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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
– Partially Uplifted – Great apartments |
May 2019 |
£590 |
£470 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£195 – week |
Low Price, Partially Uplifted Weeks These weeks are before or after the lifts are open fully. On several days we use some vehicle uplift for high start/ low finish rides, but on some days there is more climbing at a gentle pace and we make alterations to our route choices to reflect the extra effort. Certain big-mountain routes involve longer climbs avoided in higher priced weeks, but no areas or major descents are inaccesable. For example, “Jordi’s Way” & “Ridgeliner” are accessed via van uplift followed by an extra 500m of climbing normally done by two ski lifts. |
|
– Partially Uplifted – Great apartments |
June 2019 Sept 2019 |
£630 |
£510 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£195 – week |
Mid Price, Mostly Uplifted Weeks These mid-season weeks are traditionally slightly quieter weeks. There will be a mixture of vehicle uplifts for high start/ low finish rides, plus use of ski lifts on certain days, but these may only open on certain days of the week. These rides will feature some form of uplift every day, but there may be certain routes that have less uplift than normal if the lifts are not fully open – for example “Jordi’s Way” and “Ridgeliner” require extra climbing normally done by ski lift. Some routes may be slightly shorter than in high-season weeks, as certain linking lifts we use to add additional descending in high season weeks may not be open. Availability is always changing on these apartments, so please contact us. |
|
– Partially Uplifted – Great apartments |
June 2019 July 2019 August 2019 |
£695 |
£555 4 night break, 3 days riding |
£275 – week |
Full Price, Daily 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 highest trails! |
"We all got to ride the sort of trails we wanted, at the speed we wanted, as often as we could!"
William Crannburn
Read more reviews29th Sep 2018 News
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