The GENA-Ecologistas en Accion Group has complained that the two companies, which work mainly with foreigners, are taking their clients on motorbike tours of the Sierras Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama Natural Park which is incompatible with the preservation of the local wildlife. They also say it is not the first time.

The President of GENA, Rafael Yus, says the companies show photos of their excursions into the park on their websites as one of their star products.

They travel to Canillas de Albaida and Competa and up into the mountains frequently without permits to do so, according to the group.

Source: EuroWeekly News

We say:

It is a coincidence that I found this recent article in the EuroWeekly News, especially as my last article was about an off-road route through the Natural Park in question.

I don’t know for sure which companies this article is referring to, but as a member of a few motorcycling forums, I have seen companies ‘advertise’ their tours through sharing photos with fellow forum members showing some of the great routes and tracks they ride.

It looks great fun and I have thought more than once that I would like to go out with one of these companies for a day to improve my off-road skills.  There are off-road bike tour companies out there that will take you to places you shouldn’t really be riding, in particular on the fire breaks.  Fire breaks are there for a reason and it is illegal to ride them in Spain, so if you’re worried that you might be booking a tour with a company that isn’t environmentally responsible, ask them if they ride the fire breaks!

Another important point is that riding in these zones can have other implications, not least in the hotter months when we’re more prone to forest fires.  It doesn’t matter if it’s accidental or not, if you spark a fire in Spain the penalties are steep, so unless you don’t mind parting with £9 million and spending 18 months in prison, go for it!

This short track takes you through the heart of the Sierra Tejeda around the foothills of Mount Maroma.  There is a free camp-site about half way along the track which is used mainly by walkers visiting Maroma. We have never found the facilities open, but there is a BBQ area.

The track is mainly hard packed gravel, some potholes in places, corrugated on bends. Unless the riverbed is dry, there is a small stream to ford which is the most difficult part of the ride to navigate. Until recently there was a dry track that went over the stream, but this has been washed away by winter 2010 rains.  You can view a short video of the stream on our Facebook page.

• Distance: 11.5kms
• Elevation: Min 959m / Avg 1040m / Max 1137m
• Fuel: None
• Food: None
• Facilities: None (Free camp site but facilities are always locked up)

Download the klm file for the tour of Sierra Tejeda Natural Park

An article was featured in the local press recently about Motorbike tours of the Sierras Tejeda, Almijara & Alhama Natural Park.  We’re not a business, so it’s not us and just for info, this route does not leave any established roads or tracks.

You can download a copy of the Parts Exploded Manual from the Manual Downloads page.

Part	Website	Country Base	Notes
Tyres	My Net Moto	Germany
General Parts	Navarroh Hermanos	Malaga, Spain	Yamaha Dealer
Clutch Cables	Bitz for Bikes	United Kingdom
DID Chains & Sprockets	Bitz for Bikes	United Kingdom
Metal Mule Panniers	Metal Mule	United Kingdom

Since bringing them back Spain, they haven’t been nurtured as well as they should have been, mainly due to lack of time and money.  They’ve never really let us down which is probably just as well because finding a good mechanic out here is like finding hens teeth.  After years of being the work horses they were built to be, both Doris & Boris started complaining and as soon as we fixed one thing, something else would go wrong.  So we reached a crossroads with them and had to make a decision on whether to trade them in, or keep them.  I’ve had other bikes in the past, but for me, there’s a special bond between Doris and I and we’ll be together to the end – whichever one of us expires first.

Here’s an account for both bikes – a ledger detailing the problems, the mileages and the cost to fix them.  Up until now, we’ve only had a few problems which we’ve easily overcome.  Interestingly, we’ve encountered similar problems with both bikes at the same time.   But now we’ve found a good mechanic, hopefully this will be the beginning of a long, happy and lasting friendship we will all have together .

Some prices are in in GBP and some in Euros depending on where we bought the parts.  You can find a full list of where we source XT600 parts in Spain here.

