An impressive organized tour

[Jonathan Hanson]

This looks interesting, and epic:

http://www.tourdafrique.com/epictours/vueltasudamericana

Billed as the world's longest organized bicycle tour. I haven't checked on that, but here's no denying it's a serious route. Seven countries and 15,000 km.

 

[RHINO]

thats nothin man, took a little ride around my backyard, encountered several wild species of dogs, one chased me around and i thought i was a gonner, then i came upon a new species of insect, captivus honeybeeus, hard had work making me honey. on my return voyage i nearly got snared by man eating tomato and pepper plants, and wild aggresive ducks were pecking at my ankles. i didnt get an accurate reading but it must have been millions of millimeters in length, i'm thoroughly exhausted.

 

[1leglance]

Around $14,000USD for 110 days plus bike, equipment and flights (2 one way tickets into Rio & out of Quito).
Plus food & extras on rest days.
Granted they have support rigs to carry your baggage and there are folks in route with you in case you need help.

Not sure what it would cost to buy a bike & set it up so I can't say what they total cost.
But I am sure when you factor in the route planning, arrangements and help you get in route that there must be people who want to pay or this company wouldn't be around.

For me however this tour takes away all the things I would want...being alone (or with my chosen family/friends), figuring things out on my own, route planning, problems, crazy border crossings, and staying away from large groups.

Not trying to bust their chops or anything as I think things like this are far better than a big bus full of folks and there are people in the world who are happy to pay for someone else to figure out the tough stuff. And I wish this company the very best.
It just isn't for me.

 

[Christophe Noel]

They originally pushed these rides as races, but it seems to me that most of the riders I've heard of who've done this (not many) really treat it more like a tour. Since they have established camps and stop overs, the racing is really only relative to the actual ride time. Some have said that makes it less a race and more of a ride - in a good way.

Pretty neat organization.

 

[Jonathan Hanson]

Around $14,000USD for 110 days plus bike, equipment and flights (2 one way tickets into Rio & out of Quito).
Plus food & extras on rest days.
Granted they have support rigs to carry your baggage and there are folks in route with you in case you need help.

Not sure what it would cost to buy a bike & set it up so I can't say what they total cost.
But I am sure when you factor in the route planning, arrangements and help you get in route that there must be people who want to pay or this company wouldn't be around.

For me however this tour takes away all the things I would want...being alone (or with my chosen family/friends), figuring things out on my own, route planning, problems, crazy border crossings, and staying away from large groups.

Not trying to bust their chops or anything as I think things like this are far better than a big bus full of folks and there are people in the world who are happy to pay for someone else to figure out the tough stuff. And I wish this company the very best.
It just isn't for me.

Jeez, Lance, I wasn't trying to sell you a ticket.

I'm just happy to publicize any kind of bicycle touring these days.

 

[1leglance]

Sorry I didn't mean to make it sound like I was picking on you or them
It was more a thinking out loud about what it would cost to join in the fun.

Also I really didn't mean to bash anything bike related, I just haven't been on one seriously in forever and I think in terms of "powered' travel purely from my own personal limp along needs

I would actually like to hear from someone who does long distance bike travel to know the cost, hassle and worth so that maybe others who are interested can have a reference.

Lastly I would love to join as a support person driving a rig for someone else's bike trip if anyone needs it! Best of both worlds, they bike & I drive!

 

[ThomD]

Sorry I didn't mean to make it sound like I was picking on you or them
It was more a thinking out loud about what it would cost to join in the fun.

Also I really didn't mean to bash anything bike related, I just haven't been on one seriously in forever and I think in terms of "powered' travel purely from my own personal limp along needs

I would actually like to hear from someone who does long distance bike travel to know the cost, hassle and worth so that maybe others who are interested can have a reference.

Lastly I would love to join as a support person driving a rig for someone else's bike trip if anyone needs it! Best of both worlds, they bike & I drive!

For a supported tour, $14k for 110 days ($125/day) is not bad. Most week long tours from US based companies run about $250/day if you camp and around $400-500/day for hotels. Pricing seems to be very competitive, with only a few companies (Butterfield is $1,000/day), outside this range.

Of course traveling on your own is way cheaper.

 

[1leglance]

Hey Thanks Thom. I have no experience in the area and of course I alway reference things to what it would cost to do it myself.

Wow at the prices you mention for US stuff this is a nice way to see another part of the world.

So since this group requires that you have your own bike, what would be the recommended rig for this type of thing.

 

[Jonathan Hanson]

Possibly the best-selling loaded touring bike on the market right now is the Surly Long-Haul Trucker. Very basic and inexpensive, welded in the Orient, but a stand-up bike nonetheless.

The venerable Trek 520 is another good one.

The sky is the limit on semi-custom and custom touring bicycles. I'm renewing the buildup of my Thorn Nomad now that my knee is back in shape. I'll be putting up a brief post about it on the Overland Journal blog in moments.

 

[tibaal89]

I'm preparing to go on a bike tour myself... the cost is very low to get set up for it (compared to the crap we do in trucks at least! :Wow1: ).

$1,500 will get you plenty of bike... there are vastly more expensive ones of course, and many cheaper. But for that kind of money you're definitely looking at a high quality bike (I'm partial to Cannondale myself).

Then you've gotta decide if you're going to do panniers/bags or a bike trailer... personally, I'm all about the trailer. A new BOB trailer is around $300 and will carry a ton of stuff.

Then it's just a matter of the typical camping stuff... shelter, food, spares, clothes, etc. You can carry a hell of a lot more weight comfortably on a bike (as long as you've got the gearing!) than you can in a backpack, so I've been shooting for a slightly more luxurious version of a backpacking set up for my camping gear.

Check out http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/ if you haven't seen it. Everything from people doing weekend trips to multi-year multi-continent trips... great site!

 

[ThomD]

Getting somebody to drive for you is a great way to do it. I've always figured that if I could find 6 people, we could rotate driving so that everyone gets one only day off the bike. However, as my RAAM report showed, getting a group of adults to agree on anything is hard.

The next best thing for us is to get my semi-retired parents to drive for us. We are off to Vermont next week for 4 days of riding, with Mom and Dad driving the minivan.

There are also organized event rides in the US, like OATBRAN (probably under 100 riders, 7 days across Nevada, $1400 for hotels & meals) and RAGBRAI (7 days across Iowa, several thousands of riders, camping, $140).

 

[ThomD]

Oh yeah, fully self supported. My wife did a 3 week Nova Scotia trip with a friend a couple of years ago. Bob trailer and dry bag are good. She did a mix of camping and hotels, camping 3/4 of the time.

The big lessons for her was that even if you think that you will dine out for all meals, you still need a stove for coffee and hot chocolate in the camp ground. And camp grounds are often not near restaurants, so you need a headlight & tail lights to move around at dusk. And 50 miles per day is a good average, otherwise you burn out and don't have down time at the end of each day.