The trouble with giving an experience is that it is often a gift to yourself. You book the date, you pick the activity, you decide the level, and the other person discovers on the morning that their Valentine's Day involves a helmet.
A voucher removes all of that. Here is what ours contains, what amount makes sense, and what you can do with it together.
The person receiving it decides everything
The Exoride voucher is valid on everything we do: shuttle days, skills courses, guided tours, trips abroad and bike rental. No activity is locked in when you buy it.
It is also valid for two years, which matters more than it sounds. It means the person picks their season, waits for good weather, gets over a winter of no riding, or lines it up with a friend's availability. Nothing expires in six weeks and nothing gets used in a hurry just to avoid wasting it.
How much to put on it
The amount is free, from CHF 50. Three markers to place yourself:
CHF 95 covers a full guided shuttle day in the Valais, between 5,000 and 10,000 metres of descent depending on the level. CHF 129 covers a skills course day, five students per instructor, with video analysis. Anything else goes towards a trip, a weekend or a rental, and the balance stays on the voucher.
A voucher that does not quite cover an outing is not a problem: the person tops up the difference at registration. One that covers more leaves a balance for the next one.
What lands in the inbox
An email, within seconds of payment, addressed to your name and carrying the beneficiary's name, your message, the amount, the code and the expiry date. Laid out to be printed and slipped into a card, or forwarded as it is.
No plastic, no postage, no delivery window. Which also means you can buy it on the evening of 13 February without it being obvious that you bought it on the evening of 13 February.
What you can do with it, together
A shuttle day is the simplest way in: you descend, we drive back up, and the day is measured in metres of descent rather than in suffering. The dates are in the calendar, from March to November.
A skills course works well for two people who ride at different levels, because the work is individual inside a group of five. See the courses.
A weekend or a trip if you want to make it a proper occasion: two days in Zermatt, a Camp'n'Ride in Tuscany, a week in the Moroccan Atlas. The whole catalogue is here.
If the other person does not ride yet
Then a voucher is exactly the right gift, and a booked date would have been the wrong one. They can start with a beginner skills day rather than being dropped into a descent, and rent a bike with the same voucher instead of buying one to find out whether they like it.
An e-bike changes the equation too: it flattens the fitness gap, which is what usually spoils a first ride for two. We wrote about that here.
The card fees, said plainly
Card payment carries a fee of CHF 0.30 plus 2.9 percent, shown before you confirm. That fee is added to the amount and to the voucher: the voucher is issued for the sum actually paid, so nothing is lost on the way. We would rather write that here than have you find it at checkout.
Three minutes, watch in hand
You choose the amount, add the beneficiary's first name and the message that will appear on the voucher. You pay by card. The email arrives. The person books whenever they want, entering the code when registering for any outing in the calendar, or writing to us for a trip or a private course.
One voucher per registration, and any balance serves the next one.
Give a day out, not another object
The voucher page is here. If you are hesitating over the amount or the activity, write to us before buying rather than after: we would rather help you aim right the first time.
Chris
