“The air is clear, the sky is blue…Plumes of white dust kick up…and warm, dry air feeds into your lungs…jump after jump, berm after berm…in to any of the multiple dusty, rocky, techy and flowy main trails and you have yourself a lot of options…everyone is having a great time on a perfectly graded, well maintained & modern mountainside.” Dirt Magazine on Singletrack Safari
If you want to visit the famous, incredible, huge Bike Park at Vallnord everyone knows there’s no better or cheaper way to do it than with Singletrack Safari!
We are the Official Holiday Partner to Vallnord, which means that we are able to offer you a fantastic package INCLUDING 4* accommodation, airport transfers and lift passes at a far, far cheaper rate than you could get by booking directly!
Arriving into Barcelona airport you meet the scheduled transfer bus which takes you direct to the door of your fantastic hotel in the the busy town of La Massana. This is Andorra’s most popular and best positioned summer town, situated just a few minutes outside the capital city, amidst towering tree lined mountains, directly at the foot of Vallnord Bike Park itself.
Vallnord was home to the World Championships in 2015, and regularly hosts World Cups – in fact it will host a round every year from 2016 to 2018! The annual Maxiavalanche races in June and September are sister events to the infamous Megavalanche, and are the opening and closing rounds of the Avalanche Cup. It is easy to understand why such huge events come here: there is over a vertical kilometre of descending from the top of the mountain back into town! The top of the park is open and flowing, but as you dip below the treeline the trails become much more steep, twisting tightly through the trees, occasionally bursting out into bright, sunlit clearings. Cedric Gracia was the mastermind behind much of the riding here, and you may well bump into him riding the park…
There is a broad variety of trails to enjoy – and lots of choice…there’s upwards of twenty separate DH routes here! Many of these cross one another, making it very easy to switch between trails on each run to keep things fresh. Not that you will get bored of course – there’s a lot of riding to be had, and due to their length each track will take you a lot of sessioning before you start to feel that you are hitting the optimum lines. We’d challenge anyone to feel that they know every turn of the super-bermy, dusty Commencal track without slamming out several dozen runs!
There’s great progression to be had by exploring the trails here – there are some great introductory singletrack trails to get you into the feel of the super-dusty surfaces. These prepare you perfectly to step up to trails like the rocky blue of “Skippy” which ploughs down the mountain from the midstation at high speed. Then there are trails such as Corpablanca; a tough, steep, twisting blue trail peppered with rocks, drop offs and even a mini road gap!
There’s a lot to satisfy more experienced riders of course: these are big mountains after all! From the peak at 2358m you have two amazing red trails: Cubil – which is a fast, flowing berm and tabletop infested run through dazzling sunlit meadows, or you can hook into the full Maxiavalanche descent right back to town…which grows more difficult the lower you drop down towards town – with the final few kilometres being a super-tough black graded tech fest of natural singletrack. If that’s not enough there are two north shore “Wood Parks” which are significantly different to one another – one being easier, the other being somewhat, well..nuts, quite frankly!
Finally, if you really want a challenge you can head onto the super-tough “Project One”, which mixes super tough natural trails with enormous rock drops, skinnies and more. And of course, we haven’t even mentioned the fearsome World Cup/ World Championship DH trail…2014 World Cup Series Winner and World Champ Manon Carpenter recently told us in person that it’s her favourite place in the World to ride, and we chatted to Rachel Atherton on the gondola in 2015 who told us she absolutely loves coming back to Vallnord!
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 V10 or other models for your visit too…
You’ll often bump into pro riders training around the park or in town – Remi Thirion and Myriam Nicole are very frequent visitors – as well as many other well known faces, such as the Athertons who we have bumped into in the past…and of course Andorra’s most famous biking celebrity Cedric Gracia, who can often be found in the park during daylight…and a succession of bars after dark!!
There are plenty of places to eat and drink in La Massana – and with tax-free, super low prices you can easily find food to suit any budget. For example, a nice, fresh, large pizza in a great italian along the street is only 9 euros (£6.50)! Even in the best restaurant in town you’ll find that the prices are low – treat yourself to the most expensive thing on the menu (a mahoossive T-Bone) is only about 20 euros, or £15! Our favourite bar, Mon Bohemi (Dirt called it “one of the best pubs I have been to” ) is run by bikers and serves a great choice of beer and food too….a large beer is around 3 euros, so half the price you pay in the Alps!
When you stay with us in the heart of La Massana you get an incredible deal, only possible due to our status as Vallnord’s Official Holiday Partner. We’re calling them Morzine Busting Prices” because the accommodation, transfer and lift pass packages we have designed blow a lot of traditional holiday in the Alps out of the water!
It’s due to our special status that we get silly prices on things, and we pass these savings onto you. Our total price for our lovely 4* Hotel, INCLUDING Airport Transfers, Lift Passes and Breakfasts is less than the very cheapest price you can get on booking.com for the room on it’s own – it’s a bona fide bargain! This gives you a really superb, recently-built family-run hotel, right in the centre of town next to the lift station, and you won’t believe how fantastic the rooms are for the money – it is a fantastic place! The 4* hotel has a bar, restaurant, lovely rooms, great bathrooms, a very secure bike store and a very modern, high-end feel throughout. Almost everyone who comes to Vallnord with us comes back the following year…
Our total price for our lovely 4* Hotel, INCLUDING Airport Transfers, Lift Passes and Breakfasts is often less than the very cheapest price you can get on booking.com for the room on it’s own – it’s a bona fide bargain! These prices are exclusive to Singletrack Safari as the Official Holiday Partner of Vallnord Bike Park.
| Overview | Available Dates (commencing) |
7 Night Price | Short Break Price | Single Supplement | Special Offers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Official Holiday 2020 – 4* Hotel |
June 2020 July 2020 August 2020 September 2020 After 6th September – Weekend Opening Only |
£525 Fully flexible – we can offer any number of nights available at similar rates – please ask for details
|
£395 Price is for 4 nights, but trips are fully flexible – we can offer any number of nights available at similar rates – please ask for details |
£140 – 7 nights |
Please request availability for: – MTB World Cup June 13th to June 21st
|
"...the most perfect sun-dappled loamy singletrack any of us had ever ridden."
MBR Mountain Bike Rider
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
