Graham Baxter Sports Tours - Opinions?

Ashley_R

Looking at getting some early year sun (remember that stuff) and try to get fitness levels up and enjoy the scenery

Anyone been on a Graham Baxter tour? Was looking at the one at Albir Gardens in the Costa Blanca

Any opinions welcome, thanks

ColinJ

Ashley_R wrote:

Looking at getting some early year sun (remember that stuff) and try to get fitness levels up and enjoy the scenery

Anyone been on a Graham Baxter tour? Was looking at the one at Albir Gardens in the Costa Blanca

Any opinions welcome, thanks

I've been on 6 or 7 of them, all based at Albir Gardens. That probably tells you that I enjoyed myself! Here's my unbiased guide:

When I first started going, there would anything upto about 100 cyclists on the holidays, but last year there were about 25 of us. People are learning that they can save money by going on t'Internet and booking hotels for themselves. I still like not having to worry about transfers, that kind of thing. I book my own flights and insurance which saves quite a bit anyway. 25 riders was enough to get 2 or 3 groups out every day. To be honest, I thought the groups used to be a bit large so that was fine by me.

Most people, myself included, find the hotel perfectly acceptable. Simple, but adequate. I've heard one or two moaning minnies going on about 'crap food'. They were the sort of people who would always find something to moan about... The breakfasts and evening meals are on a self-service buffet basis and you can eat as much as you like. There is always a reasonable variety. I'm perfectly happy with it. Gourmet, it's not, but you aren't paying for luxury.

The hotel accommodation consists of one main block and lots of smaller 3-floor blocks with 4 apartments per floor. I was always housed in one of the smaller blocks. I think it is only the reps who stay in the main block. Bikes are kept in the rooms (just make sure you don't get dirt/oil on anything!). That's handy and reassuring. If you get a room on an upper floor and come back after a long ride, here's a tip - take your shoes off before carrying your bike up the stairs! There are no lifts in the separate blocks, and the floors are tiled. It's easy to slip over when you are tired...

The hotel grounds are landscaped and it is nice to sunbathe out there on the grass. There is an outdoor pool, but the water will still be cool in Feb/Mar. The hotel has a small indoor heated pool, but I've never used it.

The hotel bar is cheap and cheerful. They have 'entertainment' on most nights - treat it as a laugh or just ignore it!

At the back of the bar there are about 6 PCs with internet access. It is about 4 euros an hour to use those. They can be a bit flaky, but they are usable.

The hotel is situated just off the coast road and you need to use that road to get to anywhere else. Benidorm is a couple of miles down the road. I've cycled through it a couple of times, and visited it once on a rest day. I'm not interested in spending any more time there - I go for the cycling, not for the night clubs! There are usually younger people on the holidays who go out on the town so if you want to go on the p**s, you'd be able to find company. Be warned - like any other tourist trap, Benidorm has its dark side. The Baxter's mechanic went clubbing on one of my holidays a few years ago and got mugged when he took a short cut down a dark alley. He looked a right mess the next morning.

The hotel is about a 15 minute walk from the sea (which is a bit on the cold side for bathing at that time of year). The coast would have been really beautiful 30 or 40 years ago, but the pace of change has been incredible. New towns and housing developments are springing up all along it. It's a shame, but Spain makes most of its income from tourism and that's that. You don't have to go far inland before everything changes, however. There are great roads and mountains everywhere - lovely!

The area is great for cycling. All rides involve a certain amount of cycling on the coast road. It can be fairly busy, although there is a motorway not too far away which takes a lot of the commercial traffic. Many of the roads have white lines painted at the sides of them. Cyclists and pedestrians use those areas to keep away from traffic. Most drivers treat you with more respect than the UK, but of course you do get UK drivers out there...! I'm less worried on those roads than I am on UK roads.

Very varied cycling is available, from undulating 35 - 60 mile cafe stop coastal rides to 100 mile+ mountainous monsters. I've heard that Baxters will be exploring some new routes this year. I'd been thinking that it was about time - they'd used the same routes for a bit too long and I could see that other possible routes were within range.

