EP #7: Dream Bicycle Vacations

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Transcript

Transcription:Dream Bicycles Vacations with Glenn Letch from VBT.com


Greg Shuss  0:07  
Welcome to dream vacations with Laurie and Greg Shuss. If you love to travel, our team of travel advisors are here to help you plan that special vacation. Whether it's a cruise and tour, a resort or even a luxury villa, we bring the best vacation experts on our show. So sit back and enjoy today's podcasts from dream vacations.

Charlie McDermott  0:33  
Well, welcome back listeners viewers to the show. Charlie McDermott here is always co host producer of the show. here with Greg, Greg. You're on your own today. What's going on?

Greg Shuss  0:46  
Usually I would have Laurie with me. She's a bit under the weather right now. 

Charlie McDermott  0:56  
Well, I'm glad you did. Because, you know, I always look at this as a vacation from my mind, you know, listening to these awesome stories of where you guys have gone. And then, of course, the guests you bring on fabulous. And I see you have a guest today who's with us.

Greg Shuss  1:13  
We have Glen Letch. He is Director of Sales for VBT bicycle vacations. He also Sales Director for country walkers as well. But today we're going to talk about bike vacations all over the world.

Charlie McDermott  1:29  
I love it. How you doing Glenn.

Glenn Letch  1:32  
I'm great. I am doing fantastic and doing what I like to do best which is talk about our incredible bicycling vacations. And as you alluded to, yes, country walkers is under my wing as well. But what we do most of in our company is on a bicycle. So it's always great to talk about that.

Charlie McDermott  1:53  
And I get it great. You hear this so often every time we do an episode just seems like a go that's on my bucket list. I mean, biking, whatever, you know, someplace in Europe, I love bikes I I spend most of my travel time on a bike rarely Am I in a car, fortunately because of where I live, but I guess let me ask the first question, because I'm sure this is like the first thing that you probably hear level of experience you know to take up like vacation or bicycle vacation do I need to be an experienced biker? Do I have to be like Greg LeMond reincarnate while he's not dead? 

Glenn Letch  2:38  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't need to go fit get fitted for a special uniform to join our tours. Your it's very mainstream audience. We do like to make sure that you know how to ride a bike and pedal a bike. I don't get lessons. Yeah, we well, sometimes we might have to at times. But you know, like everyone's says, you once you learn a bike, you never forget it. But we literally will have people join us after not being on a bike for 20 30 years, their life, they get back on it and are able to enjoy the tour. But no, you don't have to be a super experienced cyclist. If you are. That's great. We have bikes, and options for you to really pedal as much as you'd like to do. If you're not, you can go and enjoy because it is a vacation. It's not a race. It's not a a challenge, you know, you know, going up against your friends to see you can get to dinner faster. You're really, like you mentioned enjoying your vacation with the best window seat in the world, which is on a bicycle. And I'll tell you

Charlie McDermott  3:46  
Yeah, there's that and walking. I mean it. You know, even in in our neighborhood, we take our dog out for a walk, you know, the things you see that you normally don't when you're just zipping by in a car or even even in a neighborhood when it's 1520 miles an hour. So wow, wow. So the bikes themselves and are they like you have different options? 

Glenn Letch  4:12  
what do we do? So really our biggest most popular option these days is E bikes, electronics, this bike is so with that, you know, a lot of times they'll say, Well, that's cheating, but it's not. Because our bikes require you to pedal to make a move. They're heavier, a little bit getting used to so when you talk about a lesson on tour, they're brought day one before anyone gets on the saddle and told how to ride these bikes and how to make them work to the best efficiency. But what they've done is opened up an incredible amount of tour life to people that again, wouldn't necessarily jump and go on a bike tour. And then we also do road bikes on just about every tour. There's a couple of spots they're not really necessary like Haaland. And then we also do hybrid bikes. So in between upright position, no motor on it, but made to make you feel really comfortable as you're cruising along. On Tour. I also mentioned e bikes are our most popular, over 50% of our guests and our requesting e bikes on a tour. Yeah.

Charlie McDermott  5:23  
So that then speaks to kind of the level of difficulty, you know, are different tours, you know, kind of created based on difficulty levels.

