Andorra is the most difficult place you can imagine trying to navigate without a guide – there is no official mapping, and the ones which do exist all contradict each other, and are very inaccurate. Additionally, almost every valley below 1800m is covered in thick forests, so you can’t even see where you are! However, it’s this which makes Andorra almost unique in Western Europe – our trail network is almost deserted, other than by a few locals and guided walkers. There’s no lack of trails once you know where to find them, but they simply don’t get much use. The only busy trails tend to unrideable walking routes up in the craggiest areas, where you wouldn’t want to be with a bike anyway! This means that almost wherever we ride we barely see anyone at all. We take you to phenomenal singletrack in every corner of this tiny country, yet we have genuinely had weeks where we have not met another trail user! You are going to be amazed, not just by how good the riding in Andorra is, not even by incredibly beautiful and unspoiled it is: mainly you are going to wonder “why the hell have I not ridden here sooner?”!
We have gradually evolved our Andorran Holiday over the past few years – it has become a trail rider’s dream, with perfect natural singletrack unfurling under your wheels at every corner! See the bottom of the page for info on some of our favourite rides, but we always tailor each week to the group we are riding with, in order to give you the best possible holiday. We gradually increase the difficulty of the riding so you go home full of confidence and new-found skills.
Andorra is a mountain biking paradise – don’t make the mistake of thinking the Pyrenees are a soft option compared with the Alps. With huge, snow capped mountains; it feels very Alpine, but with a climate more similar to that of nearby Spain. The positive attitude to bikers from the incredibly warm and friendly people is amazing, and the natural riding is staggering…and completely devoid of other bikers!. It is Andorra’s busiest & best positioned summer town, full of fellow riders enjoying Vallnord Bike Park, host to the 2015 MTB World Championships and now an annual World Cup venue.
We changed accommodation a couple of seasons ago in order to be absolutely in the centre of La Massana. As mentioned earlier this is Andorra’s most vibrant and lively summer town – it’s not an out of season ski resort, it is a fully functioning small town filled with shops, restaurants and bars. The locals are incredibly bike-friendly and you are guaranteed of a warm welcome – especially in the hotel, which is family run, despite being very new, and is ranked number 1 in TripAdvisor.
The hotel is right next to the lifts at Vallnord, so we have direct uplift access to the top of the mountain – over 1000m above – genuinely 10 seconds from the front door! The town has loads of facilities – there are several great bike shops, bars that offer everything from sunny terraces to live music, food to suit any tastes and a great atmosphere wherever you go. We will be on hand to make sure that you find the best of them, of course!
As mentioned the hotel is extremely bike friendly – and has the most secure bike store you will ever see in a hotel! It is located underground, and to get in reception have to open the outer door by remote control, and then you go underground where the bikes are stored in a locked steel cage. The store has bike racking bolted to the floor, so you can even lock your bike to that too if you wish.
Our guided guests also have access to our tools, workstand and track pump etc, which are locked away separately in a side room for your exclusive use. Bike washing is very easy too – La Massana has multiple bike-wash stations around the town, which are very rarely crowded – you will normally not need to queue to use them.
Location-wise, this accommodation offers us an opportunity to really mix up our routes, making use of our unparalleled local contacts – we will sometimes ride direct from the door, and at other times we’ll load your bikes into vehicles and head further afield too. Andorra is incredibly mountainous, but we don’t spend much more than 20 minutes or so in the van at any time. We often do point-to-point rides where we start and finish in different locations too. La Massana sits in the junction of several huge valleys, and mountains tower all around. This means that there are several amazing descents which return you right to the front door – most of which descend around 1000 vertical metres!
Another benefit of La Massana is that you can jump on a very cheap bus almost outside the hotel and be in the capital city – La Vella – in less than 10 minutes. The city is famous as one of the premium duty-free shopping destinations in the world. There are hundreds and hundreds of shops, from big-name brands to department stores…even bike shops! Prices are quite a bit cheaper than the UK – and you will find that the dozens of electrical stores will even let you haggle if you need a new gadget. Also in the city you will find Europe’s largest Spa baths (The Caldea) which are enormous, great fun and are always well-loved by everyone who visits them – it’s not “just for girls” – we couldn’t get the boys from Dirt to leave!
Eating and drinking in Andorra is remarkably cheap – think Spanish prices, minus VAT – so to give you a few examples: a large beer is around 3E (£2), tapas is available from 4E (£3) per dish, a full-sized pizza in a nice restaurant is 9E (£6), main meals in most places start from around 10E (£7) and if you go to the very best restaurant in town and eat the very most expensive dish on the menu you will still only pay around 25E (£19)!
