Tag Archives: camino de santiago frequently asked questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Discover the answer to your doubts in our frequently asked questions site. Start your adventure with TournRide today!

Regarding the bike hire and the booking

We use a formula that decreases the price per day depending on the number of rental days and the number of bikes. The more both numbers increase, the less the price per day. Due to this, it’s hard to give you an exact price, unless you use our website, where you will be able to get a complete quote, check the availability of the bikes and other stuff, and of course, booking on-line.
The main reason would be that it’s cheaper, but we would remark another one, it’s much more comfortable. In general, taking your bike with you implies dismantling and packaging your bike, sending it to your start point and assembling it again. When you arrive to your final destination, you would have to repeat the dismantling and packaging again, and probably deal with your flight company. Also, once the journey is finished the bike will have damages and wear valued in 100 € (own estimation following our internal data and market prices).
At Tournride you will enjoy a high-end and state-of-the-art bicycle, forgetting about the bike once you finish your last stage, and for a similar or even lower price than you would pay for the logistics of your bike.
We’re always trying to make this process as simple and faster as possible in our website. Please, select the foreseen start and end dates, places and the number of bicycles. Our booking engine will guide you to get a quote in a very simple way, and you will get also information about the bikes availability. At Tournride you won’t get overbooking.
Our system isolates all the stuff that you’ve chosen between the booking dates established in your booking.
During this period, and with some security margins, all the stuff you choose won’t be rented by any other user. We usually use to have more extra-stuff, so even in the case of being complete, it’s possible to extend the rental period with no penalties. You will only get charged for the extra days. The only thing we ask you is that you tell it to us when you detect any delay, or when you realize that it’s impossible for you to return all the stuff during the established date. With this information we can block all the stuff until the date you tell us.
In the same way, if you return the bikes earlier than expected, our system will free the bikes, but we won’t have enough time to rent them again, since the modification date will be that return day. By this reason, and by rule we won’t reimburse for an early arrival.
At Tournride we’ve never had noticeable problems regarding the use of our stuff by our customers. In spite of the wear and the Camino’s circumstances, generally we receive all the bikes and equipment in good conditions. Regarding this, we consider unnecessary to penalize the customer with a deposit.
Once you make the payment of the booking, in any of the offered methods, the stuff will be reserved for you. We give a grace period between the moment that the booking is saved and when it’s paid. That period is managed by our staff individually, so we would thank you that once you make the booking proceed to the payment as soon as possible. If you need to make some change in your booking, please, contact us requesting that change.
We accept debit or credit cards of any kind, except American Express and other regional cards. Most commong types, included Visa and Master Card, are allowed in our payment gateway. At this moment, that operations is made inside our bank servers, by security reasons, so you will be forwarded there and driven back to our website when the payment is finished.
We also accept bank transfers, although due to the cost for the customer we don’t recommend them when the transfer is made from outside the European Union or when it implies a currency exchange.
One of our payment ways is the fractioned payment (only with card). You can book only paying 20%. The 80% must be paid at least 10 days to the start date of the booking.
In any of the offered payment ways, the 20% is considered as booking expenses, so by general rule this amount won’t be refunded. The 80%, if paid, will be refunded when the cancellation is requested at least 10 days before to the start. In other words, you have the 80% refund right until 10 days before to the start.
After those 10 days, by general rule we won’t refund money. Anyway, WE’RE HUMANS, please, ask us if you’re in this situation.

Regarding the stuff

You’ve at your disposal three different mountain bikes (enlace a la página de bicicletas en inglés). We consider them the most suitable to perform the Saint James Way. In general, our business model is oriented to the Camino, but you can do any other kind of route across Spain, Portugal and even South France. We try to standardize the offered stuff as far as we can, so in general we won’t attend personalization requests like out of catalog bikes.
Standard bicycle, with no optional equipment, includes the bicycle with a rack installed, bottle cage, lock and bell. There are some options that you can see here.
The clip pedal is a part that may require adjustment to your shoe, and to your way of releasing the foot. Even we put a pedal of the same brand and model than yours, the releasing strength may be tougher or easier, and might cause undesired falls. If you want to use this kind of pedals, our suggestion is to bring your own pedals (the ones you are used to) and that won’t take too much room in your suitcase or luggage. You can request your bike without pedals after the booking is made, by e-mail.
The bikes arrive in a box, to preserve them during the shipping. We’ve a tailor-made box, so the bike is sent assembled, but you will have to put the pedals on and take the handlebar to its right position tightening two screws. For those operations we send a graphical explanation and text (Spanish and English only), and of course, the needed tools.
Here is where our DCS (Double Check System) is applied. All our bikes are well cleaned and repaired once they arrive to our facility, to avoid their degradation. After that check the bike is stored fixed and clean. At this step, the parts that don’t pass our wear parameters are replaced.
Once the bike is going to be sent again to another customer, it’s checked again and cleaned so you will receive a bike in the best conditions.
Also, we’ve decided to renew at least 70% of our fleet every year, so the if a bike from the past year is in our fleet, it will be in good conditions.
All our bikes, even the new ones, have been modified by us with improvements like harder tires and self-sealing tubes. With this modifications, you will rarely get a puncture on your bike. In case of puncture it use to be due to damage to the tire, like a piece of glass scratch.
If you want your bike behavior to be good during all the way, we suggest to clean it in case of extreme mud and, of course, put a bit of oil to the chain always is well received. Please, before to put oil, be sure that the bike is clean enough, since in case of put oil over mud this will get harder causing bike gears malfunction.
If it’s your desire, during the way we can inform you with our suggested garages to make a clean and maintenance. Please, call us or send us an e-mail when you want to program a maintenance with time enough. All our partners on the way have a prices policy according to the market, never being abusive.

