Someone here a few months ago asked about Edelweiss tours. I can happily report that the company at least in Europe (I believe they operate as a franchise, so can't comment about their North American operation) are competant and organise a damn fine tour. We endured a grand total of 2km of autobahn on the tour - the guides (except for the new guide who was there as part of his job interview) knew exactly where to take us to avoid the bad roads and enjoy the good roads. The hotels are all good. Nice being able to ride through snow and rain and know that at the end of the day, your bags are already sitting next to your bed, and the shower is not going to be a plumbing disaster in some third rate hotel. The bikes are all near new, but hopefully already run in (not that you care about that when it's someone elses bike). It's kinda pricey, but then again, so is 2 weeks of bike rental, 2 weeks of hotels and food (in fact, a few of us were wondering how they do it so cheap. I haven't added up the bills from my other 4 weeks of holiday, but I suspect they came out worse!). And when you DIY, you don't get a support van and spare bike; you have to make sure everything fits in your panniers, and you probably don't have decades of cumulative experience in finding the best riding roads. Now, the drawbacks: They're advertised big in America. Virtually nowhere else (although Europeans seem to know about their north american tours). I found out about the company when they put 1 ad in one magazine for their "ducati experience" tours. I went on their website and realised they organised a shit-load more. So when I got the initial list of participants on my tour, I realised their were 2 Australians including myself, and 10 Americans. In reality, 3 other Australians signed up late, so it wasn't a disaster, but all but 2 of the Americans were of the really loud, rich (and owned their own private jets) annoying kind. Who had retired and couldn't ride bikes safely anymore. Just keep well back from them when they inevitably end up on the wrong side of the road around a blind hairpin. Some of them, despite their skills, insisted on pushing to the front of the group after every stop too. Our tour had no bad accidents (just a nervous nelly stopping unexpectedly when he got spooked by a bus, causing the following rider to sideswipe him - don't forget how wide your panniers are!). The following tour on the same route had 2 bad accidents. My photos and videos are trickling in over at: [URL]http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/sets/72157626831455433/[/URL] and [URL]http://youtube.com/timconnors[/URL]
