Interview with Customer Sarah Vilms

Name:  Sarah Vilms

Who Stayed Home and Who Came With You:  Thomas came with me and our commuter bikes stayed home.

Age (be as vague as you’d like): Late 39

You recently completed your first bicycle tour – what did you think?
Outstanding!  It was beyond any expectations I could have had.  Here are some of the things I loved:

Arrows:  Arrows enable you to spend your time enjoying the scenery and your peers and not have to worry about the map all the time.   

Experiences along the Route:  Any bike company can have you sit on a bike for 65 miles a day.  I loved the fact that ExperiencePlus! researches engaging activities integrated along the route.  It makes for a far more interesting trip, you learn and enjoy more and it breaks up the biking nicely.

Car-less Roads:  This gave us the opportunity to ride abreast and really meet and enjoy talking with your fellow riders.

Beautiful Weather:  It is great to be out in the sunshine for 8 hours a day.  

Fun Group:  Everyone was interesting, had diverse careers, welcoming and enjoyable.  That makes a difference. 

Great Guides:  They were seamless, ego-less, and provided necessary help and authority without a power trip.  We enjoyed riding with the guides – they felt like fellow riders, but just knew what they were doing.  They anticipated problems before they could happen (hence we had none).

How did you and Thomas decide on the Cycling the Dordogne Plus! the Vineyards of Bordeaux trip out of all of those that are offered? My parents have done five tours with Experience Plus! and the Dordogne was the tour they liked best.  Friends they had made on that trip agreed.  The trip well surpassed their recommendations!

 How many miles a week do you generally ride?  30-50

How did you decide to do a bike trip?  An itch I had to scratch. 

Any advice or lessons learned that you would like to share from your first cycling trip?  Get to know your fellow riders, take photos without stopping the bike (ExperiencePlus! recommends that riders DO stop and take photos), let yourself forget about work and everything back home.  

You called our office within days of your return to book your next trip – are you worried that this cycling stuff is addictive?  Yes, highly addictive.  We have great memories and have made some super friends.  We are looking to do more tours! 

If you won the lottery what’s the first thing you would do?  Buy a house in Aspen.

Tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know:  I’ve lived in the outback in Australia.

What question do you wish we had asked, and how would you have answered? 

Question:  You and Thomas were the youngest on the tour by slightly more than a decade, with the age range predominantly in the 50’s to 70’s of the group.  How did you find this experience? 

I loved it!  I really enjoyed meeting people with interesting careers and lives to discuss, and we all shared the common love of biking.  The age range didn’t matter at all -- I enjoyed the maturity and wisdom that everyone brought to the table.  There were some fascinating stories, and they were also excellent bikers!