Grand Tours with Henk Vogels to UCI races

grand tours

Get up close to the PROS while living like a local...

Living like a local is the experience we provide.  We do not follow the races so there's no daily grind of changing hotels or transferring stage to stage.  Our tours are all about the riding so we take you on a holiday with your bike and get you to a couple of stages of the race while it is in the area.  Every day is geared up for you to do nothing else but ride your bike up a mountain or few and immerse yourself in the local culture, relaxing in the town's bars and cafes. 

on tour with

henk vogels

Our tours to the Tour de France offer a unique experience like no other.  When we say "on tour with Henk Vogels" this is literally what happens.  Henk stays in the chalets and hotels with us, eats breakfast and dinner with us each day, rides in the group and acts as a guide both on and off the bike.  On the days where we watch the Tour de France on the television in the privacy of our chalets or at the local bar, you are treated to Henk's knowledgable and insighful commentary and hilarious larrikinism.  

General Information

Locations:  France & Italy

The Giro d'Italia and Le Tour de France both travel around their respective countries over 21 stages plus 2 rest days. We situate ourselves in small towns for multiple nights a short distance from the stages and all the famous climbs.  You get a well balanced holiday while experiencing the race up close.

Tour duration:  10 - 12 days

Our Giro d'Italia tour is 12 days long where we see 2- 3 stages of the race and then we get you to areas near the bucketlist climbs that havent featured in that years' race.  Our Tour de France tours are located in the Pyrenees and the Alps when the race is in each area and see 2-3 stages.  Both are 10 days in duration. 

Time of Year: May and July

Our Giro tour begins in the middle of May to ensure we see stages either before or while the riders are in the mountains.  le Tour de France trips are usually in the middle of July while the riders are in the mountains.  Each tour rotates pending which mountain region le Tour goes to first - the Alps or the Pyrenees.

Where do we stay?

Villas

Our Tour de France trip in the Pyrenees is a homebase style holiday beginning in the small town of Luchon. We stay in a 17th century villa in the middle of town where you unpack for an entire week, hang out with our friends at Billy's Bar and soak up the French culture.  We also stay in a 4 star bike hotel in Lourdes close to many other famous climbs in the region.  

Chalets

Like our Pyrenees tours, our Alps trip also stays in the one location for a week so you can unpack and live like a local while riding all the famous climbs.  Our homebase style stay is in modern ski chalets in the middle of town where you can relax in front of the tv watching the stages after your rides or chill out together on the deck with a cold beer or Rose. 

3-4 Hotels

Because le Tour and the Giro don't go through the same towns every year we do stay in other  locations for 2-3 nights in order to see the stages.  Where we can, we stay in our favoured small family run hotels but we also stay in larger 3-4 star quality venues that are equipped for cyclists and close to the centre of town so you can explore at your leisure.  