Our Quality Approach
With all aspects of your holiday you want to be certain that you are in trustworthy and reputable hands – from the moment you make an enquiry with Singletrack Safari until the day you get home after having an amazing holiday with us. In this section we will give you an overview of exactly what procedures we have in place and how you can be reassured that you are dealing with genuine professionals.
Staff Quality – guiding and repairing you and your bike
We pride ourselves on the quality of our team members – and we believe that we offer one of the most qualified, experienced and knowledgeable teams of any mountain biking holiday company.
All of our guiding staff are fully qualified Scottish Mountain Bike Leaders – the most rigorous MTB guiding qualification in the world. Many companies claim that their staff are “SMBLA qualified” – but this is very often not the full story.
The first stage of the qualification, the Trail Cycle Leader (TCL)qualification is an SMBLA qualification – but it does not qualify guides to work in high mountain environments – they are only trained to lead to a maximum elevation of 650 metres and up to 30 minutes from” civilisation”. This confusion allows many companies to claim their guides are qualified, when actually they are not! For nearly all true mountains the TCL is not valid – there are plenty of places in the UK where we ride above 650 metres – and most of our European hotels are above this height!
Our staff are all fully MBL (Mountain Bike Leader) qualified – which means that we can guide to any altitude and distance into the countryside. This is a far more demanding qualification which examines many abilities which the TCL does not – including true in-depth navigational abilities and advanced technical bike handing skills.
If a guiding company claims its staff are fully qualified ask to see their certificates – ours are available on request via email should you want to see them!
We are also highly qualified in first aid and risk assessment – we hold ITC certificates in Outdoor First Aid Emergency Action and also Outdoor First Aid Emergency Incident Management. These certificates are aimed at the mountain and adventure sports market, rather than the non-specific St. Johns certificates which are far less relevant – after all, there’s not much risk of electrocution or scalding out on the trails!
Finally, we also hold key qualifications to keep your bike running safely and reliably. We’ve seen guides who really don’t have the first idea about how to fix or maintain bikes. Is this relevant? Absolutely – would you be happy to let someone with no idea what they are really doing start adjusting and tweaking your bike for you? We met one guide at a major company in the French Alps who didn’t even know how to fix his own broken chain (he was a nice guy, but we fixed it 3 times for him). This company claimed all their staff had SMBLA qualifications – where large parts of the assessment include mechanical abilities!
In addition to SMBLA qualified staff we also have a CYTEC Level 2 qualified mechanic – this is the UK Cycle Industry’s approved qualification. Most reputable bike shops expect their staff to be qualified to Level 1, and certain key mechanical staff will also hold a Level 2 certificate which covers almost all dimensions of bike repair and maintenance. Accompanying this we also hold the Cytec Approved DT Swiss Wheelbuilding certificate – which means that we should be able to keep your wheels running smoothly. How many other MTB holiday companies offer these levels of expertise?
You should also consider whether your guiding company is even insured to work on your bike without these qualifications....what happens if their unqualified staff cause a mechanical failure that leads you to have serious accident? Scary stuff – but another area we feel strongly enough about to ensure that we have undertaken the official training in addition to the many hours we have spent working in bike shops and also fettling our own bikes over the last couple of decades.
Vehicles and Facilities
At Singletrack Safari we have set out to redefine your expectations when it comes to our vehicles and equipment.
We’ve been bounced around in old vans throughout Europe whilst on biking holidays in the past – and it gets very annoying, especially on longer transfers, to have no radio or air conditioning to keep you comfortable! What is even worse is the way that bikes get carried and damaged with complete disregard for your pride and joy. Once you finally get to your destination you drag your crumpled body out of the vehicle and then usually spent an hour in the dark in a garden somewhere trying to assemble your newly scratched bike with a mixture of cheap tools and kitchen utensils!
As you will see from our Van and Where You Stay page we have gone all out to provide not only the best facilities for you and your bike, but also to make them fully mobile. Our workshop is very well equipped to deal with most scenarios, and we have it with us at all times at every trail head we visit. And as you have seen above, we are fully qualified and able to use it!
What’s more, the inside of our trailer has been fitted with custom made adjustable racking which slides into place on rails in the floor to keep all of the bikes separated and secure in transit. It’s a work of art which means your bike travels in first class on every journey – you don’t even need to remove the wheels.
Of course, we don’t only carry your bike in luxury – the van has been has had lots of time and attention spent on it, so that not only does it look incredible, but it is a great place to relax before and after your ride. Have you been on any other mountain biking holidays where you get to watch the day’s helmet camera footage being digitally streamed over the vehicles cinema system? Every row of seats has its own ventilation controls in the roof so that you can keep yourself comfortable, and there’s plenty of legroom too.
We have also invested in the technology to give you plenty of memories to take home with you too – we are equipped with high end cameras and the latest wide-angle digital helmet cameras to capture all of the excitement of your trip. At the end of your holiday we provide you with not only photos of your holiday but a carefully edited video so you can look back on the week and show your envious friends and family what a fantastic time you had!
Accommodation
Our philosophy at Singletrack Safari is that our clients should be entitled to enjoy as high quality a level of accommodation on a mountain biking holiday as they would expect to receive on any other type of holiday. Rather than the more typical chalet or gite-style accommodation you may have encountered in the past we are determined to provide you with the best possible accommodation at all times. We personally inspect all of our accommodation before using it for Singletrack Safari clients – and we have worked hard to get the best deals possible within the budget at each destination. The standard of hotel accommodation can vary from location to location, but is always clean, en-suite and benefits from great customer service. Whilst we would love to universally offer 4 star accommodation on every holiday this simply is not possible – for example, hotels in the Alps cost much more than hotels in Spain. However, you can rest assured you will be getting excellent value for money and really good accommodation wherever you go.
Some of our Welsh Holidays use accommodation in holiday cottages due to a lack of hotels – we have personally stayed in these cottages, and you will find them to be attractive, well equipped and very comfortable. Whilst accommodation is not en-suite it is usually only shared between two rooms.
We believe that most people find the accommodation to be one of the biggest let downs on mountain biking holidays – and even some of the best known companies consider it acceptable to have over a dozen people sharing one toilet in a chalet! The benefit of our approach is that in some locations we have been able to secure truly fantastic accommodation – far beyond anything you would normally expect on a mountain biking holiday. Even our most basic hotels offer far better quality accommodation than you will normally encounter on similar holidays with other companies.
Enquires - how we handle personal information
Singletrack Safari has a policy of not passing your data on to third parties other than our most directly relevant partner companies – and we will never pass on your personal information without your explicit permission, as outlined by the Data Protection Act.
We would prefer if you did allow us to contact you ourselves occasionally, however we only do this from time to time – we will not fill your inbox with unwanted mail like some companies! Allowing us to contact you and keep you in the picture with news and occasional offers lets you understand what how we operate better, and importantly gets you the best prices for your holidays. Most of our clients keep in contact with us as friends long after their holiday ends – and we hope that speaks volumes about our service quality.
Payments - looking after your money
The beauty of dealing with a genuine UK – registered company is that you get the full protection of UK legislation regarding the holiday industry – which provides some of the most extensive consumer protection in the world under The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.
As a result of this legislation, amongst many things, we have to observe a set of legal requirements which protect your holiday money from fraud or in the event of our company become financially insolvent. Your holiday balance will be held in a trust account until your holiday commences – and only at that time is your payment released to Singletrack Safari. Therefore, if our company were to encounter financial problems we would be unable to access your money – keeping it protected.