Glenn Letch  5:33  
Sure, yeah, we do rate them. So we our official ratings are easy to challenge and you know, in different level, others Easy, easy to moderate, moderate. And we know what could be easy for me as challenging for you, and so forth. Very few, what we consider really challenging, and because the E bikes, they've kind of kicked back a little bit in their rating, for the most part are, if you looked at our over 60 tours that we offer, probably 80% of those would be that easy to moderate. And then very few, you know, moderate to challenging tours, but quarterly rated, and a lot of times people go to a rating as what's the miles how many miles it's sorry that it's the terrain, that's the, you know, the sustained up and downs, the mileage or maybe over the course of the entire tour. That's a factor when they product directors go around and design these tours.

Charlie McDermott  6:33  
Wow. So

Greg Shuss  6:36  
do you find that most of your clients that take your bike tours were like, like 40 Plus, so maybe 40 To 50 to 60 years old?

Glenn Letch  6:44  
Yeah, we so definitely 50 Plus, we do have younger people that go we go as young as 13 on our tour. Younger than that, we just don't have the equipment, or really a lot of great interest built into the tour for kids at this point that can change. But yeah, definitely 50 Plus and what that ebike that I keep mentioning, our opera and age has grown into the 80s for a lot of people. So people in their 80s going on tour people in their 50s going on tour, which was our traditional kind of age bracket. So our average age is actually up into the low 60s Now on bike tours. And, again, everybody functions quite well, because there's a bike and opportunity to ride at your own pace for everybody.

Charlie McDermott  7:34  
Very, very cool. So you'd mentioned Glen, there, you do 60 tours, which you probably don't go through the whole list when someone's interested. But you know, to narrow it down to like, what are the most popular bicycle tours? Certainly,

Glenn Letch  7:48  
yeah, so we, we pretty much move into Croatia for the month of September. That's our most popular destination because we offer that in several ways. We do traditional land based bike tour, we do a self guided bike tour, and then we do our very popular, so popular didn't even make the catalog one of the boats for next year, because it's already sold out. But we do two small ships in Croatia. So you live aboard a boat, you have your traditional bike tour. They are your it's just your accommodation is going to be this great vessel, that's just our group and moving through the Dalmatian islands so so Croatia, Italy, top to bottom side to side we have great offerings you know, very popular people have gone the traditional ways to Italy, but have they ever gone to pull? Yeah, you know, off and to the coast and done it really kind of a real behind the scenes approach to it. But we go again to faraway places, New Zealand, quite popular. We go to South Africa, Vietnam, and of course some great ones right here in the United States. Including where I live and where Greg lives right there in Florida. We have tours in Georgia in Florida, right in our own backyard here.

Charlie McDermott  9:16  
Very cool. So So you do bike and boat tours. That sounds like a great way to go. Now you mentioned to or the or you do others in other areas or is it those two right now?

Glenn Letch  9:30  
Oh, no. bike and boat we do actually we have a total of 14 offerings and keeping in mind some of them obviously go back and forth. So different directional on the same you know, basic pattern, but we do bike and boat with that small ship and Croatia so that's more like a yachtie type of experience. Not the mega yacht but super, you know, nice and great for our groups. We do barges so barges were a retrofit. entered barges. We do those and most sell River and also in Holland and Belgium. I've personally done the Holland and Belgium. And then we do bike and river cruise. So our river cruise partners, emerald cruises, very nice operator of river cruises. And that instance, we are passengers within our group plots within a regular sailing, obviously, that we schedule, different spaying when you come to port, there's our great bike tour waiting shoreside for you with our leaders, bikes everything, and off you go and then come back and again, you're you're a cruise passenger at night.

Charlie McDermott  10:42  
Wow, I love it. I love it. She's so about it again, I everyone has their own vision of a bike tour. And in for me, like, I think Europe would be a great place to do it. But all I can see are the you know, the the videos of the Tour de France and you know, the cobblestones and the you know, going up the mountains and all that what's the terrain like for some of these trips? Sure.

Glenn Letch  11:07  
So when we, when we think back to what we talked about who goes with us, we we want that real mainstream audience. So we try to keep to paved roads and paths, there are a few destinations that get a little lumpy like New Zealand, but what we do is we use a specialized bike with a little bigger tire for everyone there. Because you get a little gravel here on there. We actually are introducing gravel bikes to some destinations where there's gravel rides, like up in Maine. And so yeah, we keep to that, and we like to keep out of traffic, obviously, because this is again, vacation. We'd like people to ride at their own pace. So we go to places where you're not going to be bunched up and, you know, can create a little bit of chaos sometimes. So we go to places like farmlands and and that I will say on your cobblestones when you're riding in sometimes it can be a little bumpy going into small towns. But the good news is usually there's a nice meal and maybe a cold beer waiting in that town so you can get through it. I love it. I

Charlie McDermott  12:23  
love it. How about the distance see? And what's your typical, like miles per day average?

