Why choose TrailbikeTours?

Contrary to claims by other companies, we are the longest running trailriding and enduro holiday company currently working mostly in Spain. Why mention that? Well, we've got far more experience than the others - we know our "stuff", and we know what clients want.

We know, for example, that at the end of a day's riding , clients like nothing better than to return to a quality four-star hotel, with all the usual facilities within such a hotel. Yes, it might seem like financial sense to buy some big villa, put clients in it, and quickly pay off the mortgage. However, we know that clients would be restricted, and probably bored, with something like this - after seeing the same faces all day long, would you really want to be stuck with only the same people all evening (friends or not)? Every client, bar none, loves our set-up - they have the luxury of getting back to the hotel, a quick shower, maybe jump in the jacuzzi, have a sauna, a steam in the Finnish steam room, or a few lengths of the indoor or outdoor swimming pools. Oh, and there's also the fully-equipped gym, and other such things as internet access and pool tables etc. Then it's normally into the bar, and a few hard-earned drinks (whilst meeting a few other people....) before dinner, (again, most other companies do not include dinners) which may be either a quality a-la-carte four-star dinner or "eat-as-much-as-you-want" buffet dinner.

What else? Well, we know other companies make a big thing of running groups with a guide up-front, and a sweeper behind. Why do we not use a sweeper? Easy - we tried, and were told that clients don't like this idea. In nearly all cases, we find that it's generally the lesser-experienced clients who run at the back, and, well, a sweeper behind them generally puts them off, puts them under undue pressure, and is just something else to distract their "10 dollars of attention" from the trail in front, and all the other things they have to concentrate on. What about losing clients en-route? It simply never happens. When there's ambiguous junctions, our guide either makes sure all riders are together, or we use the AIM system of every rider making sure the next knows the direction. Last but not least, we know riders like to "play around a bit" on the bikes. We honestly don't mind this a bit - ask any existing client - and we also know that with a sweeper behind, watching everything that's going on, clients do feel very restricted, and therefor have less fun. Don't want this now, do we?

You may think that the sweeper system is good for assessing riders ability, giving help and tips, and generally helping to improve client's riding. Wrong - if clients want this, we encourage them to ask, and our fully experienced guide will be more than keen to follow and watch, as and when required. Also - this gives other riders the option of leading for a while. This, we believe practically never happens with other companies, and is something that the more experienced riders love. We love it too, as it happens, as until you've done it, you wouldn't believe how much more mentally tiring it is leading a quick group. Although we rarely meet other traffic, a guide's job is not only showing the route, but it's "expecting to meet traffic at every corner". It may be tempting fate, but in hundreds of thousands of cumulative kilometres, we're yet to have an "incident" with another vehicle on the trails. The way we do it at TrailbikeTours is, if we meet another vehicle either going a bit quick, or on a blind corner, we stop the vehicle, tell them there's so many bikes following, and ask them to wait till everybody's past.

Which brings us onto speed...... Again, we know that several other trail-riding companies have a policy of curtailing clients speed, so that either they have less chance of having an "off", or maybe so that they end up doing less mileage (and therefor obviously incur less costs to the company). This we disagree with totally and utterly. Yes, the first few hours of the first day will be at a "sensible" pace, while we watch and analyse riders speed and ability (speed and ability are not necessarily related!!!) Then we build up speed, as we become confident that nobody's riding beyond their ability. We do NOT have an upper limit here - the limits are dictated by the clients, the local regulations (or the client's ability if their brains can't control this)!! With our extensive knowledge of the mountains, this means we can chop and change the route as the day goes on, and do probably more than twice the mileage in a day that our competitors can - a recent day of 270km, followed by 275km the next day comes to mind here. The bottom line is that we don't just want clients to come once - we want them to come back again and again. This obviously works, as our return rate is probably the highest in the business.

One of the reasons for our very high return rate, we believe, is our investment in the very best of riding gear. Yes, we could do as some others do, and spend no more than a couple of hundred euros per rider for everything from helmet to boots. We don't - an investment of way over a thousand euros per rider ensures clients are kitted out as safely as possible - probably better than most are back home. We use Axo full-face helmets and kneepads, Dainese "space" suits with built-in hard armour and integral back protector, Alpinestars Tech-series boots, motocross tee-shirts, and trousers, and Scott or Oakley goggles. Like we say, we could save quite a bit of money by buying cheaper brands, but at the expense of more client injuries - no thankyou!!

The same can be said for the bikes we use. A recent addition of 6 x 2008 model KTM 530 EXC-R now brings the fleet up to 22. Yes, we've probably bought the most expensive of all bikes suitable for the job, but we're not interested in "saving" a few hundred or thousand euros / pounds or whatever. We provide high quality tours, and for this we need a selection of the best bikes available anywhere. Our other bikes are KTM 450EXC and 525EXC, as well as Suzuki DR-Z400E, and we really don't mind if you want to try them all. You will not find a fleet like ours anywhere else.

Also something we haven't really shouted about before - TrailbikeTours seems to be the company the professional motorbike racers prefer. We could have been name-dropping for the past 4 or 5 years, have refrained from doing so, but all our "normal" clients who've had the "pleasant surprise" of riding with a "household name" have kept telling us we should be making more of a noise about this. So here goes - we must be good if the likes of Ruben Xaus, Simon Crafar, Cyril Despres, James Haydon, Paul Young, Paul Jones, Glen Richards etc etc etc regularly ride with us.

'Nuff said - we rest our case....