I’m thinking of booking a bike holiday for a few of us and stumbled across vallnord online.Just wanting some info on what the bike park is like,where to stay,options to get there(was thinking of flying to Barcelona).Going for a week in April if do decide to go so other than the bike park wouldn’t mind a day or two xc if anyone knows a guide.
Any info much appreciated

Hi
Haven’t ridden there but have skied there twice and on one occasion some of the trails/tracks were showing through the snow and looked very good.
Went to Spain with Singletrack Safari and was chatting to the guides who also do trips to Andorra.
They said we would be fine there and we are just normal riders in our 50’s
There is some xc but not sure how accessible it is.
Maybe take a look at their website.

https://www.singletracksafari.com/the-guiding-team/
Cheers
Steve

Will it be open in April? Might still be snow on the ground??

I liked it a lot , stayed @ the very bike friendly & fairly cheap Magic ski & the gondola was about <1 minute from the front door. 3hrs by bus from Barcelona airport with http://www.andorrabybus.com . AFAIK the upper bike park does not open till June , I was there on the opening weekend & loved it. Not all that busy compared to Morzine & the likes (so I’ve been told).

Probably gonna go back around same time in 2019 , the full (Blue) Commencal is around 12km & with speed is devilishly good fun.

I went there (Holy cow!) 6 years ago now. Loved it. Different to Morzine etc. Tracks were mint. Very dry when we were there so very deep dust. Great fun.

Have a little look at my video if you can be arsed.

Great place. Perhaps not as much to ride as the Morzine area, but it’s good to branch out.

The hospital was great.

Brilliant riding. Not to the same scale as places like morzine. But it was super quiet on the mountain even in july.
Good food. Nice people. Cheap. Busy in the towns though.

Been snowboarding there also. Great in the winter too.

We all enjoyed that trip to the hospital Chris.

I can only echo what others have said. Its a great place, plenty of riding for a few days but you will ride the same stuff a lot, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. I know they were putting in new tracks in 2017 so they should be open now so. We went with singletrack safari twice and recommend them highly.

If I had to do my last ever ride, it would be at this place.
Commencal blue right down to the bottom is just phenomenal.
The new red is extremely tough.

Great info cheers,sounds a wicked place.
Seems a bit of a hike 3hours by bus from Barcelona,anyone know the best way of getting there from Sheffield without driving it.

It was this vid that instantly had me frothing to get there. This is the lower or Commencal inferior to give it it’s proper name. mmmm black brake discs ☺

Bump
So on the back of this thread six of us have booked Vallnord for the opening weekend in June, can’t wait, can anyone give me an idea of the cost of a lift pass, the official bike park price page doesn’t appear to be working.
I have been to Morzine several times and cannot decide which bike to take this time!
mmmm downhill or trail bike, any advice?

Go, you’ll love it – went with DH bikes, a burly trail bike would do, but it’s DH all the way.

Day lift pass last year was 30 euro , I took my 27.5 Cove Hustler & it passed an awfull lot of V10 Santa Cruz’s. I ain’t all that either , not much of a jumper although I learnt a lot in Vallnord & cleared some table tops. 😀

Were one of the V-10s you passed that guy up there ^^ 😉
Thanks for the replies, had a chat with our group and think its going to be a dh bike trip, reasoning is that its all uplifted ha ha
€30 sounds ok, looking forward to the trip

Been a few times to Vallnord with singletracksafari always had a good time.
Vallnord not the biggest but really good riding and no lift queues!
Worth trying to get a day at Soldeu park as well, bit less dusty than Vallnord. Maybe worth giving Martin at singletracksafari sure he could sort you out transport

See how steep the world cup track is!

Great steak house near the comercal bar.

Another here for calling Martin at https://www.singletracksafari.com/the-guiding-team/ . We went in September last year. Vallnord was done on the first day which is also the location of the Maxiavalanche course. There is however much more natural, far better stuff IMHO, that Martin will show you round. We stopped at Hotel Del Pui in La Massana. This is bike friendly and has a very secure bike store within an a locked underground garage opposite the hotel. There is a bus service from Barcelona to La Massana, don’t imbibe to much beer before getting on the bus, its a longish journey and doesn’t stop until it gets to Andorra La Vella!

The accommodation is sorted, we have an apartment booked near the gondola.
I’ll remember the tip about not drinking 😉 although I think we’re hiring a car(s) as our flight lands after the last bus has left.
I’ll suggest a day trip with singletrack safari to the rest of the group
Will try and check that steakhouse out too
Cheers for all the tips and pointers

The spa in andorra le ville is worth a visit http://www.caldea.com just the thing for midweek day off
Great duty free shopping if you like that sort of thing, wife is disappointed I’m not going back to Andorra this year as she has a few nice handbags from previous visits
Easy bus ride into city from La Massana or there is a path along the river

Forgot to add, at the bottom of the Maxiavalanche descent as you pop out onto a carpark, theres a few hoses to wash the bikes down. You’ll all end up with a soaking. This is very near to a decent bike shop and just opposite the “Commencal Spot”, a great place to park the bike and have a couple of well earned beers

And Cedric’s bar is just down on the right….

A quick update if anyone is considering Vallnord
As I mentioned above we went for the opening weekend in June which coincided with the Maxiavalanche.
The 3 hour transfer wasn’t too bad, we landed at 10 pm so it felt worse than our return journey.

The bike park was great, easy to navigate, well maintained trails and no massive queue’s at any of the three lifts, we did a few blues to warm up and mixed it up on the reds and blacks in the afternoon. We found a few off piste trails which were steep but there was enough in The Bike Park to occupy for our 5 day trip, the World Cup track was closed in prep for The World DH visit two weeks later but managed to ride the lower wooded steep parts, it crisses and crosses the Maxiavalanche, that was a little intimidating but we all managed to get down it, just!
There is a dedicated bike patrol who were very helpful with extra info or directions and the Commencal shop at the top of the gondala helped our group out with a few mechanical’s at sensible prices.
The Commencal Spot was a great place to finish at the end of the day, it had a good vibe, the food and beer were fine, not the cheapest but certainly not Alps prices.
La Massana itself was fairly quiet of an evening but we found a few nice places to eat and the locals were all really friendly, we never worked out which language to speak, it seems a mash up of catalan, French, Spanish, English with a touch of Portuguese thrown in to really confuse 😉

We never ventured to Andorra La Velle but there is more nightlife to be had there and was only a 10 min taxi ride

If anyone is considering going do it, you won’t be disappointed.
Our group will definatley going back next year