Spending a week in Andorra really does not mean spending a lot of money – you will be very hard pushed to find a better value-for-money riding destination anywhere in Western Europe! You will probably spend half as much money here as you would compared with the Alps…unless you go into the bike shops and get excited, of course…
Our Andorran guided holidays have 3 price points: these simply reflect the amount of uplift (gaining height be vehicles and lifts) which you can expect in those weeks. Mostly this comes down to lift opening dates – we still use vans for uplifts in cheaper low-season weeks, but there may be routes which we have to adapt and do a little more climbing in order to access the highest areas. In higher season weeks we use maximum uplift in order to achieve a huge amount of descending in comparison with how much pedalling there is – we aim for at least 3 times the descending to climbing…and some days we do not climb at all!
| Overview | Available Dates (commencing) |
7 Night Price | Short Break Price | Single Supplement | Special Offers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
– Daily Uplift Supported – Fully Guided |
June 2020 |
£645
|
£525 4 night break, 3 days riding
|
£175 – week |
NEW FOR 2020 MORE UPLIFT! // Early Season, Uplift-Supported Weeks FOR 2020 WE WILL NOW FEATURE SOME FORM OF UPLIFT EVERY DAY! These early-season weeks are before the lifts are open fully, and in previous years there were days where we rode circular routes without lift-support. From 2020 we will now use we be lift-assisted daily – this means we will use vehicle uplift for high start/ low finish rides (or the lift at Vallnord) EVERY DAY. Please be aware that in low-season weeks, even WITH van support there is more climbing than in July, August and September, as these weeks are before the opening of the gondola at Soldeu – but we do make alterations to our route choices to reflect the extra effort, and we always climb at a gentle pace with plenty of stops! Some routes will also be slightly shorter than in September, as certain linking lifts which we use to add additional descending in high season weeks will not be open. Certain big-mountain routes involve longer climbs avoided in higher priced weeks, but usually no areas or major descents are inaccesable. For example, “Jordi’s Way” & “Ridgeliner” are accessed via van uplift followed by around an extra 350m of climbing which would accessed via a gondola in high-season weeks. But with our new format you will still descend far more metres than you will climb! |
|
– Daily/ Max Uplift Support – Fully Guided |
June 2020 Sept 2020 |
£675 |
£555 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£175 – week |
NEW FOR 2020 MORE UPLIFT! // Mid Season, DAILY and MAX Uplifted Weeks These are traditionally slightly quieter weeks, athough September now sells out every season! There will be a mixture of vehicle uplifts for high start/ low finish rides, plus use of ski lifts wherever possible. JUNE DATES are DAILY UPLIFTED – these rides will feature some form of uplift every day, but there may be certain routes that have less uplift than in later weeks. For details see the description of the low-season weeks above. NEW FOR 2020 – SEPTEMBER WEEKS now run in MAX UPLIFT format, just like High Season Weeks! The gondola at Soldeu will now open every day in September, which means that these weeks will run almost like high season weeks, with heavy use of ski lifts and/or vehicle uplifts every single day for high start/ low finish rides and minimal climbing! They are tradtionally slighty quieter weeks, so we are keeping the price down, but the uplift will increase! During September we aim to achieve at least 75% descending every day, and some days are entirely uplifted! Some short climbs of upto 30 minutes or so are still neccesary mid-route on our biggest backcountry trails, but this is minimised wherever possible – but, of course, there are not always lifts or roads to the very top of highest trails! |
|
– MAX Uplifted – Fully Guided |
July 2020 August 2020 |
£695 |
£575 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£175 – 7 nights |
NEW FOR 2020 – High Season, MAX Uplifted Weeks These high-season weeks have heavy use of ski lifts and/or vehicle uplifts every single day for high start/ low finish rides and involve minimal climbing! If you are wanting to maximise your descents, and minimise your climbing these are the ones to go for as we have the widest uplift options available. During these weeks we aim to achieve at least 75% descending every day, and some days are entirely uplifted! Some short climbs of upto 30 minutes or so are still neccesary mid-route on our biggest backcountry trails, but this is minimised wherever possible – but, of course, there are not always lifts or roads to the very top of the very best trails! NEW FOR 2020 – EXTRA DESCENTS! We trialled some tweaks to our format in 2019, and we are rolling it out fully in 2020; many riding days now include a bonus uplift during the day, so you get even more bang for your buck! |
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Read more reviews11th Mar 2020 News
Our MOST IMPORTANT Coronavirus Update PUBLISHED 27/03/20 Before we get into more detail, I want to give my most heartfelt thanks to all of our amazing guests – so many of you have got in touch ... Read More
20th Feb 2020 News
Our all new guiding team for 2020 is confirmed! It is going to be a busy year, and we have a great team of people in place to look after you…Jon, Emily and James are all experienced guides ... Read More
7th Feb 2020 Offers
Book any guided holiday in July or August and we will give you a FREE 2 DAY VALLNORD BIKE PARK LIFT PASS worth £60 per person, for EVERY member of your group! We ride at Vallnord on our guided ... Read More
7th Feb 2020 Bikes News Sponsors
Commencal are back at Singletrack Safari for 2020, and we continue working very closely in full partnership together! We genuinely LOVE Commencal’s bikes – they are beautiful, purposeful ... Read More
Very Important Update 27/03/20:
How Does Coronavirus Affect Your Booking? New Options...
