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Road cycling Holidays

The French love road cycling, and it is not surprising,  given the quiet roads, courteous drivers and breathtaking scenery. Marmot Tours offers holidays for all cyclist, from those who enjoy a relaxing ride in the countryside (see our Atlantic to Mediterranean holiday) through to people who want to challenge themselves with a mountain climb or 2 or 3 (or more!). 

One of our most popular trips is one of  our most challenging:  the Raid Pyrenees is an epic cycle journey from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean in 100 hours.  It is far from leisurely with 11000m of ascent and 720km distance, but is some of the best cycling that the Pyrenees have to offer and is an excellent goal for any regular and fit cyclist. We run our Pyrenean Raid trips from Mon-Sat in June and September so you can fit it into a week of annual leave.  This year, due to popular demand, we are also doing a Raid Alpine in August.  A great opportunity for those of you who have done the Raid Pyrenean, this sister challenge is slightly less distance at 703kms but a whopping 16, 297m of ascent and 31 cols, 6 of which are over 2000m.  The challenge is done in 6 days.

The cols and mountain roads of the Pyrenees have been made famous by the Tour de France, and every year we run a special trip to watch the tour and ride a couple of the stages. In 2010 this is an epic as it is the 100th Anniversary of the Pyrenees and the Tour de France and there are FOUR Pyrenean mountain stages!  In addition we have a week long trip that gives you an opportunity to take on the classic cols and mountain top finishes at your own pace.

New for 2010 is a truly epic challenge for you cyclist nutters out there, inspired by this years Tour de France route.  It will be our most challenging trip this year as we will follow the route of all Four Pyrenean Mountain Etapes, start to finish on 4 consecutive days.  Ouch!!!

We understand that the pace of life in the UK is hectic and that pressures on your time and  your annual leave are great.  We don't see why you should miss out on the opportunity to climb some of these cols because of lack of holiday time, so we have put together some Roadie Minibreaks which are a long weekend in the mountains (Fri - Mon) where we fit in 2 full days and 2 half days of riding. The perfect chance to escape from the durge of daily life and challenge yourself with the local cols in some stunning mountain scenery.

Cyclosportives are becoming very popular and we run a trip that incorporates on of the most highly regarded in France - the Ariegeoise. Please see the relevant page for details as we do not run this trip every year.  Depending on its locations, we do also get involved in transport and accommodation packages for the Etape du Tour.  Again, our involvement will vary from year to year, so please look at the webpage for details.

Most of our cycling holidays are one week long, but if you prefer to take a longer vacation then you can combine two trips back to back and we will offer you a £100 discount.

Marmot Tours and staff have 10 years of experience in organizing and running successful road cycling holidays. We know what makes a good holiday and understand the requirements of our clients. Our attention to detail ensures that you will have the best possible holiday. We have a large number of clients who come back every year - which speaks volumes! Please visit our holiday philosophy or customer feedback pages for further information.

Below we have given you a quick summary of our roadie trips.  The holidays are listed in approximate order of toughness of the basic route (easiest first), but with all our road cycling holidays, except the Raid Pyrenean, there are optional extras available that can make the route as tough as you would like it to be! Please click on the title to link to the full holiday notes.

Contact Marmot Tours: info@marmot-tours.co.uk Tel/fax: 0033 561 02 80 43. French Mob: 0033 (0)6 30 01 12 98