4 Star France Tour Reviews — 211 to 212 of 212

We found the map directions confusing at times--i.e. Cross bridge and 3 streets and turn right. Sounds easy enough, but actually it meant 2 major streets and a round about. We usually solved this by using Google maps. But it added stressful tens of minutes to resolve. It pretty much meant that we slightly dreaded arriving at even a little village, due to the almost guaranteed confusion. Having the route available as a google map path would have been much much much better.
It's the service we pay for, not the specific route. It also made it feel like the route had not been retested for a while. Getting a bit lost wasn't all that bad, and we found some nice paths near Arles. The bikes were state of the art and high quality. None of our group liked the automatic transmission on the Bosch drive. It would frequently incorrectly shift in the middle of a climb and caused a bit of needless suffering. All in all it was a fun time. We couldn't have achieved the ride without the e-bikes.

First of all, let me be clear that we were very satisfied with the Tour. All in all, we would rate it a 9 out of 10. These are the reasons we couldn’t give it a perfect 10.
1. Here is the quote from the tour operator after we asked for the directions in advance: “Tell to clients that they don’t worry, the welcome meeting will be on Saturday p.m. and they will have all the time to study the route before they leave, the day after in the morning.” We did have the welcome meeting but it was a bit rushed and we really didn’t have time to ask questions. We were warned not to be late and arrived on time. They indicated that there was not enough time that evening.
2. We did not get our bikes at the welcome meeting. One Ebike had not yet returned on Saturday afternoon. We were told to return in the morning but not before 9:30 AM. When we arrived, we felt rushed and really didn’t have time to test the bikes. Mine (Ed) was a bit wobbly but I was told that there was nothing wrong. I did get used to it as we went along but my complaint was valid, further verified when I returned home to my own steady bike.
3. All of the bikes had problems with how they shifted and how they meshed with the electric function. Maybe it was our lack of familiarity with the Ebike but we really didn’t have time Sunday morning to ask questions.
4. We never got an explanation on how to engage all of the 27 gears, only could use nine. We were told that they shifted automatically and “don’t worry about it”. The automatic shift stopped working on two bikes after the second day.
5. The directions were very confusing and hard to follow. Last year we had the “E’s” to follow but this year nothing but the somewhat confusing directions.