Welcome to our Guest Services Center. Guest Services describes the many services that are available to riders on Wild West Cycling's adventure tours.This page details the following services and topics: The Mission and History of Wild West Cycling; Lodging and Accommodations; Pre-Ride and Post-Ride Meals; Transportation and Vehicle Support; Rider Support; Traveling to a Wild West Cycling Adventure Ride; Shipping Your Bike; Renting a Bike; What to Bring on an Adventure Tour; Your Arrival and Ground Transportation; Reservations; Contacting Us; our Pick the Podium! Fantasy Cycling Game; and our Links Page. Please use the links on this page to obtain more information about some of the key services and topics. After reading through these pages, you will find that Wild West Cycling tries to provide greater services to our guests versus comparable tour operators, yet our tours are more affordable. If you need to return to this page, you may use the Guest Services button on the Navigation Bar (left) or the Guest Services link found near the bottom on each of our webpages.
The Mission and History of Wild West Cycling Wild West Cycling Adventures offers affordable, supported, multi-day Road Cycling and Mountain Biking adventures around the San Francisco Bay Area/Wine Country and the High Sierras/Lake Tahoe Region during the Spring through Fall seasons. We also offer Road Cycling and Mountain Biking in the Las Vegas/Mojave Region during the Winter season. Our tours venture into scenic areas that provide challenging rides through venues of historical significance. Wild West Cycling emphasizes a high level of customer service and provides comfortable lodging during our adventure tours. Importantly, our tours provide 1 to 2 nights of additional inn stays vs. comparable tours, yet are more affordable. One of our objectives is to provide our guests with more for less. Read More About the History of Wild West Cycling
Lodging and Accommodations Our adventure tours stay in comfortable motor inns and small-to-medium sized hotels that have been positively rated by the American Automobile Association (AAA). We believe that it is important to have comfortable, clean, and complete accommodations after a full day of riding. Importantly, Wild West Cycling Adventures offers 1 to 2 additional nights of inn stays versus comparable tours, yet our tours are more affordable! Our accommodations are generally Double Occupancy, and we try to match you with a fitting roommate of the same gender. However, you may elect a Single Occupancy room for an additional $75 on our weekend tours and $400 or more for our week-long tours (5 or more days of activity) by clicking on the Single Occupancy button near the bottom of this page or on the Reservations page. Please note that you will have to take some Ground Transportation from SFO (or your point of entry) to the first night's place of stay. As soon as we have the minimum number of guests for a tour, we will provide you with the precise addresses of our places of stay and ground transportation information for your first and last night's of stay.
Pre-Ride and Post-Ride Meals On every full day of activity, Wild West Cycling provides a hearty pre-ride breakfast and a delicious post-ride dinner. Our meals are prepared either on-site by the Wild West Cycling staff or by nearby restaurants. Both of our daily meals emphasize healthy California Cuisine and quality sports nutrition - all with a high amount of tastiness. Our breakfasts focus on endurance-oriented nutrition and proper hydration. Breakfasts typically include hot and cold cereals with milk, bagels with spreads, energy bars, bananas, juice, sports drink, coffee, and on occasion pancakes with syrup and breakfast sandwiches. Our dinners focus on post-ride recovery, rehydration and complex carbohydrate loading for the next day's riding. Dinners typically include a mixture of Mediterranean, Asian, and Latin American styles of cooking - hence California Cuisine. Dinners often feature antipasto, fresh garden salad, pasta with sauce, potatoes with toppings, rice with garnish, prepared vegetables, and lean sources of protein such as chicken or seafood. Rehydration beverages such as juice and sports drink are also available. While I prefer the alcoholic-free wines and malt beverages, some light alcoholic drinks such as wine and beer will also be served with the dinners.
Transportation and Vehicle Support Wild West Cycling's fleet of vehicles includes full-sized passenger vans such as the Chevy Express 3500 Passenger Van and all-terrain vehicles such as the Nissan Xterra Sport Utility Vehicle. Our passenger vans are powerful and comfortable vehicles that are in relatively new condition. In fact, we will be receiving new bike racks (not shown) for the 2008 season and beyond. On our road cycling tours, the passenger van transports our guests, their bikes, and their luggage to the start of each tour and accompanies our guests throughout each day of riding to the end of the tour! On our mountain biking tours, the passenger van transports our guests, their bikes, and their luggage to and from the trailheads, but generally provides limited service during the MTB rides due to the terrain. The Nissan Xterra is used as an additional transport and support vehicle on our larger road and MTB tours. Please note that on some of our MTB riding days, we will not have any vehicle support during the ride due to lack of road accessibility. Therefore, Rider Support (below) during those MTB rides will have to be provided by the MTB tour guides.
