20/4/06 Spain Trip
Last
week Sarah and I headed off to Spain for some sunshine and dry trails. We
stayed with Seasonally Unadjusted, based in the Andalucian hill town of
Alora, about 30 minutes inland from Malaga. Run by British couple Jim and
Heather, this was our second trip with them, having first visited them
over New Year a couple of years ago shortly after they’d set up their
venture.
There are no official routes or trails in the area, so riding is entirely dependent on Jim’s local knowledge. He’s pieced together a collection of rides that loosely follow the format of climbing up on farm tracks through citrus and olive groves, followed by old goat tracks and old mule routes that he’s scouted out to descend on. We were impressed with what he’d initially found last time we visited, but in the intervening two years he’d obviously been doing a lot of research, as the trails he had for us this time were truly amazing.
In
a nutshell, every day we gorged ourselves silly on singletrack. Everything
from easy, swoopy trails that we could just let go and float down, to
super technical, steep and gnarly stuff that pushed the limits of both us
and our bikes. But mostly it was somewhere in between, just the right
amount of challenge to test us, but still easy enough to be able to get a
good flow going down the trail – just the sort of riding that Sarah and
I both enjoy most. Added to that the t-shirt warmth and hazy sunshine we
had, the big mountain scenery and the sea of blooming wildflowers the area
enjoys this time of year, and it all made for a perfect week of riding.
Outside of the riding itself, we’d get back to our guest house at the end of each day with just enough time to chill out for a bit on the balcony overlooking the castle, and then stroll into town with the sun going down to people-watch over a beer in the plaza, and then work our way though tapas and rioja in one of the local tavernas. All in all a great holiday.
Dan
(click for the whole picture)