Before we get into more detail, I want to give my most heartfelt thanks to all of our amazing guests - so many of you have got in touch with kind words of support and encouragement as the unprecedented impact of Coronavirus continues to sweep the globe. You guys are the reason I launched Singletrack Safari a decade ago, and your belief in us and your positivity has staggered me – thanks so, so much to every single person who is helping us stay strong each and every day.
For our very small team here at Singletrack Safari the current situation is crushingly upsetting, and creates huge amounts of uncertainty in our lives as a guiding team - so reading your supportive words, messages and emails is genuinely helping keep a smile on our faces in these really tough times.
We are deeply thankful to you all that not a single person booked for a trip this summer has contacted us with anything other than positive wishes and messages. No-one has cancelled, no-one has complained, and everyone has been so staggeringly understanding of what an incredibly difficult situation this has placed our company in.
Therefore, as you will see, we are going to make some options available to you in order to support you, our guests. Life is currently very tough, without the added stress of losing your holiday – so anything we can do to help you a bit seems the least we can do. We are all in this together, so we want to show how much we truly appreciate that you have chosen to book or enquire with us.
Singletrack Safari genuinely is a very small, rider-owned company – in fact, away from the riding season we operate as a sole-trader, self-employed business. We may have a great presence online, but we are a tiny company in reality! During the season we have our team of guides on board too - but the stresses which the outbreak has placed upon all our team members as we approach a summer of uncertainty is absolutely immense. As you can probably imagine we are very worried about our ability to simply put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads right now. As I have said before, we will survive, but the short-term future could be very tough for us, in all honesty. Fortunately, it is the small nature of our company that means we should be able to survive this storm, as we have very small fixed overheads in comparison to large holiday companies.
As a self-employed business owner, I am having to be incredibly cautious with what steps and decisions we make as we move towards a very uncertain summer. Simply put, without Singletrack Safari I have no income – and, having spent the last 10 years of my life building this business into one of the best-loved MTB holiday companies in Europe, I am determined that we will survive these challenges, and continue to ride epic, dusty trails with you all for many years into the future.
I like to think that we have a very strong code of ethics as a company, which we always try to reflect at every stage of your booking; from the very first enquiry to the last day of riding we work incredibly hard to give you the best, most professional and supportive service in the MTB holiday industry. And we want to continue to do so as we all fight to overcome this unprecedented global event.
Governments across the planet are continually increasing the measures which we must all take in order to control the spread of the virus, to reduce the impact on healthcare systems and to pave a way for a return to normality at a point sooner rather than later in the future. However, we all continue to play a guessing game as to how quickly the tide will begin to turn. There are some indications of steps back towards pre-viral outbreak life in China and other early-infected regions – these will no doubt pave the way for global planning as this experimentation progresses. However here in Europe we are still very much experiencing the worst of the turmoil, disruption and complication of our day-to-day lives.
This week the UK government followed the lead of much of mainland Europe, and enforced a full lockdown on day-to-day life, with a few concessions to allow citizens to get essential supplies and basic exercise. It cannot be long before other countries whose infection rates still continue to wildly escalate impose even more stringent rules.
We recognise that we are fortunate enough to ride with guests from all over the planet every year – and whilst many of our guests are from the UK, we also have a large percentage of bookings from all over the World. Whilst Europe is heading into the next phases of controlling the pandemic, other countries and regions are at different stages. As a result, we now need to take an adaptive approach so that we ensure our guests have some options in order to make tough decisions on the summer ahead.
As I have said from the outset, it remains my great hope that you will be able to travel to us in Andorra for the holiday which you have booked – but it now seems very probable that even if some countries lift travel limitations before your trip dates, others may be at other stages of outbreak control. Basically, none of us know what the next few weeks and months hold.
As a result, we are taking the following steps, effective immediately:
1) Option 1- you can now defer your trip to an alternative week free of charge. You can amend to any available week later in 2020, or 2021. Normally we are not able to defer trips across different years – but these are exceptional circumstances, so we are going to make this possible in order to allow you to put your holiday on hold until these difficult times are behind us.
- If you want you want to defer to later in 2020, we need to know this by April 10th If your chosen new 2020 date also looks to be affected, you will still be able to defer to 2021 later.