Glenn Letch  12:29  
Yeah, so it does vary by tour. And then of course, throughout the tour days, every tour will always have a warm up day. So really, let's get you and let's get you comfortable with your bike, let's make any adjustments that we might need to do, you know, for seats and whatnot. But most tours would average 25 to 35 miles per day. And they're always going to be broken up into segments. So you're not just driving on your bike 35 miles and see you later, well, we'll do this again, tomorrow, you're using the bike for maybe 10 Miles stop being. So great cultural stops blended into each and every day food stops tastings meals. And then on you go, what's really super nice is if you're not feeling any bit of the riding, we have a support vehicle that's available to you. So one of the leaders on tour will be there. I could ride for five minutes and say, you know, today's not my day, and up goes my bike and me into the vehicle. And I can still continue and enjoy the other components of the tour. That day. I just may not be on a bike the whole time.

Charlie McDermott  13:40  
Still seeing great sights and all that exactly. And

Glenn Letch  13:44  
it's pretty interesting. I mean, I'm a bike, I'd like being on the bike. But it's really interesting, sometimes just riding with these great local leaders that that work for us and work the guests the whole time, because you get a nice perspective of what they're doing. And extra little, you know, pointing out things that when you're on a bike, maybe they're not riding right on top of you to show those to you. So it's kind of interesting in the vehicle at times.

Greg Shuss  14:12  
You know, Glen, that's actually a good segue because we have a client who's been on one of your tours I asked her to join us today. But unfortunately she was not available but she did send me some notes. I just want to read them and she said she had a fabulous opportunity of going on VBT through Austria, Italy and Slovenia. She said I'm just a weekend cyclists who enjoyed recreational rides around my home so I was I was concerned that I not would not be able to keep up with the with the rest of the group. But she said incredible guides led our trip and they were encouraging and supportive. The the trails were mostly flat. She said that the VBT guides had a supply and gear wagon. In this case the wagon was very comfortable. A van that carry chocolates, biscuits and drinks to our rest areas. Not a bad option if you get tired, but she just raved about the guides. She said they were with them the whole time. very fluent in English, what very, you know, really knew the area and the history and she just loved every part of it. So I just wanted to share that with you.

Glenn Letch  15:19  
Yeah, for sure. And when I go through the list of what is included in a tour, what you know, we're talking about VBT. But same for country walkers. First and foremost is the local leaders. We call them on tour on a bike tour and guides on a walking tour. And they're local to where you travel to. So it's not, you know, someone like yeah, I could go fumble my way through and take a group somewhere and follow a map and do that. But when you're walking down the street, and there's your leaders cousin, Gina who across the way and you're like, hey, cousins, you know, how you doing and you know, have these little conversations and you're like, wow, I am really with an expert, local person that's going to show me their town, you know, the way that it's meant to be?

Charlie McDermott  16:08  
Very, very cool. So I know you guys are experts at making sure that the trip has gorgeous weather, sunshine, almost 24/7. But on occasion, the rain clouds come or or even snow, what happens?

Glenn Letch  16:25  
Yeah, and ironically, we did have a little snow last year in some of our earlier tours, but it actually ends up being kind of funny, you know, funny little experience, because, again, we're not talking blizzards, we're talking a little dusting. But it's still interesting. Now, but back to the you know, when we look at our great leaders, we put a lot on them to make that decision. So if you're, if you've got, you know, a little bit of rain, something going on, they'll put it out to the guests if it's safe to do so if they want to still ride the bike they can. Otherwise there'll be alternate activities that they have, you know, in their back pocket, so to speak. I've been on tours where it's not necessarily wind and snow, or excuse me rain and snow it was when we were kayaking, and Florida and it just too windy to enjoy it. So we supplemented it with a walking tour of driftwood beach. And then we still were able to then add another feature in St. Augustine. So a little bit on the fly. But very, you know, very well managed at times, same tour, we had a pouring driving rainstorm, and everybody wanted rod in Jekyll Island every single guest and did it so it wasn't like anyone was gonna get in any serious danger. It was just they're gonna get wet. So and that but yeah, definitely a lot of fluid fluid movement on tour if weather comes up. Yeah,

Charlie McDermott  18:03  
I know. So we're biking by day. And then at night, lodging you go to your destination with what is lodging like on the trips? Sure. So