The weather is typically very good in Feb/Mar, although it can be cool and wet if you are not so lucky. I'd say that 55% of my 14 weeks there over the past 8 years have been lovely, sunny, and warm (20-25 degrees C). 30%, okay, overcast and windy (15-20 degrees). Only about 15% has been awful - rain and severe winds (10-15 degrees, with wind-chill). One or two really cold days in the mountains where I had to wear full winter gear. Hope for the best, but take some bad weather kit just in case! Quite often it is nippy in the evenings when you got for your meal. I often need a fleece jacket after dark. I've even seen frost on cars first thing in the morning. One warning, which Baxters will give you, but worth repeating - like any other area that doesn't get much rain - THE ROADS ARE INCREDIBLY SLIPPERY WHEN WET!!! I managed to get wheelspin sitting down going in a straight line last year during a shower.

The Baxters staff have always been friendly and usually know their way around. Last year there was one guy who wasn't quite so savvy about the roads, but there were enough of us old hands to prompt him!

Finally, you might like to take a look at these short videos which were taken on my holiday in 2007! I appear in one of the clips, but I'm not telling you which one because I was looking somewhat unfit at the time...

My advice - go for itI I hope you have a great time. I can't afford it this year, otherwise I'd love to join you.

PS My avatar photo was taken up in the mountains behind Benidorm. I was a bit overweight that year too!

Klassiker

I went on a Baxter tour to the Costa Dorada many years ago. I slept on a sofa for two weeks because it was overbooked, and in the second week there were no guides, evening events or Graham Baxter available. As I say, it was many years ago and he seems, from the very informative first reply, to be better organised these days.

ColinJ

Klassiker wrote:

I went on a Baxter tour to the Costa Dorada many years ago. I slept on a sofa for two weeks because it was overbooked, and in the second week there were no guides, evening events or Graham Baxter available. As I say, it was many years ago and he seems, from the very informative first reply, to be better organised these days.

Most of the apartments I referred to at Albir Gardens each have one bedroom with twin beds. There are also single sofa-beds in the main lounge-come-dining-rooms. So, if you book 2 to an apartment, you get a bed each. If there are 3 of you (or you say that you are willing to share with 2 others to keep the price down) - someone gets the sofa bed.

Other info:

There are small kitchen areas in each apartment - adequate for making sandwiches and tea/coffee. I wouldn't really fancy doing proper cooking in them though (not that you'd need to with Baxters).

The apartment bathrooms also include decent showers and there has always been plenty of hot water when I have been there.

TVs in the rooms used to be pay-per-view but now the coin boxes are disabled. Miscellaneous foreign channels are available but probably only the 1 BBC channel and Eurosport will be of interest, unless you speak Spanish, Dutch or German.

Graham Baxter himself isn't always at the hotel because he lives in Murcia some distance away. When he does turn up, he usually rides with the fastest group because he's a fit bugger and uses it as part of his training. There is usually an intermediate group and a slowish one (mine!) too.

The 'no-frills' Feb trips are really for riders who can look after themselves i.e. no guided rides and no mechanic, massage, evening talks etc. If you want all that, wait until March.

There is now a very good supermarket across the road from the hotel (and another one just down the road). The hotel used to have a crappy shop in the basement but they've seen sense and now let the pros take care of that!

A Benidorm bus goes from outside the hotel.

Ashley_R

Thanks Colin, really informative, thanks for taking the time, great info, think I'm sold, some Spainish sunshine next month looks just ideal 8)

By the way, you're not a Graham Baxter salesman are you!!

ColinJ

Ashley_R wrote:

Thanks Colin, really informative, thanks for taking the time, great info, think I'm sold, some Spainish sunshine next month looks just ideal 8)

By the way, you're not a Graham Baxter salesman are you!!

Er, no, but I noticed this on their website -

Why not get together with some friends to take advantage of our group discounts:

6 to 10 persons.......5%
11 to 15 persons.....10%
over 15 persons.......to be discussed with ourselves
I wonder whether I could get 10 other people interested and use the discount to get a free holiday for me 8) ! Hmm, I suppose I'd have to pay my own way and share the discount...

