“Rides to Fit YOU, Picked Fresh Daily”
Weekly tours: Introduction Our Format Dates & Prices
Special tours: Fully-Custom Tour de France Cyclosportives
Your home for the week is a comfortable, welcoming hotel in Pont-en-Royans—the only one in the area to offer air-conditioned rooms (as well as in-room Internet connections). It’s very modern, situated in a picturesque village which is a registered national heritage site, and has a dining room and terrace,where we enjoy ample breakfasts and delicious dinners while looking out on the Bourne river below.
Having a fixed home base frees us to be more flexible, fine-tune and adjust our ride selections each riding day to suit you, as well as current weather and road conditions. With our support van, we’re not limited to the immediate vicinity. We can extend our range by driving, say, to the Drôme Provençal to ride the routes lavandes or visit some of the plus beaux villages in the Diois valley, or drive one way to visit a destination and ride back (or vice versa).
We normally begin the day shortly after breakfast, starting at 8 am. We’ll review the day’s route before setting off before 9 am. We’ll stop for lunch between noon and 1 pm. Lunch will usually be a leisurely affair lasting 1–1½ hours. Those who don’t wish to stop as long are welcome to pursue optional additional miles we can suggest. Keep in mind, however, after about 1:30 it’ll be just about impossible to find food until dinnertime, which is typically not until 7:30 pm. We’ll resume riding after lunch, and generally be back at home base before 4 pm, leaving ample time to freshen up and unwind before dinner. You’ll probably find the evening meal stretching out over 2 hours or more, leaving just a little time perhaps to stroll around town before you’ll want to turn in to be rested for the next day.
On the road you are at liberty to ride at the most comfortable pace for you. We’ll provide maps and/or cue sheets, and accompany the ride to be at turns to point the way, sweep the route and regroup regularly so you don’t have to work at navigating your way and no one gets left behind. If the group includes riders of widely divergent abilities, we’ll use our van to assist: we can start slower riders ahead, and give riders a lift over climbs they’d rather not tackle. Depending on the route, we may also be able to offer more mileage/climbing options to advanced riders.
Pont-en-Royans (pop. 1000-ish) is a tourist destination because of its unique maisons suspendues (“suspended houses”) built into the steep banks of the Bourne river. It has numerous eateries and shops to interest visitors, a tourist information office, the Musée de l’Eau (Water Museum), a wading pool down by the river, hiking trails, and a public (broadband) Internet access point.