The Chain Gang Diary Competition Feb 2008 - Winner

Mark Lawrence - Australia

Why I Should Get The Guide Hachette

First of all, this is why I should get the Guide Hachette. As I live in Australia it is easily the most expensive for you to send. Secondly, any chance of getting decent French wine over here is little or none, given most bottle shops still have the cardboard casks stacked up in the window.

So therefore the only chance of me making any use of the Guide is to go on another cycling adventure with the Chain Gang.

Well it was worth a try, anyway.

Now, here's some honest feedback.

• I really enjoyed the trip. The pre-sales experience was good, and the pre-tour information, train tickets etc were delivered to my London hotel on my arrival. You were there to meet me at the train station in Avignon.
• On the first morning we wasted several hours getting the bikes sorted - this would have been better done the previous evening; some of us were frustrated that we didn't get to pedal until almost noon.
• All the hotels in Provence were quite acceptable, excepting some odd behaviour by some of the "patrons" (e.g. rooms not being available despite being booked). However from our perspective it's all part of the adventure, although frustrating for you no doubt.
• With most groups there are many occasions when the pace of cycling is not quite right - even I on occasions feel like a "slow" day although I usually like to get to the destination near the front of the peleton. For this reason it would be great to have two guides which would allow for a slow group and a faster group. This also gives the opportunity to change the mix for those who want to spend more time sightseeing and less time cycling - or vice versa. Obviously this adds to the cost but I wonder how much by? From some us, we spent a number of hours in total waiting at road junctions for the slower ones to arrive. Conversely, we sometimes arrived at the destination too late to do any sightseeing.
• The food and wine experience most evenings was good, although quite frankly it would have been nice to have a night off in the middle of the week! For lunch on a couple of occasions we did some local shopping which was quite fun, but the result was somewhat disorganized - perhaps the guide should have a shopping list to be shared between the group rather than the pot luck approach that was taken.
• I enjoyed the fact that you head up a tour company specializing in tours to France, even though you clearly find the French business culture a little challenging! However for me, I think their awkwardness somehow adds to their charm - and when I'm in France I'm always in Holiday mode, so it doesn't affect me.
• You providing the rain jackets was good on the days when it bucketed down - I was quite tempted to buy one myself.