Why Pashnit Motorcycle Tours Sell Out Early: The Alumni Effect, Roads, and Community:

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Discover why Pashnit Motorcycle Tours sell out a year in advance. Explore how 20+ years of backroads, small group sizes, and a passionate alumni community turn epic California rides into lifelong friendships. Let's talk about it... 

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Why do Pashnit Tours sell out so early?

There’s a strange thing that happens every year at Pashnit. We announce the following year's tours very far in advance, generally August of each year.  And before most riders have even finished their current riding season, our tour alumni are already signing up for the next year. Our new tours often sell out as early as August for the following year. By late-January, our experience predicts the entire season to be sold out, with waiting lists forming as tours fill. Someone cancels and first rider on the waiting list steps into that spot.

Why? It isn't because we're running huge advertising campaigns or trying to create artificial scarcity.
It's because the people riding Pashnit Tours keep coming back.

More than 95% of our riders are returning tour alumni. Look closely at our group photos – it’s the same faces. Most Alumni ride three, four or even five tours in a season. Some will request a Season Pass so they ride nearly all of them. After riding with us for a while, the question isn't usually “Should I try a Pashnit Tour?”

It's: “Which Pashnit Tours am I doing next year?”
 

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE ROADS
 

Obviously, the roads matter. We’re motorcyclists, we love the sensation of the road. That's where it starts.

We spend an enormous amount of time finding the roads that most riders would never find on their own— twisty mountain roads, forgotten backroads, spectacular passes and those stretches of pavement where you look down at your GPS and wonder:

“How did you find this road?” Our alumni have said that so many times on tours, it’s become a running joke. The joke is you have to say it at least once, every tour.

But after 20+ years of doing this, we've learned something. The roads aren't really the reason people keep coming back. The roads got you here. The people bring you back.
 

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YOU DON'T JUST MEET RIDERS. YOU MAKE FRIENDS.
 

Something happens on a Pashnit Tour that is difficult to manufacture.

You will spend several days riding with the same group of people. You stop for lunch together. You get lost together. You laugh at the overlook we stop for a mid-day break at.

 

You help somebody with a bike problem.

 

And somewhere along the way, a group of strangers becomes a group of friends. We've had riders discover they live only a few miles apart.

 

We've had riders start riding together outside of Pashnit Tours. We've even had people meet on a Pashnit Tour and eventually get married.

 

Another of our long-term alumni chose to get married on a Pashnit Tour. That's the part we didn't really set out to create. It just happened.
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THE ALUMNI EFFECT

After you've ridden a few tours, something changes. You know what you're getting.

You know the routes are going to be good. You know the hotels will be carefully chosen and vetted beforehand. You know there will be a great lunch somewhere you probably would never have found yourself. And you know some of the people on the next tour. That's a powerful thing. You're no longer buying an unknown motorcycle trip. You're joining your friends for another ride.

 

That's why someone can ride the same general region, the same tour even, more than once and still have a great time. 

Because it's never really the same ride.


WHY THE TOURS ARE LIMITED

There's another reason our motorcycle tours sell out. We keep them small. That's intentional. A Pashnit Tour isn't a motorcycle parade.

Small groups of very experienced riders mean we can move through the mountains without overwhelming the roads, restaurants or small towns we visit. We can stop together. We can have conversations. We can actually get to know the people we're riding with. And, perhaps most importantly, we can ride. Limited group sizes also mean there simply aren't that many seats available. When a tour has 12, 14 or 16 spots, it doesn't take very many returning riders to fill it a year in advance.
 

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20+ YEARS CHANGES THINGS

Pashnit Motorcycle Tours began in 2004.

 

Over the years, we've put millions of (combined) miles behind us, ridden tens of thousands of miles of California pavement together, explored roads most people have never heard of, and learned a thing or two about what makes a great motorcycle tour.

 

We've also accumulated something much more valuable: trust.

A rider doesn't have to wonder whether we're going to find good roads. That's been proven over hundreds of tour days.

 

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​SO, WHY PASHNIT?

 

Maybe it's the roads. Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's the hotels. Maybe it's the ridiculous little backroad that somehow turns into the best road you've ridden all year. 

But after all these years, we think it's something else. It's the people. The roads bring us together. The motorcycles give us an excuse. And somewhere along the way, a bunch of motorcycle riders who at first didn't know each other are sitting around a table on the last night wondering the same thing.

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Every tour we do ends with...

 

“So... which tour are you doing next?” That's The Why.