Support of Guests During the Rides Wild West Cycling supports our guests during the rides through our knowledgeable and highly-skilled riding tour guides and through our attentive staff members in the passenger vehicles. Wild West Cycling seeks to have one to two staff members on the small group and small private tours. We also prefer to have from two to four staff members on our large group and large private tours. Our riding tour guides are very skilled cyclists who also have great familiarity with the areas that you will be riding through. In addition, our staff members in the passenger vehicles will provide you with energy gels, bananas, sports drinks, and water during your rides. For the MTB riding days without vehicle support during the rides, guests will have to load up on such items prior to the start of those rides. During the rides, the tour guides and vehicle support team will also be able to provide repairs and adjustments to the most commonly encountered problems, such as flat tires, sloppy shifting, non-centered brake pads, untrue wheels, and broken chains. The support vehicles are also a good place for guests to leave a pair of walking shoes in order to do some sightseeing during the rest breaks. Importantly, the passenger vehicles are there to support you if you decide to end a ride early for whatever reason. Lastly, at the end of each day's ride but prior to the next day's start, staff members clean and lube the drivetrains, inspect the shifting, braking, and other features of the bikes, and adjust the component settings of the bikes as required.
Traveling to a Wild West Cycling Adventure Tour There are a number of convenient methods of traveling that our guests use to arrive into the San Francisco Bay Area, which generally serves as our reception and assembly area. On our Traveling webpage, we discuss the more common methods of traveling, such as air, auto, rail, and bus travel, and provide a number of links so that you can compare rates. Read More About How To Travel to Our Tours
Shipping Your Bike Whenever you go for a day ride back home, there is always one important part of your team that shares the experience with you - your bicycle. This section discusses how you can share the lifelong riding experiences from our adventure tours with your key "partner" by shipping your bicycle to the start of our tours. There are two main ways that guests use to ship their bikes to the start of our tours and back. Guests either bring their bikes with them as they travel, or ship them to Caesar's Cyclery, our local bike shop, via UPS. An advantage of bringing the bike with you on the airliner is that your bike will always be with you. However, it may be somewhat cumbersome moving around the transportation terminals with it. An advantage of shipping your bike via UPS is ease of travel. However, you must send your bike to Caesar's at least one week, and preferably one and a half weeks, before the start of your adventure tour. This means that you will not be on this specific bike for around 7 to 10 days. Looking at this positively, at least you will have given yourself a sufficient taper before the many, full days of riding on our adventure tours. Please click on the links in this section to learn more about shipping your bike. Read More About How to Ship Your Bike
Renting a Bike Wild West Cycling Adventures reserves bikes for our guests from Caesar's Cyclery. Caesar's Cyclery is located at 29 San Anselmo Avenue, San Anselmo, CA 94960 (415-721-0805). They offer a wide selection of rental bikes, including the following: carbon fiber road bikes for speed and comfort; aluminum road bikes for speed and responsiveness; full-suspension mountain bikes for comfort and downhilling; and front suspension mountain bikes for responsive climbing and cross-country riding. Other types of bicycles, such as hybrids, are also available. Most of the bikes in the rental inventory are manufactured by GIANT. Please click on the links in this paragraph to view examples of the bicycles in the rental inventory. Read More About Renting a Bike
What to Bring on an Adventure Tour Wild West Cycling recommends that you pack two pieces of luggage for our tours. The luggage should be around the same size of the carry-on bags that the airlines allow. Preferably, the luggage should be made from a durable, soft material and not hard like a suitcase. Past guests have often packed their belongings into a Cycling-oriented bag and a Pre/Post Ride luggage bag. Please click on the links in this paragraph to view our recommendations on what to pack. Read More About What to Bring
Reservations On our Reservations Center page, you may reserve online any of our week-long or weekend Road or MTB adventure tours and other services, such as Single Occupancy accommodations, Bicycle Receiving/Assembly and Disassembly/Boxing, and Rental Bikes. You may also reserve our tours and other services via email, telephone, or regular mail by using the contact information on this page. Visit our Reservations Center
Contact Us If you have any questions or requests concerning our adventure tours or Guest Services, please Contact Us.
Pick the Podium! Fantasy Cycling Game Wild West Cycling Adventures is proud to present Pick the Podium! - a free fantasy cycling game on the internet that enables you to participate in the Grand Tours and other events by creating your "team" of professional cyclists. Wild West Cycling was particularly excited about presenting Pick the Podium! prior to the start of the 2006 and 2007 Tour de France events as pro cycling entered a new, post-Armstrong era. Pick the Podium! will most likely be presented for all three of the Grand Tours in 2008, beginning with the Giro d'Italia in May 2008. A number of riders certainly have a strong possibility to ride for a place on the Final Podiums, or win the King of the Mountains and Best Sprinter competitions. The three Grand Tours should be some of the most competitive and exciting 3-week stage races in some time.
Links Page Our Links Page provides associations to the greater cycling world. On this page are a number of links concerning Travel, Shipping Your Bike, and General Cycling Information.
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You may reserve a Single Occupancy room (left) by clicking on the Single Occupancy button on the right and placing your selection into your online shopping cart. Single Occupancy rooms are $100 for our weekend tours and $400 for our week-long tours. A $100 deposit is required per guest per Single Occupancy, and any balance is due 30 days before the start of your tour. Please view our Terms of Service page if you have any questions concerning our cancellation and refund policies.