- If you want to defer to 2021, we need you to let us know by April 10th, but you do not need to confirm the exact date at this stage
2) Option 2 - If you want to entirely cancel your booking, we are going to change our deposit refund rules. Instead of forfeiting your entire deposit we will offer you a 50% refund of the amount paid.
This means that most people will lose only £35 by cancelling, or far less in many cases. This is to show our determination to help reduce your financial difficulties in these challenging times, and we also will issue official cancellation invoices to help support you with any claim on your insurance for other losses. At this stage all guests have paid only a 20% deposit – as balances are payable 6 weeks before your due arrival date. Therefore, if you decide to cancel and take advantage of this offer, we need you to do so by April 17th at the very latest.
3) If you want to defer your trip to a new date, or take the cancellation offer, we need to know by the deadlines above. We will issue an official amendment invoice & booking agreement for you to sign. Amendments will be made on a first come, first-served basis –please remember that availability is also affected by existing bookings, which we have to honour, of course. In other words, please tell us EXTREMELY urgently – ideally immediately - if you would like to defer your trip to a new date, as this is absolutely crucial for planning and booking purposes.
4) We will not charge our normal £75 booking amendment fee to swap to an alternative week. This fee will be waived for all amendments to bookings to make your decision easier.
5) We are going to freeze the price of your booking if you defer to later in 2020. Therefore, if there is a price difference between the week you have booked and the one you wish to defer to, we will not make any additional charges. We want to show our appreciation for your support, so we are going to freeze the price of your booking to protect you, so we all know where we stand clearly.
6) We are also going to protect/freeze your price if you choose you defer to 2021. If our costs do not increase, we guarantee will not make any additional charges to you. Furthermore, if our suppliers are forced to increase their prices next year as result of the global situation, we will guarantee that your booking price will not rise unless absolutely necessary, & any increase is capped at a 10% maximum.
7) All of these options and steps also apply to new bookings too – so if you are tempted to book, but you are unsure what the future holds, you can do so safely knowing that you have flexibility in an ever-changing situation.
As I am sure you can see, we are working incredibly hard to relieve some of the pressure of this situation for our guests, and we are also trying to make sure that no-one loses out unnecessarily, whilst also making sure Singletrack Safari can continue to run amazing trips in the future!
WHAT TO DO NOW – ALL bookings require an urgent response please.
1) Decide if you want to defer or cancel your booking, or take no action
2) Let us know immediately what you have decided
3) If you want to defer to summer 2021 please confirm by 10/04/20. We do not need to know a specific date at this stage, unless you have one in mind.
4) If you want to defer to later in 2020 please confirm by 10/04/20 & we will discuss your new date. If later this year new dates also look to be affected, you can still defer to 2021.
5) If you decide to cancel entirely, please contact us by 17/04/20 and we will prepare an official cancellation invoice and arrange the 50% refund of your deposit.
6) If you choose to defer, we will immediately issue new booking and amendment paperwork
Once again, I really want to let every one of our guests know how much we appreciate your support in these times – and we want to continue to show you that we will look after you throughout this crisis however we possibly can. Hopefully these options will give you some hope for the future, release a few worries from your day-to-day life at the moment, and support you in staying safe and healthy. Many airlines are now offering free or cheap ways of amending flight bookings too – so you can now easily ensure you have a great trip in your future, whilst removing doubt, worry and reducing your risks.
For sure this will be the most challenging year in the history of Singletrack Safari – we want to express our deep gratitude that you guys are helping us survive it safely too.
Stay calm, stay positive and remember that our amazing mountains and trails will still be there once we have all got through this. You don’t need to miss out, but we will all need to work together, make some sacrifices, be understanding, and continue to fight until we put these challenging times behind us and can get back to sharing our love and passion for riding our bikes together again.
Above all, please keep healthy and happy – those trails are going to feel all the more well-earned once this is all over!
Once again, my heartfelt thanks,
Martin
Times are very tough for us all at the moment, but here at StS we are fighting onwards. Being a small, independant travel business right now is incredibly difficult, but we are in the fortunate position that our overheads as a company are very small in comparison to larger organisations. This means we will weather the storm and keep riding with you into the future...but during these current tough times please bear with us as we continue to learn in an ever-evolving, unprecedented situation.
We are about to update our Coronavirus page again - we hoped to do so on Monday, but we had to delay due to the significant changes impacting the UK and Europe in the last few days. We will also shortly be directly emailing all of our currently booked guests with an official update full of info regarding the current situation.
Thanks to all of you for your kind messages of support and understanding - we love our guests so much; you are why we have been doing this for 10 years now!
If you have not seen it this is where we are keeping everything up-to-date. www.singletracksafari.com/coronavirus-info
