Below you'll find an overview of our company and approach to mountain bike tourism. If you want to know more about a specific aspect of our company, click on one of the links below or one of the menu items at left.
Local. Meaningful. Kickass.
Local Guides
At Sacred Rides, we only use local guides. Why do we do this?
- Our guides live, work and play in the areas they take you to. No one knows the local trails, secret places, and local people the way they do.
- Because they live in these areas, they have a vested interested in preserving natural places and local communities.
- Using local guides (and local suppliers) ensures we keep as many of your dollars as possible in local communities.
Meaningful Travel Experiences
We love mountain biking. A lot. And our Rides are designed to show you nothing but the best local trails. But we also believe that travel by mountain bike - to remote places few others can reach by foot or by van - can provide incredible opportunities for mutual understanding and meaningful interaction with locals.
So we include experiences that are designed to further your knowledge about the worlds around us, from visiting remote villages in the Mustang Valley of Nepal, to feasting on volcano-cooked stew in the Azores, to drinking sljivovica with the locals in Croatia. Ride with us and you'll not only have more fun on a mountain bike than you've ever had, you'll also come away with some of the best stories of your life.
We care deeply about the communities and natural areas where we ride and owe them a debt of gratitude for affording us the opportunity to visit them and ride their trails, so we try to ensure that we give as much as we receive by supporting local organizations and community projects, giving back to local mountain bike clubs, and doing everything we can to ensure that we are having a positive impact on the places we ride. [read Responsible Riding below for more details]
Kickass Rides
Anyone can take you on a great mountain bike trip in another country. But are they thinking about every detail the way we are? From pre-trip communication, to your airport pickup, to your welcome package, to the post-Ride beers, and all the way to when you step onto the plane back home, we spend hundreds of hours developing our itineraries: we're thinking about every single detail and how we can make our Rides as amazing and mindblowing as possible.
Ride with us and you can be assured that we've done everything possible to give you the Ride of your life.
[Find out more about our company, our mission, and our guiding principles]
Responsible Riding
What is Responsible Riding?
Responsible Riding is our mandate to ensure we're operating not only in a responsible manner, but in a way that gives back to local communities and leaves positive impacts in our wake.
It's a belief that mountain bikes matter.
It's a belief that:
- mountain bike tourism should be based on creating and sustaining strong, vibrant communities
- mountain biking and responsible travel can go hand in hand
- mountain biking and environmentalism aren't mutually exclusive
- mountain bike travel can make a positive difference in the communities that we visit
[Read more about our Responsible Riding mandate]
Why Would I Want To Go On A Guided Ride?
We'll be the first to admit it - a guided mountain bike ride is not for everyone. Some people prefer to go it alone and enjoy discovering trails and places on their own. But here are a few reasons why a guided ride might appeal to you:
- In some remote places (like Peru for instance), it's just plain impossible to find the trails without getting hopelessly lost
- Local guides means you ride all the best trails and visit the coolest local hangouts, so you spend more time riding awesome trails and less time deciphering maps
- New riding buddies from all over the world - you'll never ride alone!
- You just show up at the airport with your bike (or without) and we take care of everything after that. No booking hotels, cars, searching for restaurants, etc...
We Guarantee All Our Rides
We're so sure you'll have the trip of a lifetime with us, we back our trips with a satisfaction guarantee: If you're not 100% fully satisfied with your trip, we'll give you a full credit toward another trip with Sacred Rides. If after your 2nd trip you still aren't satisfied, we'll refund 100% of your money, no questions asked.
[read our customer service pledge]
We Care About Your Safety
At Sacred Rides, we take your safety very seriously. We have a comprehesive safety and risk management plan - one of the most comprehensive in the business. Our full safety plan is over 50 pages long and covers all kinds of contingencies. Each of our guides is briefed on this safety plan at the start of each season and at periodic intervals throughout the season.
When you sign up for one of our adventures, you can rest assured that your safety is taken very seriously by your guiding team. While no one can guarantee a 100% safe trip, we do everything we can to minimize risks.
Skills and Fitness
Our Rides are (with a few exceptions) for passionate, experienced mountain bikers. The majority of our rides are rated strong intermediate and up, so we ask that you use our detailed skill and fitness ratings to assess whether you're ready for one of our Rides.
We take steps to ensure you don't end up on a Ride that's not suitable for you (or on a trip with others who are not suitable for the Ride), including:
- post-booking riding history survey to give us a better idea of your experience and skill
- phone-call followup if we think you might not be ready
- if there is a big skills split on your Ride, we add a 3rd guide to ensure everyone can ride at the pace they want to ride at
[read more about individual skill ratings and fitness]
FAQ
Answers to all (OK, most) of your questions, including:
- Who goes on Sacred Rides' trips?
- What if I'm traveling alone?
- Should I bring my own bike or do you offer rentals?
- What if I have to cancel?
- What if you cancel a trip?
- How far in advance should I book my trip?
[more FAQ]
Finding Your Ride
So you've read all about our company and our approach to mountain bike tourism, the next step is to Find Your Ride. We offer almost 20 different Rides in 9 locations around the world - to find yours, click on Our Rides or use the Ride Finder above to narrow down your search using date, location, and skill/fitness filters.
Once you've found your Ride, you can book your spot by putting down a 20% deposit - then just start giddily counting down the days!
You can also visit our schedule page to check out dates of upcoming trips!