Overall, we were very happy with the tour: the routes were beautiful, the accommodations and breakfasts mostly good or great, the bikes worked out OK, and we were fit enough to manage the ?athletic? version. Our favourite stage was from Reschen Pass to Merano for its beautiful vistas of the Alps and vineyards and orchards along the way (plus it´s mostly downhill, after the arduous climb to Norbertshöhe and Reschen Pass). With hindsight, the ?classic? version would have given us more time to visit some of the sights that we were interested in.

Here are some suggestions for improvements, based on our experience:

Bike fitting

Perhaps most people bring their one bikes on your tours, but we rented bikes from InnTour because we own only mountain bikes and have never done a multi-day bike tour before. We also wanted to spend some extra time in Italy after the tour, so bringing our own bikes would have been logistically challenging.

For people like us who rent bikes, it would be great if InnTour recommended bike fitting at a bicycle shop at the starting city (perhaps even having a contract with a particular shop to do them). It took a while for me to find the right height for the seat and learn to adjust it to point downward a little (to avoid chafing).

My husband got shoulder pain after the first two days, probably because the handlebars where not at the right height for him. (He rides his own bike a couple of hours most days but has never experienced this issue before).

Proper bike fitting would likely have avoided these issues and spared us a lot of discomfort. As novices to multi-day tours, this didn´t occur to us ahead of time.

Bike tuning and safety

My chains kept dropping at least once a day for the first four days when I was shifting up to or down from the highest gear. (I do bike regularly and know how to shift gears and hardly ever experience this on my own bike). This suggests to me that the tuning of the bike had not been checked properly. For the remainder of the trip, I stopped using the highest gear altogether, and the chain never fell again.

For safety reasons, my husband ended buying a bike mirror. There were many cyclists on the route not signaling properly, particularly when passing, and part of the route is on roads shared with cars, where being able to check the rear view easily is important. In those situations, a mirror enhances safety significantly. Consider making them a standard accessory.

This is not really a tuning issue, but I mention it here. The bottle rack on my bike is at such a height that it was almost impossible to avoid hitting it with my left inner thigh when mounting and dismounting, causing an immense bruise (that is only now finally disappearing, a week after the tour´s end). I didn´t help that the rack was made of thick tubular medal (not flat like the one on the bike my husband rode). So please reconsider the bike rack placement and construction.

Option for break days

You may already offer an option for taking break days (although I didn´t notice it). We would have loved to stay an extra night in San Valentin (Hotel Stocker) to do a hike. Lake Garda is another place that offers excellent hiking, and we would have liked to stay two nights there as well.

We understand that such break days would need to be set (and paid for) in advance, but they seem logistically possible if there are many people doing the tour, starting on different dates. Please consider offering this kind of customization option (and if you already do, please highlight it more).

Hotels

Our favorites were Maximilian (very helpful and friendly owner, excellent restaurant for dinner), Mozart (very helpful staff, great food, wonderful saunas), and Stocker (very helpful staff, nice saunas). We also liked Caravel in Nago-Torbole, with its abundant breakfast and nice amenities in the room). The breakfast at Bayerische Wirt was excellent.

At Rössle in Shongau, there was nobody there when we arrived (before 5 pm), and it took some waiting and unanswered calls before we got somebody to receive us (when we were keen to get to a shower after a long day). The room was spacious, though, and the breakfast adequate.

Erica in Salorno felt a little worn, the room was prepared for one person only (in terms of towels and bedlinens), and the breakfast didn´t match those at the other hotels. But it is in a good location near the bike route, and the staff was friendly.

The app

The app was good for navigating, but finding the hotels took some searching and the use of Google Maps. Some of the information about sights along the route wasn´t accurate or was dated. (Some names of castles were not what the signage on location says, ex. Churburg Castle didn´t seem to exist under that name, and Castelbello Castle didn´t have a Via Claudia Augusta exhibit we went to see there (instead its rooms are used for art exhibitions; we enjoyed viewing one).

Hope you find these suggestions and feedback helpful.