My Ride report Competa 2010
Hi I went on the Tossers-in-the-Tejeda III trip this October and here is my ride report.
Hi although not a GSER member back in Feb 2010, remember how cold it was, My big brother “The Paintman” told me about a trip to Spain later in the year riding dirt bikes that had been posted on the forum. As at the time the UK was frozen this seemed very tempting, visions of riding in sunshine and without restrictions really appealed.
I mailed Greg Masters and booked a place, although I did not know anyone going and not particularly comfortable meeting new people, I thought as long as I was riding I could keep the time for conversation to a minimum during the holiday.
I met the group at Malaga airport on a Saturday, as soon as we grouped together we found the coach driver but lost our tour guide “Greg Masters”
We soon found him and were on our way to the Villa in a hill town above Malaga called Competa.
The villa has a nice pool and parking for 11 enduro bikes + a support van. On reflection it must be quite hard to find a villa owner prepared to accept a party of 11 bikers for a week. ( I wouldnt)
We bunked up two to a room (the couples on the trip shared), this was fine by me as Greg had guaranteed me I would not have to share with a snorer for the week. Once the bags were unpacked Champagne was served and the group began drinking proper. Although I am partial to the odd drink myself your honour, I was not really relaxed in new company and was worried if I would be good enough to ride with these guys n girls sober, let alone with a raging hangover.
I left them to the drinking and went up in to the hills on me bike, to have a peek at the trails so I would know what to expect tomorrow, not knowing the area I headed for the general direction of the hills and guessed at the route, not really understanding the signs or permissions of the trails. I ended up riding a trail that was made up of effectively rubble, boulders about the size of a house brick it was hard going and did little to boost my confidence, especially when half way along the trial just as i was thinking I might be able to get the hang of riding, two local boys came by on KTM’s at twice my speed! After a couple of miles I turned for the Villa thinking ummm this could be a hard week.
Back at the villa the group were still fairly sober ,Marie and Jenny who cooked evening dinner for the week + cooked brekky every morning while also smiling and being happy, made us a wonderful meal which like all nights was really nice, we dined on the terrace with amazing views of the Hills and Sea in the distance.
I had a bottle of wine with dinner which was considered generally to be lightweight drinking, I had been up at 4.00am to catch the plane so I left them drinking and went to bed at 10:30 where I got two hours of good kip before a man later to be known as the “The Jagermeister” snuck into the room making no more noise than a elephant would, lay down on his bed and went to sleep immediately, no more than 15 mins later he began snoring big time. I listened to the fecker for an hour then realised tomorrow is not the day to be knackered so I moved my mattress to the living room / diner where I slept at night for the rest of the week. This gave Marie (our cook) a shock when she came to set out brekky in the same room the following morning, but on the plus side I was always first for breakfast. With the added bonus I could moan about the snoring fecker for the rest of the week.
Sunday morning the bikes made an impressive line up (mainly orange to be fair)
We headed up into the Hills thankfully not following the path I took the day before, we were riding a wide smooth trail which you could drive a lorry up with care, the main hazard now, was the dust kicking up from the bikes at the front making riding in the middle of the group quite nerve racking. Anyway unfortunately the dust issue was soon resolved, looking ahead though the dust Pete and I thought we saw some rubbish that perhaps had been flytipped on the trail, It turned out to be Dave with his 450 BMW he had a high speed off and to be honest he did not look good, with the dust generated by the bikes, in reality it could of been any one of us, thankfully after a few minutes Dave started moaning and moving and we relaxed and the friendly ribbing began. The earth on the trails is like a mixture in my opinion varying between, type one MOT (used as the base to driveways and roads in the UK) and solid rock, with the occasional random bolder on the trail. Pretty unforgiving trails but on the plus side, the trails are awesome in length compared to the UK, we rode for three days before I could begin to recognise parts of trails that we had visited before, although in fairness I am pretty hopeless at navigation, It was great to have Greg with his knowledge of the area, this enabled us to ride all his favourite routes that he has discovered over many years. After the crash dave headed back to the Villa with an escort (not that type he’s a decent man). In the aftermarth of Dave’s exit Pete “Half Pint” said to me "ride two abreast on the trail and leave a good gap to the next bike in front this would keep vision ahead at its best" This was probably the best advice of the trip, Pete was a natural at riding trails side by side and I found it made the wider trails more interesting as you had only 50% of the width of the trail to ride!
Dave’s exit put the wobbles up the group and from that point on we were all a bit more cautious of the path ahead (well most of us). Like all events in life you tend to remember the extreme parts but between the very hard trails there was plenty of fast safe trails with fabulous views at almost every turn, the main paths through the mountain as I have said, its possible to drive a lorry on. You can if inclined spend your week riding these trails without having to endure boulder streams, Bakerman who seems completely contented in his own company did spend a lot of the week meandering through the mountains on this type of trail, admittedly lots of them have sheer drops on one side but the width of the trail is perhaps 3 meters wide most of the time and they are generally boulder free. Anyway it gives you a nice buzz clipping a corner with one leg out over air!
Day two and three were again full group days but due to severe flooding the winter before, the routes we took were hard, no actually harder than hard they were well hard. But in the group was a girly DR JM who had a nice bike which was put through extreme conditions. I don’t know much about biolgy but I know how much effort it takes for me to ride a enduro bike down a washed out trail, I think Timolga has shown footage, but her bike skills divided by body mass divided by energy required, was really impressive. Well done you.
Down the main washed out trail after a couple of miles we had no option but to turn back as the route was not passable, at this point there were many in the group down a trail that perhaps they had not envisaged when they signed up, me included. anyway this is where my only photo that I took on the trip came from its not indicative of the week but at least gives you an idea how bad (or good depending how sick you are) it could possibly be.
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2fjDywiv3QuQXRkJw1mgIg?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_UKgMtd3rVsQ/TLzKEmbKtGI/AAAAAAAAACw/qUpUgaSh0CU/s800/IMAG0002.jpg" height="479" width="800" /></a>
The good thing though, that as a team 11 bikes went down the trail and eleven bikes came out through team work, and a very nice Mrs Bakerman who had been promised earlier in the day a gentle saunter through the mountains and I am sure is not a custom to using expletives was still just about smiling when we came back up the valley two hours after turning back from the bottom , a group average of 1 mile per hour! + a story to tell for a lifetime
Try to write some more soon,
)