My preparation

If you want to make a conservative calculation, take as a reference a speed of 10 km/h and that you will spend among 4 to 6 hours cycling. This will allow you to make among 40 to 60 kilometers every day. That speed is conservative enough for everybody.
Ideally yes, at least to be in a general good shape. It’s not necessary to be an athlete, but it would be desirable that you make some regular moderated activity at least during the month before to the start.
If you want us to help you with your trip planning you can contact us in the way you consider convenient. In general, if you’re not used to this kind of routes, we suggest you to choose the French Route, since it’s the most crowded and by this reason is where you will find more services to the pilgrim. If you have just some experience, you may be interested in other less crowded routes with less services but that can be more attractive, like the North way or the Portuguese route.
Once you decide what trip you will make, then you can use the estimations in this FAQ and maybe give yourself one day of margin.

Bike logistics

Depending on the location we can do it in one or several ways? In general, we suggest to receive your bikes in your first accommodation, since it’s much more comfortable and you will receive the bike during the working day prior (Monday to Friday generally) to your start date. You, as the accommodation client, have to ask them to receive the bike for you even if you didn’t arrive yet, and keep them safe until your arrival.. Most of the Saint James Way accommodations will do it kindly and for free. If your hotel tells you that they won’t receive the bikes or well they ask money for it we suggest you to book any other accommodation.
In the same way, we can collect the bicycle from your last accommodation. We don’t need you to package the bike, we only need that you put a label with our name and address. Also you have to tell the hotel that a courier will go for the bike during the next day to the set as the finish one in your booking.
If your final stage finish at Santiago, we suggest encouragingly to drop the bikes off in our city center facility, since it will make your booking cheaper.
If your final destination is Fisterra (Finisterre) or Muxía, you should know that it’s much more economic to bring the bike back with you by bus and drop it off in our facility. Also, the bike will help you to come from the bus station to the city center in Santiago. Anyway, we can collect the bikes from your final accommodation in those towns if it’s your desire.

Luggage

Absolutely, we can bring your luggage to your final accommodation or well to be picked at our Santiago facility. You can include this service at the step 3, during the booking process.
The cost depends on the total weight of the luggage, although we also need the number of bags or suitcases in order to avoid mistakes during the collection. The cost is calculated during the booking process.
You should leave your luggage at the reception, ready for collection. You will receive a label that you must print and stick on every bag or suitcase. If you’ve not received the label at least a couple of days before your start date, please, request it to us.
No. For this job you have several companies that will do it cheaper and better than us, like Jacotrans.

Other products and services

We have at your disposal bike boxes (145x80x20cm). Those measures make them good for take your bike in your flight. Those boxes have a limited availability and won’t be booked, although we rarely run out of them. The price of every box is 10 €.

Regarding Tournride Full Assistance

Tournride Full Assistance is an insurance whose main goal is give assistance on the way. Anything that make a bike stay (punctures, broken chain, others…) will give you the right to call the assistance phone, attended in 6 languages, and being taken to the next garage. In general you will be driven to the end of the stage, in order to give enough time to proceed with the bike fix.
It’s important to distinguish the labor of the insurance and assistance companies (taking you to the next place), and the labor of Tournride, that would be the bike fix or the substitution if it was necessary. In most of the garages the bike will be repaired and we will pay for it directly. In some cases you might get to a non-partner garage and possibly you will have to pay for the fix and ask for the ticket. Once we have the ticket we will refund that money in your card.
The way go across the countryside and most of the towns are low populated. We do our best to make the rate of incidences as low as possible, and even we provide all our bikes with an anti-puncture system, to avoid most of the eventualities that might happen. The Tournride Full Assistance is the last recurse in case you cannot continue and with the main goal of making you feel safer on your adventure.
Also here, it’s important to distinguish between the bike fix and maintenance. The client is the person in charge of taking a right maintenance, in other words, you should keep the bike parts clean enough and oil them after clean. If you don’t want or don’t know how to do this labor we can suggest specialized garages. In general you can get your bike cleaned and oiled for a few € (typically 10-20 €).
All the bikes we send have included Tournride Full Assistance, as we consider it essential.