Say hello to Geoff for me. He's an old English cyclist (now in his 70s, I think) who winters there every year. Tall, wears glasses, always very tanned. Someone went up and asked him how long he'd been there during my last training camp. "Since the start of January". "Done many miles?" "Not really - I don't ride so far these days, just 25 miles to a cafe then 25 back. Only about 3,500 miles since January 1st." That was by mid-March - a pretty impressive total!

bahzob

I went on a Baxter tour (Raid Dolomite) last year. I would not recommend them based on my experience, an opinion shared by others on the group who, however made the point that a previousBaxter tour they had been on (Raid Pyreneen) was great.

So maybe its not just a question of the company but also the specific tour.

cacbyname

Can I ask what didn't you and your co-riders like about the Raid Dolomite tour? I was thinking of doing this next year (i think they run it bi-annually). I did the Raid Alpine last year and thought it was excellent.

bahzob

The main concern about the Dolomite tour was the overall lack of support. Specifically:
- there were 24 riders of varying ability and just one courier with a lorry. So very little on road support could be offered and none if, as happened on several days, either riders or the support vehicle had problems.
- the support offered was minimal. There were a couple of spare bikes but no spare parts/tubes etc. I think (not sure) even the track pump we used belonged to someone on the tour. No food was provided during the day. This was my first tour so I thought this was normal but apparently not. Anyway after a couple of days someone organised a whip round and we each donated some cash which was used by the courier to get some food to put on the lorry.
- no maps were provided, just photocopies of large scale road maps with the route marked with a highlighter. So you either had to buy your own maps or get lost.
- there was next to no briefing about each days stage.
- hotels were of mixed standards. Some were very good, others basic. Bizarrely one was on a main road, along which bikes were not allowed.
- this last hotel was obviously difficult to find, but no decent directions were given to many of the hotels. One guy had thought ahead about this an bought his satnav. The others of us relied on someone who had bought his laptop and was able to download route instructions for us to follow.
- at the end of the raid most riders had missed some or all of the checkpoints. Even so we were led to believe that if we handed our cards over they could be "updated" and we would get a certificate and medal to say we had completed the raid. (I did the full distance but this made me not bother with the medal)

Like I say this was my first tour and I did not really know what to expect so assumed at the time the above may just have been normal. However other people on the ride (some of whom had flown half way round the world for it) had been on other tours and were not at all happy and tempers were lost a few times during the tour.

I went on a second tour last year, the Raid Pyreneen (with Bikepyrenees) and learned there that my experience on the Dolomite tour need not be the norm. This was fantastic (mainly because of the support quality e.g. courier would stand at any tricky junctions to make sure we took the right turning) and, to give credit to Baxters, the guys who complained most on the Dolomite tour had been with Baxters in the Pyrenees and had had a great time.

All the above being said I would not want to put anyone off doing the Raid Dolomite. The route is absolutely fantastic, and when you get the the Dolomites the scenery is quite different to either the Alps or Pyrenees. So if it was a choice of doing the Raid with Baxters or not at all I would say do it with Baxters but make sure you buy maps/spares in advance. (PS If you do do it take a detour on the penultimate day and go up Zoncolan, this will be the last serious climb of the route and an appropriate crowning moment.)

andyp

bahzob's experiences sound very similar to mine. Between 1995 and 2003 I used Baxters almost every year for a trip and the variance between support was extreme. On one trip I did there were 4 support staff and all of them were superb (so much so that the whip round we had yielded almost £500 from 30 people). On another, the Raid Dolomite in 2003, there was one person supporting us with a large van who spoke some French but no German or Italian (you leave French speaking territory on day 2 of 10) which meant those of us with some language skills were seconded into courier duties.

I've had some great trips with them but more often than not this was due my fellow travellers rather than Baxters themselves. I'd learned that you needed to bring your own maps, find out where the hotels were yourself and so on after a couple of trips (being abandoned by Graham himself in a fit of anger in northern Spain accelerated this learning process!).