Doris

Boris

Having had Bridgestone TrialWings, Metzeler Tourances, Vee Rubber and now Heidenau, I have come to the conclusion that it is all a matter of personal choice, riding styles, climate and how your bike is loaded.

Personally I thought that the Tourances were rubbish, gave little confidence in the wet and due to their tread pattern (or lack of it) were pretty useless off road. The only good thing about them was that they wore consistently and were both shagged at 8,000 km.

Unlike a lot of riders I liked the Trailwings as a true dual sport tyre with a road bias. I made my way through several sets and loved the feed back they gave, particularly in the wet. The rear usually lasted 8,000 km and the front 16,000 at a push. And not too much road noise to boot.

Vee Rubber (that was all I could get hold of at the time), initially was an excellent dual sport tyre with a road bias, but after 5,000 km they were getting a little unpredictable. Changed both the front and rear at 8,000 km.

After pushing my last Trailwing combination to 10,000 and 16,000 km, I have switched to Heidenau with a more aggressive pattern for off road work. I have to say that these tyres have exceptional road manners given their tread pattern and the off road grip is also in the same league. The only downside is the road noise, but I can live with that given their all road performance. So far they have covered a little over 3,000 km and appear to be wearing slowly.

As I have said before, a tyre that suits one rider could instil fear into another. So workout what you want out of a tyre, do your research and make your own decision.

PS, I always buy my tyres from these guys MyNetMoto they ship anywhere (and everywhere when requested) and are pretty cheap to boot.

Our enthusiasm was further fired up a few years ago when we held first motorbike meeting for Moto Andalucía and Tim Cullis did a presentation on Morocco.  Tim is well know in the biking world as a guru on Morocco and he maintains the Morocco GS Knowledgebase on the UKGSer forum.

The Idea

A group on motorbikes will travel to Morocco in September/October 2011 for 2 weeks visiting various locations by road and piste. It is not an organised trip, it is not a commercial venture, nobody is making money out of it, nobody is in charge of the trip, there are no support vehicles, nobody will be booking your accommodation, everybody is responsible for themselves and everybody pays their own way. You get the idea??

The Rules

There are no hard and fast ‘rules’ but there are a few sensible suggestions. Not having any idea how many people will be joining us for the trip, riding different motorbikes and having different levels of riding skills, we are proposing:

1. Riding in groups of 2-4 people where you are with somebody who is riding a motorbike of similar performance, or has similar riding skills, or wants similar things out of the trip, for example, stopping to take lots of photos.
2. Having locations along the way where we can all join up for an evening meal.
3. There is no support vehicle and no ‘first-aider’, but we support each other through knowledge of Morocco and/or motorcycle maintenance and medical advice.
4. If you want to sleep in a tent, that’s fine. If you’re a credit card camper and prefer a room, that’s fine.
5. If you want to leave the group and make your own tracks, that’s fine so long as you let somebody else in the group know.
6. You are completely responsible for yourself and your bike so it’s down to you to get suitable insurance for both.
7. Nobody else is liable for you, so if you get arrested or detained for anything illegal (drugs for example) you’re on your own!!

Who’s Going

This is the group so far – some may drop out, more may be added…

If you want to join the trip then email me and I will add you to the list. Please include a few details about yourself – name, forum name if you have one, where you live, your current bike and your riding skill level.

Name	Country	Bike	Skill Level
Alison Makin Dakota (XT)	Spain	XT600E/Tricker 250	25 years on road 5 years off road
Andrew Makin Smokin' Lizard	Spain	XT600E	33 years on road 5 years off road

The Route

To be determined, but as the route develops it will be posted here.

FROM 27 DECEMBER  UNTIL SUNDAY  2 JANUARY 2011

What could be better than your first ride of the New Year and doing it in Spain!

In Andalucía it is possible.  The weather is suitable for a mid-winter ride, almost always sunshine and dry weather.

We ride some great tours and celebrate New Years Eve together with the Spanish people in a small Spanish mountain village.

We stay at the beautiful Bed and Breakfast Finca Serrato, located in the Montes de Malaga.

