Researching for our new Burgundy bike tour, I was excited to discover a company that makes Époisses de Bourgogne cheese – and allows visitors! It’s very difficult to visit a cheesemaker, because of the hygiene regulations surrounding them. We visit…
This is a plea for help. So, unless you’re literally in the process of booking a holiday, everybody else, could you take 2 minutes, and see if you could help me? I’m after your photos – your Chain Gang photos.…
This month, I’m lucky to be able to share with you a new album of photos from our Alsace tour, courtesy of Friend Of The Chain Gang, Roberto Peixoto. If you visit the album on Flickr, you’ll find a selection…
The Isenheim Altarpiece What’s this post about? On a lot of our tours we cycle to special places, visit special places, and sometimes we’re stood outside a museum, an Abbey or a Chateau and as a guide we’re asked the…
What’s The Most Fun You Can Have On A Bike Tour? The origins of The Chain Gang lie in a trip to Brittany back in 1992, with 3 friends. None of us had ever been on a bike tour before,…
We’ve been running our Alsace tour for a few years now. We’ve introduced some changes from time to time, and we decided at the end of last season to make a couple of more significant changes. Much as I love…
We’ve got an album of photos from Alsace for you, courtesy of Jeremy Shindler. There are some lovely photos of birds, which is a bonus. It’s a pleasure cycling with someone who knows something about birds. I’ve chosen five photos…
(Click on any image to enlarge it) Speaking personally, the single most memorable thing about Alsace is the string of beautiful villages that make up the ‘route du vin’. The villages themselves are beautiful, and impeccably preserved. They run in…
As ever, our new season is suddenly a whole lot closer than it was. We start our group tours on June 3rd in Normandy. But that tour is full, I’m afraid. But also in June we have tours of Alsace,…
Learning about cheese. From the very beginning! When I first dreamed up The Chain Gang I drove around France for a few weeks trying to decide which region was the most interesting. I visited La Rochelle, then drove 40 Km…