Glenn Letch  18:14  
we were premium brands. So we like to stay in premium lodging. Everyone always equates to stars, particularly in Europe, where we, you know, have a great amount of tours. But four and five star lodging, very unique, family owned, unique destinations, locations, and varies throughout the tour. So you're not staying in cookie cutter accommodations three different times during the tour week, each lodging is going to have its own little nuance that you're going to remember where he stayed and, and oh, yeah, that's that hotel that had that great ocean view, and, and so forth. So lodging is definitely a big part of our tour. And the other big factor when we choose lodging is location. So we don't want people when you're on a bike tour to have to be in a vehicle or van for hours on end just to get to the start of a ride. So we centralize it. So a lot of times we can leave on a bike come back on a bike and limited time and they enter an actual vehicle while we're out on tour.

Charlie McDermott  19:23  
Very, very cool. So it sounds like there's a lot included in the biking tour of the package. You mind just going through exactly or anything we missed or anything that's not included for that.

Glenn Letch  19:34  
Yep. So we mentioned those great local leaders. You get all your equipment, so you get a bike that's fit to your height, and your style. So your style is the road bike, the ebike the hybrid bike, and that's what you'd pick and then you provide your height and any other nuances like sometimes people have a height but maybe their legs are super long. So we need To make sure we have the right size frame for them, you'll get a bike bad lights, everything you need to function on tour on a bicycle waterbottle when you get there, the lodging, you get a ride with GPS program that you will have all your routes loaded, right? You loaded on your phone, you'll get meals, breakfast, always anytime you travel with us, you get breakfast every day. And then about half of the lunches and dinners or more are done as a group and the other half were done independently, which is kind of nice. So you, you're, you're with your fellow tour mates at times, and then you know, you get a little independence. And then off the bike experiences. So every day, every part of the day, some morning and afternoon, there's an experience, it could be a tasting, it could be a museum visit, it could be a cultural stop, that's going to be included. If it's in the tour itinerary, it's included in the tour price. Very limited, if any options where you'd have to pay for anything extra while you're on the tour. Other than again, those non included meals. What else you got your support vehicle, of course, as part of the tour and 24/7 service if you're having an issue, you know, getting to from or on the tour, we have a service that's available all the time for any guests that travels with us.

Charlie McDermott  21:37  
So how about Yeah, the transportation to the start, and then surely, the ending the trip.

Glenn Letch  21:44  
So domestically, all of our guests would provide their own transportation. That's us operated tours, we do have a few times where we'll run shuttles, you know, from an airport, keep on going back to my Florida and Georgia, but we generate a lot of people would fly in to Jacksonville. So we provide a transfer from there to Jekyll Island, any international tour. So starting right with Canada and moving across the world, we offer an option of an air package and air package will include your international flights, transfers on each end of those flights. So arrival and departure, a pre night hotel and a post night Hotel. So start and finish and breakfast included with that, and then the opportunity within that package to extend and what we call extensions. And they're typically tonight additional lodging that's applied, you can apply it to the front to the back or both. And some of the extensions get a little bit more involved like in South Africa, it's an actual Safari, that someone can add on to their bike trip and book it all through us. We'll coordinate all that air for them. Super nice way to go. We like to provide it a really good price as well. And you know, when you think about complications of traveling these days, it's nice to have our team, our dedicated air team, who actually am in charge of who's going to take care of all those arrangements. And you don't have to worry about the constant, you know, changes that can come up.

Greg Shuss  23:23  
Yeah, you know, one of the things that we do we tell our clients, especially if you're traveling overseas, get there the day before the tour. Yeah, definitely book a pre stay day, because we've had issues again, with either airline problems or weather issues or whatever. So we always try and tell them booked, booked for pre stay at the very least. So at least you're there for a day you can get over your jetlag, or whatever, and then you're, you know, then you're all ready for the actual tour itself.

Glenn Letch  23:53  
Yeah. And that's, that's how we design these. One, one big point that I like, and when I go on tour, and our guests love it, is you know, you fly overnight, you do your pre night, and our leaders come to you. So when you're at that pre night hotel, you're not Oh, wow, let me set my alarm because I gotta get across town and find the XYZ hotel or the middle of nowhere to get on my bike. They're coming right to the lobby of the hotel. He got a great breakfast, and off you go as a group luggage, everything off you go to the tour, safe and sound and with great leadership right from the moment that Tor day begins.

Charlie McDermott  24:38  
So glad you mentioned the number of activities that you guys provide anything we missed any other activities besides biking.