Every day we ride through this beautiful Spanish province.  Every day is devoted to relaxation and enjoying a quiet drive through the varied landscape.  The roads in Andalucía are perfect for us motorcycle addicts, perfect asphalt in an endless winding landscape.

The size of the group consists of a maximum up to 10 people.
We use well maintained bikes that we rent – depending on availability, a Yamaha XT Yamaha Teneree or a Honda Transalp.

The cost: € 900 euros for the driver and € 575 euros for any passenger.

Included:

• Main Airport Malaga Transfer
• 7 Nights in Lagar de Serrato
• 7 Breakfasts
• 7 Dinners
• Motorcycle Hire
• T-Shirt

When picking up the rental bike keep in mind that a deposit of € 1000, -.will need to be paid.  This can be done with credit card or cash .

Also have a valid motorcycle driver’s license with you.

Not included:

• Fuel Costs
• Other food and beverages
• Any travel insurance
• Any damage to the bike
• Malaga Flight

We assume that you book your own ticket to Malaga.

Easyjet, Ryan air, Iberia or Vueling are some lowcosts carriers.

The desired arrival date is Sunday December 26.

The tour starts on Monday December 27.

Make sure you bring your own motorcycle clothing and helmet and do not forget to pack warm clothing.  Although the daytime temperature is often nice, please note that the evenings can be very cold.

For more information about this tour, please contact Frank van Gerwen at Triple A Events.

Our annual bike meeting took place during September.  We had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, some of whom had ridden over 5,000 kms.  The week leading up to the event, the event itself, and the week after didn’t quite go to plan, but that didn’t stop us having a great time.

You can see some of the photo’s of the event here.

Arrangements for our September 2010 meeting started out well with a few presentations organised, but a couple of weeks before the event, arrangements started to turn south.

Sara & Steve are regulars to our meetings and having left for Morocco from our 2009 meeting on their new F800’s, we were looking forward to their presentation about their trip.  But Sara fell over a few weeks ago and the resulting injury on her wrist put her in plaster for a few weeks.  Sara was understandably gutted, not only that she wouldn’t be able to come to the meeting, but moreover that she was in plaster as a result of a Sunday morning ‘messing around’ session with Steve and not because she’d fallen off her bike!!  You’ll never live that one down Steve .

Sara said:

Its frustrating how I can manage to drop my bike loads and not do myself to many injuries but one little incident at home lands me in Plaster and not able to ride!!!  We are both a little depressed as we should have been landing in Santander today and just starting on our 2 weeks in Spain, instead we are sat at home and preparing for a week in Cornwall next week, where Steve is going to have to drive me everywhere – I think the guilt trip I have been laying on him is not going to last much longer.  Hope you guys are ok, and we are sorry to miss this year.

A couple of weeks before the meeting we picked up some dirty fuel and both bikes started surging.  We drained the fuel tanks, cleaned out the pipes and filters, but they still weren’t happy.  We couldn’t get the carbs out to clean them so we decided to get the bikes serviced and asked our regular mechanic to clean them out while he was at it.  Mechanics in Spain don’t like doing anything apart from oil changes and the carbs not surprisingly didn’t get cleaned.  But for Boris, having him serviced turned out to be an even bigger mistake.

After their services, Andy spent Sunday giving Boris & Doris their bi-annual clean.  When we arrived at work on Monday morning and found we’d ridden through some thick black grease, we were gutted to find both bikes (and us) were spattered in it.  I thought Boris had a bit of an oil leak on the crank case, but we passed it off as being part of the grease we’d picked up.  Andy cleaned them both up again but it wasn’t until Wednesday night that Andy noticed Boris was dripping clean oil.  He found one of the bolts on the crank case had been overtightened and had stripped the thread on the crank case cover.  Going back to the mechanic the next day was a waste of time – oh, I forgot to tell you about it, but it was already done.  Hmmm, you’re the only person to have serviced the bike for the past 2 years!!  So the mechanic put some PTFE tape and blue Loktite on the bolt, told Andy if he was buying one new bolt he may as well get 2 and sent him on his way.  Why did he tell Andy to get 2 bolts?  Because he’d knackered 2 of the bolts!!  Actually, scrub that, he’d overtightened 3 bolts stripping the thread in the crank case, and a forth had snapped in half.  Not surprisingly the quick fix didn’t work and Boris started p*****g out oil.  Has anyone every tried to talk to a Spanish mechanic about Helicoils?  Well I’ll save you the job – forget it!!

