Booking a trip with a bicycle travel company can sometimes feel a bit impersonal, especially if you choose to book with a large agency. You want to bring your own bike but the company offers no assistance. You’re aware your trip overseas will impact the environment but all the company cares about is that you book a trip. Then once you are on a tour, you have guides who aren’t native to the country you want to visit.
Outfitter Bicycle Tours attempts to treat each guest on one of its tours as special and intends to exceed expectations. Additionally, the company operates with environmental awareness, makes it easy to bring your own bike, and uses only the best local guides from the country you choose to tour. These are the benefits of doing your travel with a small, family owned business.
Who is Outfitter Bicycle Tours (OBT)?
The company is a family owned and operated business founded in 1996 by Dick and Marilyn Powell. The Powells owned a bike shop in Los Altos, CA called The Bicycle Outfitter , but they loved travel and cycling, so Outfitter Bicycle Tours was born.
Based in Asheville, NC, the company was taken over by Joy and Jamie Gilpin, two former bike racers. Joy also spent a number years as a mechanic at shops in the Bay Area and San Diego. In fact, she works as the main mechanic on OBT’s guided tours. Jamie handles the operations part of the business.
What makes OBT unique as a bicycle travel company is it accounts for the impact (and that of its guests) on the environment. That is why it offers its guests the choice to contribute to OBT’s carbon offset program.
Guests can pay the $67.50 per hour during trip registration to cover their own carbon footprints. This calculation is made based on “An average tour with us…[that creates] approximately 4.5 tons of carbon emissions per person.”
Destinations and Type of Trips OBT Offers
Outfitters Bicycle Tours is a small company. In fact, it may be just Joy and Jamie Giplin who handle all its tasks. That means the number of trips the company can host are not as diverse as that of other bicycle travel companies. And the types of trips are either guided or self-guided. But OBT still covers a piece of Italy and a lot of the regions in France.
- Tuscany (Italy)
- Provence (France)
- Dordogne (France)
- Burgundy (France)
- French Pyrennes/ Alps
- Tour de France experience
- Asheville, NC (United States)
What’s Included in an Outfitters Bicycle Tours Trip?
Going through OBT’s website, a list of what’s included on one of their trips isn’t explicitly stated. So, a lot of the following information, I gathered from the company’s FAQ page and its Tuscany trip page. If you decide to book a trip with them and you have questions, I would either email or call them.
- Local guide
- Choose the date and name the place for a custom tour
- OBT states that it includes “all luggage transfers, jerseys, comprehensive routing instructions, and much more.”
- High quality rental bikes: road, hybrid, eBikes, and mountain bikes
- A mix of 3 star and 4 star accomodations
- Bring your own bike! OBT will even send guests a bike packing guide and sell them a bike case if needed or desired
- Trips are geared toward both casual and avid cyclists
- Meals which are all breakfasts, no lunches, and some dinners
Typical Cost and Number of Days for an OBT Trip
The company doesn’t list any prices for self-guided tours because that’s determined by location, number of days, amount of guests, etc. Some of the guided tours do have specific dates with prices.
OBT’s Tour de France experience, for instance, is $3,995 for double occupancy and $4,895 for a single room. To rent a road bike from them, it’s $395. The 2024 trip takes in a good portion of the race at 10 days and 9 nights.
Last Thoughts
Outfitters Bicycle Tours looks like a good company to work with for a trip, especially if you’re interested in a self-guided tours. OBT takes care of many details for you, so all you have to do is show up and ride.
The guided tours look pretty typical (in terms of details and pricing) to other bicycle travel companies. One unique thing, however, that OBT does offer is a referral and rewards program. These aren’t huge discounts, but it’s a nice amenity that it gives you something when you refer someone or do repeat trips.
Have a great weekend everyone! I hope wherever you are you are still having warm or at least moderately warm weather for some riding.
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