I'm scoping out tours in the Alps or Pyrenees. I'm not a downhiller + ride a hardtail - any suggestions on outfits that offer entry level trips?
ta.
AQR (a quick release) would suit you v well. I went on HT 29er and loved it.
Trail oriented, rather than gravity junky stuff. Lots of reviews and happy customers here on the forum.
Binned the Iceland idea have you?
This is my plan B - don't think Iceland's going to work this year. Any pointers where I'll find reviews on here for trails rather than gravity junky stuff?
You mean tour as in A to B for a few days?
Best thing is to do a 3 or 4 day one. I'd leave the Pyrenees til later as they are far less populated so you can end up out on a limb. Chose a route with lots of huts so you can get used to how they work. Once you realise you can rely on them it feels a lot easier. Try the Joe-Route (Oberstdorf to Garda). Will take about 5 days but is done (or variants of it) by 5,000 a year, mainly Germans so you'll have company which is not a bad thing at the start. July/Aug and early Sept are best.
Tour mont Blanc is good but too busy if you do it August
C
Wow - that Joe-Route looks mad but Google only came up with German links. Have you done it or know others who have?
I have done it three times. It's fantastic. I can probably route out all the (ordnance survey type) maps if you are serious if you have an A3 scanner or copier. There are huts every hour or two on the route so no problems
a quick google shows
https://sites.google.com/site/4dudes8wheels/
and
but there is loads out there. Plenty of tweaks on the route too so you should have less than 15% tarmac
C
Having just read the link (4 dudes) I gave you, you can tell they were a bit slow/unprepared, but I'm sure you'd do much better! The description also gets one of the hut names wrong (Heidelberger/Heilbrunner) so it's a little confusing.
C