About

Founded in 2003 as a multi-activity holiday company by James Thompson, an experienced mountain leader and a keen cyclist, Marmot Tours has evolved over the years into the specialist tour operator for fully supported European road cycling holidays. From the outset, James built a team comprising passionate and experienced cyclists, mountain experts, and outdoor enthusiasts. It is our passion and meticulous attention to detail that sets us apart from the rest. We continue to take immense pride in going the extra mile and doing everything we do with a personal touch - something our clients refer to as ‘Marmot Magic’.

On every one of our holidays, there are two guides and two ridiculously well-equipped support vehicles, offering you every possible aspect of support: physical, moral, and mechanical. Our guide team are highly experienced, incredibly well prepared, technically competent, and above all, fun-loving! Their knowledge and skills ensure that you can relax and just turn the pedals, enjoying the scenery, the camaraderie, and the escape. This is your holiday and we’re here to make it the very best it can be. It’s how we roll. 

Our holidays range from flexible pace tours with two to four route options daily, so you can choose how hard you want to push yourself, to Raids and set challenges. Our tours run with a maximum group size of around 22 cyclists and while we are specialists in group holidays, we treat every cyclist as an individual. You won’t be pressurised to keep up with others, neither will you be forced to wait at the top of a col for riders slower than yourself.

Regardless of whether you’re travelling alone, as a pair, or in a group, we gear the Marmot Tours cycling holiday experience around your abilities, your needs, and expectations. We offer something for everyone – from cyclists new to climbing, to experts and those in peak fitness. 

On our tours, you’ll typically find a mix of solo travellers and small groups of 3 or 4 friends who simply love cycling, fresh air and camaraderie. If that sounds like you then you’ll be in good company. While on the trip, there tends to be a natural development of small groups who like cycling at the same pace and who have similar goals for their week. 

Whatever your goals, our proactive, passionate and experienced guides are there to support you through every rotation of your pedals, so you definitely won’t feel like you need to keep up with or wait for other riders. It’s your holiday after all!

So whether you’re a solo traveller, whether you’re coming with a partner with a different level of experience than yourself, or if you’re coming with a group of friends, our guides are experts at getting the group dynamics just right. They work their socks off to ensure every single cyclist feels supported, included and above all, has the best holiday possible.

We fundamentally believe that cycling guides cannot offer the same level of support to you from a bike as our guides can with two support vehicles. While all of our guides would love to be riding their bike alongside you, their mission is to support your ride and they take great pride in doing this so that all you need to think about is turning the pedals and enjoying the cycling.

From the outset, our ethos has always been about balancing profitability with being a responsible tour operator. We made the ultimate commitment to this by becoming a certified B Corp in 2023, of which we’re incredibly proud. For our cyclists, this means that when you come on one of our incredible cycling holidays, you’re supporting a business that views purpose above profit and you’re part of the movement that uses travel as a force for good.

To learn more about our B Corp certification and our role as a 1% For The Planet member, head over to our B Corp page.

When you come on a road cycling holiday with Marmot Tours, you’re in exceptionally safe and experienced hands.

We are members of ABTOT, which gives you added financial protection when booking your cycling holiday with us. Find out more about how your money is protected by heading to our ABTOT and Your Financial Protection page. 

What's more, as members of ABTA, we follow their Code of Conduct to provide the very highest standard of service to you. To find out how our ABTA membership offers you added confidence when travelling with us, please follow the link to our ABTA page.

• We give you a personalised booking procedure – our expert customer liaison teamhelp you find the right cycling holiday for you, your needs and goals
• We offer a huge variety of holidays in all the best cycling spots of Europe. Choose from flexible pace tours with multiple daily route options, or Raids and set challenges
• You'll have two expert, non-cycling guides with bespoke support vehicles including water and unlimited snacks on every tour
• You have the option to hire one of our superb, titanium-framed road bikes – custom built for cycling in the mountains and getting you up those cols
• Our departures are guaranteed - once we publish a tour on our website, you can be sure that it’s going to run
• You’ll get airport transfers and we’ll transport your luggage throughout the holiday
• You’ll stay in comfortable hotels (breakfast and dinner with drinks included), all with experience of catering to hungry cyclists
• You'll receive an album of fabulous photos taken of you and your cycling comrades while on the tour, a few weeks after you arrive home
• We’re a B Corp – come cycling with us and be part of the movement using travel as a force for good

The feedback our cyclists provide is really important to us - yes, really! Whether it’s about the booking process, the hotels we use, the routes cycled, or how our guides supported you - we listen to all comments to ensure the Marmot Tours cycling holiday experience just keeps getting better. To see what our clients say about us, you can check out our page on Trip Advisor. 

We send a monthly newsletter to all our subscribers, providing exclusive content such as advance notice of new itineraries or extra departure dates, special offers, or other news that we think you'll find interesting. We take our NO JUNK PLEDGE seriously so we make a cast-iron promise not to send you any junk, and you can change your preferences or unsubscribe at any time (though we hope you won't want to!).

Our clients and subscribers are really important to us so we take every care to ensure the data we hold about you is safe. You can read more about how we do this in our Privacy Policy.

So, whether you're planning your next holiday, want monthly inspo, want to stay in the know or just want to drool over the fabulous photos our guides take, sign up and we'll add you to the list!