Backroads

“In the very beginning, I believe we felt like it was a good thing to have people participate. I think that could not have been more ill-founded personally, but so they did actually Pitch their tent. And anyway, it didn't take us very long to realize that they …”

“We do our best to avoid those kinds of places. Sometimes we're able to go in the morning and miss something that negative aspect of a place. And sometimes we just don't go there anymore.”

“Our guests first of all are paying their deposit Maybe 90 days in advance or more on average. We are paying the hotel. Sometimes the balance due is paid after we have already finished the trip.”

“The bikes were in our warehouse in San Leandro. We got burglarized, and they stole half of our bikes.”

“We had a 43% drop in business that year.”

“We'll do about a little over 5000 trips this year.”

“Didn't have any investors, never, it's remained a hundred percent closely held family business for 46 years”

“We have a very high repeat and referral rate That's also about one third, repeat, referral, and new business.”

“But they Bill and Kathy went on to lead the next two trips. I went back to get another van to meet them, and we finished it was a pretty rigorous, because we had to keep moving the seats in the van in and out, and they were heavy, and we had to move big, heavy…”

“My guess is they probably did have rules and we probably weren't adhering to them.”

“Well, they didn't cost very much, and I worked on the side at night at Fondue Fred on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. I chipped the cheese out of fondue pots.”

“And people that start this as a hobby and keep their day job, I can't even imagine. Oh, good luck.”

“Woke up about two in the morning, got out of bed, and took eight pages of notes on what it would take to do this.”

“I thought the, you know, going around the loop in the western United States, I did about a 5000 mile loop. I started in San Francisco, took BART to the end of the line, and got out of BART, and rode down the coast, and Went counterclockwise around the country,…”

“In response to guest feedback, they started offering bike trips only for people who want to do it the old-fashioned way, with no electricity and just legs.”