These fantastic, well-equipped and spacious apartments are probably in the most perfect location in town for riding at Vallnord – they are right at the foot of the Bike Park, and you will ride past the front door on every run to the bottom. Additionally they are just across the road from both our bike shop Riders Boutique, and the bike wash station. You are located right at the edge of La Massana town centre, with several supermarkets within easy reach if you are self-catering…and lots of bars and restaurants if you are not! In fact the closest bar is actually the Commencal Spot – 30 seconds from the front door. Each apartment has a living room with well appointed kitchen area, a seperate bedroom and a bathroom with washing machine. Prices still include airport transfers and lift passes, just like our hotel-based holidays.
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?”!
If you want to ride with Singletrack Safari but don’t want to stay in a hotel this option is ideal. This is the best of both worlds: independant accomodation so you can self cater if you prefer and have your own space, but a stress-free, fully guided and supported trip! We have several of these apartments available, so they can be well suited to group bookings too – but availability is limited, so don’t hang around – get booked in!
Don’t want self catering? Check out our hotel options which include B&B and Half Board choices…
Arriving into Barcelona airport you meet the scheduled transfer bus which takes you direct to the door of your well-equipped, family-owned apartments in the the busy town of La Massana. Nestled deep in a beautiful wooded valley, the town sits at the foot of enormous mountains in every direction – you can descend over 1000m from the peak of nearby Cubil to the hotel door, without turning a pedal. Our accommodation is based just up the road from the main lift station, and is surrounded by lots of great places to eat and drink. 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.
Despite this being apartment accomodation you are still based absolutely in the centre of La Massana – just a few minutes’ walk from several supermarkets if you plan to self-cater…or lots of restaurants and bars if you don’t!. 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.
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.
Other than being based in apartment accomodation, this holiday is identical to our famous, full-blooded 4* Holiday. All guests on both trips ride together, you still get exactly the same airport transfers, daily vehicle uplifts, the best guides in the business and some of the finest riding on earth… but instead of a hotel you stay in one of these great, well-equipped apartments, located only 5 minutes walk from the 4* hotel, right in the centre of La Massana.
This option is ideal if, like many people, you want to make your budget go a little bit further by self-catering, or you just want some private space! These apartments boast a decent kitchen, washing machine and other facilities. They are right in the centre of town just over the road from our bike shop Riders Boutique, and you will have one of the best located post-ride bars next door – the Commencal Spot is a great place to get a beer with dozens of other riders after returning from the trails! The apartments are bike friendly (store your bike either on the balcony or in the garage) have wifi and parking available, plus well proportioned rooms, a well equipped kitchen with a coffee machine, kettle and all the bits you will need, and they nearly all boast great views up to the mountains.
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!
After an amazing day on the trails you’ll be more than happy to head back to La Massana for a cold (and cheap!) – beer from a frosted glass! If you need spares there are lots of big, well stocked bike shops. Remember that Andorra is basically tax-free, so there are sometimes genuine bargains to be had! You can also rent high quality bikes here – unlike many shops in the Alps the machinery is top quality, well maintained and usually current season. You’ll find loads of brands including, of course, our sponsors Santa Cruz; the famous company are really pushing locally and seem to be taking over the town! We have a hire page elsewhere on the site for the hire partner with whom we work if you want to arrange a shiny carbon Bronson or other models for your visit too..
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 – Great apartments |
2020 May 2021 June 2021 |
£615
|
£505 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£195 – week |
NEW FOR 2021 MORE UPLIFT! // Early Season, Uplift-Supported Weeks FOR 2021 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 2021 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 – Great apartments |
2020 June 2021 Sept 2021 |
£645
|
£535 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£195 – week |
NEW FOR 2021 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 2021 – 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 – Great apartments |
2020 July 2021 August 2021 |
£695
|
£575 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£275 – week |
NEW FOR 2021 – 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 2021 – 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
Final Decision on Our 2020 Season – and 2021 is already 50% fully booked! PUBLISHED 05/06/20 Our heartfelt thanks once again to all of you for the incredible levels of support, belief and kindness ... 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 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
1st Nov 2019 News Offers
They are here! We have launched our 2020 Andorra dates and prices! The last few weeks have seen so many enquiries and bookings already – we have taken twice as many bookings as this time last ... Read More
As excited as I am to be getting the new model soon, I STILL love this bike so much - fast, agile, fun, plush, confidence inspiring and so capable. @commencalbikes #commencal #commencalbikes #metaam #METAAM29 #commencalmeta #northwalesmtb @oneplanetadventure #llandegla #enduro #enduromtb #Mtblife #mtblifestyle #mountainbike #mountainbiking #clwydianrange @renthal_cycling #singletracksafari
As the news has been leaked before the official announcement, here's the surprise I promised a while back.
Jason has been elected to the USA Hall of Fame.
I have had to sit on this for several months
until the official announcement was made, but the guys from the Hall of Fame (who are having a torrid time in California with Covid 19) have given me the go-ahead to announce it before their release goes live.
Thanks to everyone out there for the kind words and encouragement over the years- it has been much appreciated. A special thanks to Andrew Hellen, an ex-pat from Wales, now living in Tahoe, who mounted a dogged campaign to help this happen.
Seems fitting that on the 25th anniversary of his death that this accolade has come along - and that both Rose and I are around to see it!
There are a couple of things happening in the background that should be announced in the coming weeks, but again, thank you all for your magnificent support, thoughts and kind words. Even after 25 years, life is still tough for us - we miss him so much every single day.
Comment on Facebook As the news has been...
Legend, nicest guy you could meet
