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How one CEO's love of travel inspired a company that offers vigorous activity with all the comforts of home.
Jim Bildner used to organize his own bicycling vacations. He would plan the itinerary and book accommodations, make reservations at restaurants, hire guides and arrange for equipment. But as chairman and CEO of Tier Technologies, a Boston-based consulting firm, he no longer had time for such details. Then he heard about the trips offered by Backroads.
I have to confess, the first time I signed up, it was a large leap of faith," Bildner recalls. "It's very difficult for me to take any time off, so when I do, I want to maximize the experience. Heretofore, I'd done all the planning. Now, I was ceding everything to them."
After a week of pedaling 500 miles through southern Alaska, Bildner was hooked. "They do a wonderful job in the planning, and the bikes are great. It turned out to be a perfect decision," he says.
The path to Bildner's decision began nearly 25 years ago in another man's dream. Tom Hale woke up at 2 a.m. on a spring night in 1979 with the then-unheard-of idea of making a living by guiding people on bicycle trips. He bounded out of bed and scribbled his thoughts, eight pages of chicken-scratch that ultimately created a company and pioneered an industry. "I had a respectable career as an environmental planner and I threw it all away to ride my bike," Hale recalls. "My friends and family thought I was crazy."
When Hale founded Backroads, the active-travel market was defined by extremes. At one end were luxury safaris to exotic destinations; at the other were rough-and-- ready camping trips. There was no middle ground of tour companies that linked inn-to-inn itineraries, provided a support van and enhanced the trip with meals at good restaurants, stops at points of interest and guides chosen as much for their knowledge of local culture as for their ability to fix a broken sprocket. If you wanted to pedal through Provence or hike the hills of Vermont, you had to make all the arrangements yourself. "We quickly established a niche as a company offering the nicer hotels and cuisine and diversity of experience," Hale says....