The previous week we’d met up with David Pusey from Benajerafe and had gone to a bike rally in Torrox with him and some of his mates.  We were introduced to Martin, an experienced Harley mechanic, so called him on Thursday morning to see if he could help.  Sure, he had some inserts and could sort it out for us.  We can’t thank Martin enough for his help in sorting the mess out, but Boris was in no fit state to ride so wasn’t at this years meeting.

By Thursday evening, we knew that Geoff Shingleton wasn’t going to make it either.  Geoff is a medic who’s current job includes training soldiers in Baghdad.  He did a fantastic presentation a few years ago on ‘What to do if your mate falls off his bike’.  The presentation was filmed by Grant Johnson and is on his 3rd DVD of the NEW Achievable Dream: The Motorcycle Adventure Travel Guide DVD series! Geoff was coming to do the presentation again, but on Wednesday he sent a message saying that he was in Paris and was having trouble with his bike following 3 days heavy rain.  The next message came when he was stuck in Toulouse.  You can follow the rest of that story on the Horizons Unlimited Forum.

Geoff said:

I’m in Toulouse and have finally figured out why the bike has been cutting out.  After guzzling sooooo much oil, the greedy bastard, it’s now blowing black smoke and dumping petrol smelling oil from the oil drain pipe (the one that runs into the air filter box!!)  Methinks it’s the piston rings are shot or the valves and the rate it’s necking oil, (faster than I do Stella!!)  I’ve dumped a litre in it today!!  So I’ll check out a Yamaha place here in town, there’s two and might get them to strip the head and take a looksee. It’ll not make Malaga the way it’s going. BUT…… never fear, in a few days I’ll be dumping a profiterole in Elle’s mush!  Tell everyone from me to have a great weekend and I’m sorry the bikes a mess! I’m gutted I’ll miss it but will be there to say hi from your rooftop soon.

We met up with some of the early arrivals at the campsite on Thursday evening.  Jonathan had ridden down from Norfolk and one of the first things he told us was that he suffered from dementia and that he was a bit forgetful at times.  He told us a little about himself and when I casually asked him if his carer knew where he was (and she didn’t) I was a little worried there would be an alert out in the UK for a missing person!!  He did eventually call her to tell him he was in Spain.  Jon was a little eccentric but he had us in fits of laughter, especially when Andy got in the pool and Jon told him he had the body of a god – Buddha .  We’re off to another bike rally this weekend in Velez Malaga and part of the inscription will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association in Spain.

Frank arrived on his Tiger on Saturday morning, fuelled up and ready to join us on our off road ride out.  As the fumes of petrol rose above the aroma of coffee, Frank noticed a few drops of something dripping from his bike.  Within 5 minutes, the Tiger was spewing out petrol at an alarming rate when Frank remembers there was a recall 2 years before on his bike for a replacement fuel tap.  The connection between the fuel lines and the fuel pump had fractured and his bike was bleeding 24 litres of petrol all over the car park!!  I had an empty petrol can and using the tube off my Camelbak, Andy managed to siphon out 10 litres of fuel which we gave away to some of the local bikers.  The bike was left to drain in the car park, chained up and left for the grua to pick up.

Frank said:

We are at “home” in a very wet Holland and thinking a lot on Spain.  I ordered my spares for my Triumph here in Holland and my dealer will send it for me to Spain so the repair shop can prepare my bike.

We went out for a 96km ride both on and off road and the only hiccup was when Doris refused to start after a coffee break.  She had a new battery fitted less than a month ago, so the reason for that happening is still a mystery.

But aside from all the problems we encountered, as ever we had a great meeting, met up with old friends and picked up a few new ones along the way.  All that remains for us to say is that we have great fun organising the bike meetings and although they may be small, we have a great time.

