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Singletrack Safari

6 hours ago

Awesome local #Lockdown ride on our doorstep trails with @stapler29 today - found some beautiful #welsh scenery and some great chilled #singletrack too! #stayinglocal #metaam29 #commencal #commencalbikes #mtblife #mtblifestyle @commencalbikes @ionactionsports ... See MoreSee Less

Singletrack Safari

1 week ago

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 ... See MoreSee Less