Bespoke Road Cycling Holidays
Are you a charity looking for a bespoke road cycling challenge? Or are you a group of friends looking for a bespoke road cycling holiday? You might be a company looking for a team-building event or an individual cyclist who wants to tailor one of our existing road cycling holidays to suit your travel plans. We can help turn your ideas into reality whilst taking away all the hassle that’s involved with self-guided cycling tours. From the smallest detail to significant aspects of the itinerary, there are many ways that we can make one of our Marmot Tours holidays all about you. Just get in touch and we can take it from there.
For inspiration, we’ve listed below a few of the groups we’ve supported over the years. Read our helpful How it works section and drop us an email. We’ll look forward to receiving your enquiry!
The background organisation and planning was superb and clearly reflected the time that you’ve been “raiding” in France. I especially appreciated the great service (bags in rooms) and friendly support throughout the 450 miles on the road. This was certainly my best cycle tour holiday and from what I know betters anything that any friends have done.
Adrian Turner
How it works
- We’ve been organising full support road cycling holidays in the mountains of Europe since 2003. Our Founding Director, James Thompson, still crafts all our itineraries and has been on all our holidays, both as a leader and a cyclist. This local knowledge really helps us create your perfect bespoke holiday.
- If you’re a group of over 16 cyclists, we may be able to create a bespoke road cycling holiday just for you, or put on a dedicated departure of one of our existing itineraries. We can even create a dedicated webpage to help promote your holiday.
- If you’re a smaller group, it works really well if you book on one of our scheduled departures. This makes it cheaper for you and means that there are no cost implications if people start to pull out.
- Before your holiday, we’re available by phone or email to answer any questions you have and send you oodles of information on your holiday so you are completely prepared and know what to expect.
- We offer a 10% discount off the basic holiday cost if you get 10 or more people together on one of our scheduled holidays.
- Our aim is to take the pain out of organising your group cycling holiday. Once we’ve agreed on an itinerary together, Marmot Tours can take care of the rest: helping with travel arrangements, and answering any questions your group may have.
Previous Bespoke Trips
Group of Cycling Mates from Bermuda
We were approached by this group of 20 cyclists looking for a bespoke holiday in the Autumn of 2017. They wanted a notable challenge but also route options so that some in the group could take it a bit easier if they wanted. We decided that the mighty Mont Ventoux fitted the bill perfectly. Given that they were travelling so far, they wanted to extend our Ventoux Club des Cinglés Challenge to make 6 days of riding. With our knowledge of the area, we put together a ride taking in the stunning Gorge de Verdon, the Montagne de Lure and the beautiful lavender fields of Provence. Our Ventoux & Verdon Gorge cycling holiday was born!
We tailored every part of this holiday to the desires of the clients. This included airport transfers, hotel choices, meal choices and we even managed a kitty for cafe stops and drinks in the evening.
The group also wanted us to take some drone footage of their holiday so we made this short video of their ride.
The following year an extended group came back and enjoyed our Dolomites & Stelvio holiday.
Group of Friends from Singapore
We were contacted back in 2014 to see in we could organise a bespoke trip for this group of 6-8 cyclists from Singapore. There were not enough of them to make it cost-effective to have a private trip, so they joined one of or scheduled Pyrenean Classics trips (where we take about 20 riders).
When clients travel from so far away, they generally travel out a day or two early. We helped them organise extra accommodation and airport transfers. We even came up with fun things to do with their extra time!
In effect, we tailored the trip to suit their requirements.
Since then, we’ve organised the following cycling holidays in the mountains of Europe for this group:
Dolomites & Stelvio, Picos & L’Angliru, Ventoux & Verdon Gorge, Classic Cols of Corsica & Catalonian Classics.
John Lewis Partners
The John Lewis Partners Property and Development department do a charity challenge every year and in 2019, they asked us to put on an adapted 4-day version of our Ventoux Club des Cinglés Challenge trip.
We naturally obliged and they had a great experience, plus they raised lots of money for the City of London YMCA (to support homeless young Londoners).
Doug's Marmot Tours Mates!
Doug came on a Marmot Tours Raid Pyrenean by himself back in 2012. He had a great time with the other cyclists on the trip and the following year, a few of them booked to do the Raid Corsica and Alpine Classics. With every holiday, this bunch of fun-loving cyclists grew – their final night awards ceremonies are always a highlight!
They now do a holiday with us every year. Doug decides where he wants to go, sends out an email and we take it from there. Many in the group don’t have any other contact during the year, but there’s always a lot of laughter when they get together.
The Marmot cycling holidays they’ve done to date are:
Raid Pyrenean, Raid Corsica, Alpine Classic Cols, Raid Alpine (Geneva – Nice), Picos & L’Angliru, Raid Sardinia, Dolomites & Stelvio, Catalonian Classics, Raid Massif Central.