Chris from Belgium said:

Back home since yesterday,after a great Europe trip (5790km in total).  The rally this year was another GREAT organisation from Andy and Alison (thanks for the food and the Coca Cola).  My mate Jef had also a wonderful time, he said.  Hope to see you next year to go together to Faro (as you know I’ll be in Australia next year in September) but don’t worry,we see each other again someday somewhere.

Now I know, that if people ask me why do you go so far for such a small meeting I can always say: because I know that I am going to meet wonderful people over there, and than it makes no difference how far I have to travel. If I go 150 km to my dealer for service and a coffee,I easily can go 2.500 km for a good week-end.  Thanks again.

Steve from El Borge said:

Hi Alison

I really enjoyed the day and would love to do some more. Please let me know when you are going out again.  Once again, thanks for the day out, I had a great time

Further info:

• David Pusey runs the The Royal British Legion Riders Branch here in Spain and they organise lots of local ride outs and events.  Although many of the members are Harley riders, they’ve invested in some F650’s and we’re hoping to take them out on some of our local routes in the not too distant future.
• Frank is from Holland and is moving to Spain in March next year to set up a new business offering on and off road bike tours.  He’s in the process of setting up his website and business called Triple A Events.
• Martin saved the day repairing Boris and is now our regular mechanic.  He specialises in Harley’s and having seen his work we thoroughly recommend him.  He can be contacted via email: harley-martin@hotmail.com.

The route will take you both on and off road across the roads, tracks and trails of this beautiful region.  You will be camping (possibly wild camping) at two different locations during the event so you must carry all the equipment that you think you will need.  We advise you to carry as little as possible – vehicle support is not permitted.  This event is suitable for every level whatever bike you ride.  Knobblies are not required!

We’ll be posting videos and web albums of some of the trails and roads you’ll be riding so keep checking back for more information.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Camping: Usual place – Camping Presa La Vinuela and again we would encourage sharing of pitches to reduce camp site costs.

Itinerary: We’ve realised over the past few years that people who come to our meeting like to have a relaxing time after long journeys here so the emphasis on the weekend will be to meet fellow travellers and generally have a relaxing time.

That said, we’ll be having the following presentations:

Geoff Shingleton – the unforgettable and colourful Mr Shingleton will be doing a presentation on what to do in the event of a bike accident. Crash Test Dummy will be his ever suffering volunteer and will attempt to play dead (or at least unconscious) while Geoff performs his magic and revives her. For those who haven’t seen his presentation, he can be seen on the Achievable Dream DVD which was filmed at a previous HU Spain meeting.

Geoff is a mine of information and his demo’s on changing a tyre are quite funny especially when requiring help from fellow bikers – how may men does it take to change a tyre?

And we may be in for a treat if Crash Test Dummy and Mr Shingleton have another ‘awesome’ profiterole fight – what a waste of profiteroles I say.

Steve & Sara have kindly offered to talk about their first trip to Morocco last year after leaving the 2009 meeting. Maybe we could also persuade Sara to do a demo on how to pick up a bike

Andy Makin will be having a small presentation entitled ‘What Samuel L Jackson taught me about Adventure Motorcycling’. He’s also become quite an expert at making Penny Stoves and whilst they are not easy to make ‘in the field’, he’ll have some Blue Peter specials available to demonstrate (here’s one I made earlier for the uneducated).

I hope to see all the usual suspects there – we may be a small meeting, but we know how to have fun – breakfast on Sunday morning.

And Rainer, if you’re coming, please bring your awesome wife with you because she is a fantastic masseuse and so say all of us.

We’ve not planned any routes yet, but we’ll make sure there’s a few ride outs arranged. Anybody up for riding the goat this year???

Any other volunteers or ideas, please let me know.

If you’ve never been to one of our meetings before, there’s plenty of photo’s of where we ride to look at on our website – Moto Andalucia with lots of photos of past meetings. Remember, it’s not how big it is, it’s how much fun you have