and maybe a few incidentals). Later that summer, we did basically the same trip ourselves, camping half the time and "moteling" the other half for $800 (total) and had a great time. I'm sure that our experience(s) didn't help you a bit. However, since then all our trips have been self-supported.

Bald Paul

I have done both supported tours (VBT, many years ago) as well as self-planned, unsupported tours (bike camping through Nova Scotia.)

The VBT tour was with a group of people from all over the country. It was fun getting to know them all. One of the participants was an Air Force Colonel, riding with his 17 year old son. At each of the various inns we stayed at, he would loudly announce at dinner that it was his son's 18th birthday (it wasn't) and we would all sing Happy Birthday. After that display, there was never any question of age when he ordered his son his "first legal beer" with his meal (drinking age was 18.)

My Nova Scotia bike camping tour was also good - after the first day. I had made a reservation at a campground for that night. Started out in fog (pretty normal for NS) that turned to rain for the next 75 miles on a fully loaded touring bike. On arrival, the campground was CLOSED! A young man in an old pickup saw me standing soaking wet at the locked entrance and explained that the owner had died the day before. You have to be ready for things like that (and sometimes things like terminal mechanical failure) on a self-planned, self-supported ride.

I think the Trek Travel tours include a bike, so there would be no need to travel with yours. If you start adding up bike rental, hotels, meals, etc - and add in what it's worth to you to have someone to shlepp your luggage to your next destination and be there should you run into issues on the road - the cost really isn't too bad.

MarcusT

I've never done an organized tour, but am tempted. I am always on the lookout for a desirable trip. Worth the cost? That's too subjective. There are people that enjoy a mapped routes, road support, a soft bed, a warm shower and meals prepared for them and others who do not want all that.
$800 a day does seem pricey. I would not pay it, but if the hotels and organization are top notch...

bblair

I did that Trek Travel Glacier Park tour, maybe 15 years ago. Fantastic experience. They provided the bikes, which at the time, was the exact bike I was riding at home. So, perfect fit. No bike shipping, just go. Really nice park lodges and they handled all the logistics such as lunches along the way and great dinners in nice restaurants. Even cold beer at the end of each day! As I remember, about a dozen people, which for me, was the perfect size group.

I have done large events with hundreds of people where you are on your own for food. Those are fun too, but require a lot more planning. If you go with a group, it is easier in some ways and more difficult in others. Like deciding where to camp or eat or which route to ride that day.