When I started using them Baxters were about the only option for supported cycling trips in Europe so there was no competition to judge them against. Today the situation is different and it's much easier to organise trips yourself or find alternative companies. Personally I don't think Baxters have realised this and moved with the times. They've merged with Sports Tours International so maybe this will lead to improvements.

BeaconRuth

andyp wrote:

I've had some great trips with them but more often than not this was due my fellow travellers rather than Baxters themselves.

Aw, Andy, you say the sweetest things............... :oops:

Ruth

cacbyname

It sounds like the Baxters experience isn't a universally good one then. As I said, I've only been on one tour, the Raid Alpine and the experience was definitely positive so wouldn't want people to rule them out. There was a guide who would give us a briefing at the start of the day on what to expect and where he'd be with his van that day (usually at the top of a Col, sometimes in a village after a descent) where there'd be water, food and some decent mechanical assistance. Then for the meal at night (sometimes dire for vegetarians but that's typically French!) there'd be a prize for someone and a preview of the next day. The hotels varied in quality but that is to be expected when you are staying in some tiny villages.

Ok the maps weren't great but usually it was a case of just heading up the nearest Col and you'd be told at the top which next one to head for. I don't think anyone strayed off course and the only tricky hotel to find in Grasse, they printed out a proper map for us.

Mechanical assistance was excellent with help for me on the first day with a wrecked rear derailleur/twisted chain and someone else who had a carbon fibre handlebar snap. They even had 3 full spare Canondale bikes that were cannabilised to keep us going. The guides French wasn't very good but usually his wife is with him who is fluent and that wasn't a problem for me being half-French and was glad to help translate with an injured rider's trip to the hospital.

pmanley

I have completed the Raid Pyrenean and an Etape du Tour with Baxters. Bothe of these were well organised and I felt that we were all well looked after. Both these holidays involved moving hotels a great deal which was a pain in the butt, however this was the nature of the rides not Baxter's fault. The people on the holidays were mixed from racers to tourers. If you are going on your own then I would recommend them. However, there are plenty of other tour operators out there to choose from.

Ashley_R

Made my mind up, going to book with them for next month, going on my own for a week, hope theres a decent mix of riders

At least the food looks good so I'll have to get the miles in to justify pigging out!

andrew wheatley

I've only just seen this thread, but I still feel the need to add my very belated thoughts. I did the Pyrenean Raid with Baxters in 1998, the Corsican Raid in 1999 and the Alpine Raid in 2000. OK, the organisation wasn't perfect on two of the holidays (problems with support vehicles), but I was just grateful that here was a company that made it possible for a solo cyclist to do these trips without having to do any of the booking/planning/bag carrying that a solo trip would involve.

You also had to remember that you weren't booking with some multi-national tour company, it was just Graham Baxter doing the organising and his brother and mother doing the admin back in the UK.

As for there being no food provided during the day, we didn't expect any. You either carried some or you stopped at a cafe and bought some - it was no big deal. The same goes for basic tools and puncture repairs. It wasn't a stage race with a team car to give you a spare bike - it was more like a succession of audax rides. You made your own arrangements for food and drink and you went prepared to fix minor mechanical problems.

You had a route sheet to guide you and some fairly inadequate maps, so if you had any sense, you bought some more detailed maps to make following the route easier.

Maybe times have changed, and people expect more to be laid on for them. All I can say is I had three really enjoyable cycling holidays with Baxters, and I'm grateful that they were there to offer those holidays when virtually nobody else was doing it.

I would say if you're considering going on a Baxter's holiday, then don't be put off. It might not turn out to be perfect, but the chances are it will be enjoyable. Also, as othere have said, Baxters are now part of Sports Tours International, so maybe in future things will be a bit slicker too.

Andrew

The Mechanic

I did the Etape with them a couple of years ago and, whilst there were not really any organisational problems, I don't think the organisation was up to much. They are also very expensive for what you get IMO. Next time I will DIY, if there is a next time.