The Hedge Funds Care Ventoux Cycling Challenge
In 2016, The Hedge Funds Care Ventoux Cycling Challenge raised over £61,000 for Help For Children, a charity with aims of preventing and treating child abuse.
This amazing sum was raised by 34 riders taking on the mighty Mont Ventoux (1911m). Many of the group were not really cyclists so did amazingly well to get to the summit once, whilst many took on the Ventoux Club des Cinglés Challenge (all three ascents of Ventoux in one day).
Marmot Tours took care of the entire process from booking their place, reserving accommodation, supporting the challenge and delivering them safely back to the airport
The Rucksack Club
The Rucksack Club is a longstanding mountaineering club based in the North West of England. They are primarily walkers, mountaineers and rock climbers but many of their members like to ride a road bike – who doesn’t? Since 2010 we’ve been organising their club cycling holidays in the mountains of Europe. There are a few hard core members that have now done a staggering 13 holidays with us, with other riders coming and going as the years have passed.
We agree on a destination about 18 months before the holiday and then they put it out to the club members. We then give them first refusal over the places, but the tours are also available for anyone else to join. This means that there is no pressure for the Rucksack Club to fill the places and we can offer them a competitively priced holiday, without us having to put the price up if they don’t get enough interest from within their club. Given that not all the club members know each other anyway, this formula of mixing club members and other cyclists works very well, both on and off the road.
The list of Rucksack Club cycling holidays we’ve run to date is quite long… Raids: Pyrenean, Corsica, Alpine (Geneva – Nice), Massif Central, Sardinia & Dolomites. Classic Cols: Alps, Pyrenees, Picos & L’Angliru, Gran Canaria, Catalonia & Southern Alps.
Marlow Riders - Cycling for All
Quote from the Marlow Riders website: “Marlow Riders is the home of social road cycling in the Chilterns. We are an inclusive club, with something for most levels of cyclist, and about a third of our members are female. Our ethos is Cycling for All, no-one gets left behind on our rides, and there’s usually a coffee and cake stop, or a beer at the end!”
This makes them the perfect match for Marmot Tours and in particular our Classic Cols style holidays. They tend to book about 10 places on one of our scheduled departures and then put it out to the club members to sign up on a first come first served basis. We take care of all the bookings, so the ‘organiser’ does not have to spend hours chasing payments and travel plans – they can just turn up and have a great holiday.
The sociable nature of our holidays means that groups mix well with the others on the holiday, whether they are individuals or couples. The list of Marlow Riders’ cycling adventures so far is: Raid Corsica, Picos & L’Angliru, Ventoux Club des Cinglés Challenge, Raid Dolomites, Tour of Tenerife & El Teide, Tour of Gran Canaria.
PS: They also organise the excellent Marlow Red Kite Sportive (50, 80 & 100 miles) sportive every August!
The Village of Steeple Aston (Oxfordshire, UK) Cyclists
Steeple Aston is a beautiful village in Oxfordshire. After some ‘down the pub’ conversations, it turned out that quite a few of the villagers were into cycling. This lead to some informal ‘meet at the village green at 08:00 on Sunday’ rides to explore the beautiful countryside.
Like many cyclists, they wanted to ride some of the TDF climbs, so contacted Marmot Tours. This was back in 2013 and they’ve since been on five holidays with us (Raid Pyrenean, Dolomites & Stelvio, Picos & L’Angliru, Sardinia Classics & Classic Cols of Corsica)
Our Classic Cols style holidays work very well for this group as they have a wide range of cycling aspirations and fitness. Whatever they achieve during the day (and cider tasting has been on the list), they get together in the evening and enjoy some good banter.
John Lewis Venture Club
The John Lewis Venture Club was created to bring together all staff (partners) from different areas of the retail group, who have a love of the outdoors. Seeing the team-building value in this, the company now even contributes to the cost of the experience.
Like many of our cyclists, they first wanted to do the 100 hr Raid Pyrenean cycling challenge. This was back in 2010 and they’ve since been back on the following trips:
Raid Alpine (Geneva – Nice), Alpine Classic Cols, Classic Cols of Corsica, Dolomites & Stelvio & Catalonian Classics.
The nature of their group, spanning the breadth of John Lewis services, means that we take a slightly larger group than normal: 25 clients. We liaise closely with their group organiser, invoicing through the corporate system, and matching our transport logistics to suit the group.
Club 200 from South Africa
This 20 strong group of South Africans wanted to come over and do the Raid Pyrenean with Marmot support. They were fit cyclists who do an annual holiday together and loved the idea of taking on the traverse of the Pyrenees in 100 hours.
We sent them logos for their trip jerseys, arranged transport for their group, sorted out visa letters and worked closely with their group leader to ensure we had everyone organised in advance of their holiday.
They had such a great time, they’ve since been back to do the Raid Alpine and the Raid Dolomites with us.
Our Raid Cycling Challenge trips suit this group very well as they’re all regular cyclists that ride at about the same pace.