Glenn Letch  24:48  
Yeah, so when, like I mentioned when we include them in the Chenery they're included so you can I'll give you a for instance, I did our Chile tour in April with than that we did a wine mixing class. So we actually ended up with a wine mixing competition, of which I was on the winning squad. And we think it's just pouring wine. We literally had like scientific formulas sketched out on, on paper. Things like that we went crab fishing, we mentioned kayaking on Florida cooking classes. So we'll populate a local restaurant and make ourselves dinner. On Tour, we'll do again, a lot of wine tastings, our Piedmont tour visits the wine Bank of Italy, where they all the wineries send their wine to be characterized and, and viewed over several years. So we get to tap into some of that as well. I've been on a tour when I did my bike and barge we broke into small groups and actually went to people's homes and Holland, and sat and had coffee, beer and tea with them and, and really exchanged our cultural, you know, back and forth and in groups of four. So, you know, things like that really make above and beyond, you know, just riding a bike on tour make it really memorable.

Charlie McDermott  26:17  
Last question I have is just overall safety precautions with a bike vacation? And? Sure, mine.

Glenn Letch  26:27  
Yeah, so I mentioned a little bit of the equipment that we provide. One of them, obviously, is we use lights on the bikes just when not riding at night, but during the day, our expert leaders who know the roads and also the GPS, the way it's set up, it tells you when there's something that may be to be concerned about, like crossing a road, watch for traffic here, just known areas that you can't really avoid on the path. But if you know about them, and you know about that they're coming up, it's telling you, hey, you know, tapping on your shoulder, this is coming up. And that, of course, all of our leaders are skilled and First Aid CPR, knowledge of what to do in emergencies. And, and then again, I mentioned our 24/7 support, which comes into play in any medical situation that could come up as well.

Charlie McDermott  27:27  
Very good. Anything that we miss Glen or Greg, anything you want to highlight with your experience? Well,

Greg Shuss  27:35  
first of all, you know, there are plenty of people here in southwest Florida who love biking, there are a lot of biking clubs, either in Bonita Springs, estero, Fort Myers. So biking is very, very, very popular. And I think bike vacations is a great opportunity for them. So you know, again, we'd be more than happy to work with Glenn and get you booked on one of these fabulous VBT bike vacations.

Glenn Letch  28:05  
Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, and, and as a fellow southwest Floridian here in Cape Coral, I totally agree. Your opportunities might be a little bit better down where you are on bonita. Just because it's it's not set up great here in Cape Coral for riding. So what better excuse to load up yourself and head on out to a vacation where it is nice and safe and easy to ride around on a bike. But beyond that, it's again, those other experiences where you come back and you say, Wow, not only did I ride a bike, I feel really good about this, but I ate well, and I, you know, saw all these great sights, experiences, great activities, and I'm ready to go again.

Charlie McDermott  28:52  
That's what I love about it. You know, just being active, you feel better. More energy. And, you know, it's Yeah, great, great way to see the world.

Greg Shuss  29:05  
It's a great way to work off all the chocolate and beer.

Glenn Letch  29:09  
Yeah, yeah. I will say Yeah, our guests like to eat and drink and be merry at times. So it's good. They really enjoy the experience. We have a really high repeat rate too. So when you talk about the people jumping out for the first time, two thirds of those people are and come back again right away. And so while this is a great new way for me to travel, even though we've been around since 1971. It's it's a great way that they want to invest in their travel experiences in the future. And a lot of times you'll be on tour and they'll be picking out their next destination already thumbing through the catalogs or looking on the phone or whatever it may be to pick that out.

Charlie McDermott  29:56  
Terrific. So for listeners who Want to learn more about bike tours? And book one? Hopefully, I encourage that. What's what's the best way for them to do so.

Greg Shuss  30:10  
So you can reach us here at 239-603-6040. Let me try that again. 6036040 and also on our website at BonitaSpringstravel.com. And we work very closely with Glenn and VBT vacations. So we'd be more than happy to help you plan that special bike vacation anywhere in the world so give us a call.

Charlie McDermott  30:38  
Terrific. Well, Glenn, appreciate you jumping on here and sharing your experience. And Greg, please let Laurie know, she was missed and we wish you the best and we'll see her in you in the next episode.

Greg Shuss  30:52  
Sounds great. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Glenn.

Glenn Letch  30:54  
It's my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Greg Shuss  31:01  
Thanks for listening to dream vacation. To learn more about our travel business, go to BonitaSpringstravel.com Or you can call us at 239-603-6040 Again, that's 239-603-6040 let's make your dream vacation come true.