Ming and Martin Nelhams loaded four bikes into Matt's van/trailer on Friday 3rd Oct and headed south. Meanwhile Phil Reynolds and I headed to Gatwick and the delights of SleazyJet.
Phil and I pitched up at Malaga airport early on Saturday where we met up with Mrs Ming (Sharron) and grabbed our hire car (we got a free upgrade to a Kia Picanto)......
.... before heading off to Competa via the booze section of Carrefour.
Matt and Martin had actually covered the 1,500 miles from Matt's home in about 25 hours and arrived shortly before us.


On Sunday we headed into the
Reservación Nacional de Sierra de Tejeda - a national park. We quickly realised that the scenery was truly stunning.
However, the trails were mostly unchallenging and GS-able. Or so we thought!
Temperatures were in the mid to high 70's, a little too hot for riding far when a cold beer in our villa beckoned.
Day 2 found our searching out some more challenging trails - and I think that we found them.
A steep and difficult trail up to 2950ft found this ruined monastry:
However, the real challenge was riding up what we named
The Stone Flume - a rise of 700ft in 0.8 of a mile over stones and steps:
On day 3 decided to ride to a 6,000ft peak. The trail was rocky but the views were breathtaking.
We met up with a posse from Trailblazers, an off-road adventure company based in Competa. Graham Ross helpfully showed us the start of a hidden route that took us right across the park on some difficult tracks - unfortunately slightly too difficult for Phil!
On the return run we decided to ride down a fire-break. It was pretty steep:
We took a day off riding on the Wednesday and visited the pretty village of Frigiliana ...
and the not-so-pretty city of Malaga.
On Wednesday evening we were joined by Timolgra and his partner Helen. Modest alcohol and nosebag was consumed....
... before we returned to our villas and drank huge quantities!
On Thursday, Tim took Matt's bike and Helen rode Phil's and we had a gentle circuit around a part of the Park.
Helen returned to the villa as we'd met with Ian Burgess of Redtread who kindly invited us to join their group for the remainer of the day.
Ian is quite a rider! Here he is hooning up a slope considerable steeper than it looks:
Having said our goodbyes to Tim and Helen, Friday was our last day's ride. Matt, Martin and I set out for a short final day.
A few minor falls and bruises, we returned to base and loaded up for the long drive home. It has to be said that Matt was magnificent - driving most of the 3,000 mile round trip. Top man!
We'll do it all again next year!
Greg