In my position as co-founder of Nimes’ most successful Franco-Canadian-American cycling tour company, it’s my job to try and forecast what the next few months are going to look like for the company (AKA me and Helmkampf). A couple of months ago the big concern was the state of things in the US, where most of our ‘big tour’ clients come from.

Well, that’s all changed and the Yanks are doing a smashing job of getting out the vaccinations (save the political comments – positive or negative – for another blog). According to this site, nearly 20% of the US population has received at least one jab. We are starting to get emails from clients who’ve had one or even both and are wondering when they can do a tour!

Now the focus turns to France, whose vaccination roll-out is almost exactly the same as the EU on a whole – 5% of the population for one jab (2% for both). It’s all smoke and mirrors here as far as meaningful information goes, but the latest I’ve been hearing is that the problem comes down to vaccine accessibility. The UK, meanwhile, are at an incredible 27%, which is our next big market for riders.

Whatever the reason is, we are now wondering if Europe will be opening up for tourism this summer. Even if our clients can come to France (with a ‘vaccine passport’ for example), I guess they’d want restaurants, cafes and museums to be open. Thankfully, we know how to be patient now, since this is going to be the 2nd spring of this uncertainty. Hoping for a better outcome than last year, so we can all get on with our lives (and bike tours).