How to hire a support driver for a self-guided bike tour?

March 29, 2016 2:32 PM

I've been some multi-day bike tours, some fancy & fully supported, and some self-guided, with no trip guide or SAG wagon. Both types provide accommodations and transit for your luggage. On the self-guided trips I've thought "I could figure all this out", but I'm at a loss on how to reliably organize moving luggage from A to B. How could one hire a reliable driver just to move the luggage, and how to indemnify such a person?

On a typical self-guided trip you get a route sheet or map and must find your way from the day's start to finish. One leaves the luggage in the lobby for pickup by the shuttle driver, who brings it to the destination hotel. Often I will never see the driver at either end.

This would be for 2 people in the US or in Canada, during a week or 2. We might ride 50-80 miles a day totaling @ 300-400 miles, so the driver would only be engaged for a couple hours a day, and could travel the entire route in a single day's drive if necessary.

For a point-to-point trip we may want to also include transport for ourselves and our bikes back to our starting point....

posted by TDIpod to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

Is there some reason that you can't put your toiletries and clothes in panniers and just carry them with you? That's the solution I went with when I did this in Europe ...
posted by Metasyntactic at 2:57 PM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

The simplest way to do it would be to ask the concierge to arrange a courier for you.
posted by 26.2 at 3:35 PM on March 29, 2016

I think the tours I've been on used taxis or someone from the hotel took it, depending on how busy they were. Uber or a car service would also be an option.
posted by kjs4 at 3:36 PM on March 29, 2016

I'd call a bike shop located somewhere along the route and ask if they know of someone who does that kind of thing. You probably won't be the first to ask.
posted by adamrice at 3:38 PM on March 29, 2016

If you're staying at hotels how much stuff are you really transferring between point A and B? A change of clothes and toiletries? Just carry it with you. I have Fedex'ed myself boxes of stuff from hotels on tours, but it seems like your problem is same day delivery which is either going to be logistically hard, out of your control, not possible in the more rural areas you would want to tour anyways, or some combination of all of these things.

I'm not sure how you would scale this in a cost effective way for one person unless you are willing to pay for a cab ride or courier between points, which again, to me doesn't really seem possible in the kinds of places you would want to tour.

If you're against carrying your own stuff for whatever reason, seems like you could mail a head a box to every hotel you're staying at in advance (they'll hold it for you if you have a reservation) along with a self addressed box to return things. Then just get new package every day at check in, send stuff you're not using/dirty clothes home in the morning.
posted by bradbane at 3:41 PM on March 29, 2016

I mean you could mail yourself a box to every hotel you're planning to stay at, along with a self-addressed postage-paid return box. Pick up your new box of clothes or whatever at check in, mail your dirty clothes/stuff you're not using home in the morning. Hotels will hold a package for you if you have a reservation coming up.
posted by bradbane at 3:45 PM on March 29, 2016

Find hotels that will handle FedEx for you. Ship a first set of clothes and toiletries to Hotel#1 and a second set to Hotel#2.

Ride to #1. When you're finished at #1, have them ship your stuff to #3. Then ride to #2. Your second box will already be there.

When you're finished at #2, have them ship your stuff to #4. Etc. You won't need same-day delivery.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:47 PM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

While I agree with other posters that there may be another alternatives, I think a city teacher (with no car) might find this an awesome way for a couple week "vacation".
While I like the idea of the mailing boxes, it would be pretty sweet to have someone to pick you up in case of emergency, etc. Have extra gear, etc in the van.

If you knew the location and how much you'd pay, I might know a teacher that would be into this.
posted by ReluctantViking at 4:35 PM on March 29, 2016

You might find some luck and logistics help on crazyguyonabike forums. The people there are really great and have a ton of experience with this sort of thing.

But I wonder: If you're hoteling it every night, do you really need luggage? Seems like a lot of hassle unless you're carrying, say, heavy camera equipment of medical equipment. At 80 miles a day, you probably won't be seeking out the nightlife.
posted by mochapickle at 4:55 PM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I rode for a week with a group of 8 guys in the Black Hills and one year in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This was in the summer. We hired a ski instructor (both times, same guy) who was bumming around town waiting for the summer to end. One of the guys in the group had taken lessons from him at some point. He was somewhat local (in the summer) to the area we were touring. He and his buddy would take our bags to the next camp site, do some shopping for provisions/dinner and drink whiskey and play guitar with us each night. It cost us each $125. He was paid $1000 for the week of being our shag wagon, our bag courier, our campsite claimer and sometime provisions procurer. We also paid for the rental van.

Depending on your route, I would put an ad in a local college job board or on Craig's list. If you are not going to carry your own stuff, know that having a road butler is not particularly cheap.
posted by AugustWest at 6:54 PM on March 29, 2016