Mountain Biking in the Spring Sunshine

After months of being a MTB widower, my partner Nigel decided that it was high time to get a bike of his own, and join in on the fun. So a couple of weeks back we set off the the local Trek store in Gandia, and after an bit of negotiating he decided on a new 2013 Trek 4300 Disc.
Frame Alpha Gold Aluminum w/semi-integrated head tube, butted and hydroformed tubing, internal front derailleur cable routing, replaceable derailleur hanger
Front suspension SR Suntour XCM w/30mm stanchions, coil spring, preload adjustment, 100mm travel
Wheels Formula DC20 alloy front hub; Formula DC22 LW alloy rear hub w/Bontrager AT-650 32-hole double-walled rims
Tires Bontrager XR2, 26×2.2″
Shifters Shimano Acera, 9 speed
Cassette Shimano HG20 11-34, 9 speed
Brakeset Hayes Dyno Sport hydraulic disc brakes

Thus equipped with his new toy, he has set about getting biking fit, and had a couple of trip around the orchards locally, and then last week we had a ride down to the beach for a spot of lunch in the spring sunshine.

This weeks route (preparation for our first mini-epic on Sunday) started from the Villa Florencia, and then followed the quiet roads through Marchuquera, and on to the villages of Palma de Gandia, Ador and then finally VillaLonga where we stopped for a break and to rehydrate.

For the return journey, we retraced part of the route back to the CV-60, and then decided to visit the Monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba, It is one of the most notable monastic constructions of the Valencian Community. In the village of Alfauir, some eight kilometres out of Gandia in the direction of Albaida is the monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba. The monastery has its origins in Xàbia, where in 1374 Pope Gregory XI authorised its foundation to some hermit monks. Originally commissioned by the Royal Duke of Gandia Alfonso of Aragon and Foix in 1388 to save the friars from attacks by Berber pirates which they had been suffering whilst they lived in Xàbia. The family and the two wives of the well-known Valencian medieval poet Ausiàs March are buried in this monastery.
Afterwards, in 16th century, the monastery will have the protection of the Borgia family, being the Duchess of Gandia, Maria Enríquez de Luna, the one that realized works of extension in the monastery.

After a brief stop we continued on a track that passes through a small wooded area, some technical riding just to keep the minds focused. Then it was just the final 5km pedal to bring us back home in time for a nice cuppa!
Totals for the Ride:
Trip :- 25.3km
Max :- 30.9
Time :- 1:32:35
Odo :- 920km
A fantastic day out in the Spanish spring sunshine!

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WordPress 3.6 Beta 1

Testing starts on WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 , new environment for testing Suffusion integration.

I have created a second testing environment, specifically for testing the Twenty Thirteen theme,….WordPress 3.6B1 2013

Over the coming days I will be thrashing the new release and checking full integration with Suffusion & all plug-ins that are in use across all sites,….

WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 is now available!
Here’s what’s new in 3.6:

• Post Formats:  Post Formats now have their own UI, and theme authors have access to templating functions to access the structured data.
• Twenty Thirteen: We’re shipping this year’s default theme in our first release of the year. Twenty Thirteen is an opinionated, color-rich, blog-centric theme that makes full use of the new Post Formats support.
• Audio/Video: You can embed audio and video files into your posts without relying on a plugin or a third party media hosting service.
• Autosave:  Posts are now autosaved locally. If your browser crashes, your computer dies, or the server goes offline as you’re saving, you won’t lose the your post.
• Post Locking:  See when someone is currently editing a post, and kick them out of it if they fall asleep at the keyboard.
• Nav Menus:  Nav menus have been simplified with an accordion-based UI, and a separate tab for bulk-assigning menus to locations.
• Revisions: The all-new revisions UI features avatars, a slider that “scrubs” through history, and two-slider range comparisons.

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Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

Welcome to the Ubuntu ‘Raring Ringtail‘ development release.
Codenamed “Raring Ringtail”, 13.04 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

This is still a BETA release. Do not install it on production machines.
To get started, press Alt – F2 on your keyboard to open the command prompt. When it opens, run the commands below and press Enter to open upgrade manager.

update-manager -d

Testing
Please help to test this development snapshot and report problems back to the developers. For more information about testing Ubuntu, please read:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing

I started the upgrade process 11:00 am. The upgrade process took approximately 2hrs, to complete the downloading and installation of the new Ubuntu 13.04. Unfortunately, upon the restart there where some problems,…..Lots of error messages and blank screens,…and having to manually select the image to boot from,….Investigations revealed that there was a problem with the newest version of the Generic Linux kernel image Version 3.8.0.9.23,…
Resolution was to install the Synaptic Package Manager and Remove Generic Linux kernel image Version 3.8.0.9.23 and then the re-boot defaulted to linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic,… problem solved!
By 18:00 I had a fully functioning machine back online.

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Today’s mountain biking trip started in La Drova, and we then climbed up and over to Pinet, the first 10 km are mostly a mixture of surfaced and unsurfaced tracks. With some steady steep climbing to get the pulse going and then some beautiful high mountain riding, followed by the bracing descent into the village of Pinet. Here we stopped for a coffee and to discuss the rest of the route for the day,….

The following 17km, was mostly off-road mountain track through forests and orchards, we skirted the next village, and picked up a “new” track that avoided a nasty stretch of busy road between the following 2 villages. This new part of the route, was rough track that demanded due care and attention but supplied an exhilarating ride to a beautiful shady/sunny spot by a stream in the forest, where we stopped for a well earned lunch. A very sunny 20 degrees Celsius in the winter sunshine.

Post lunch we set off for the climb up to the “Refugio” in the mountains,.. a stiff steep climb on very demanding terrain, followed by a technical descent to the climbing Refugio,.. here we stopped for refreshment and to take a break and get our heads into the right state for the descent.

Re-hydrated and regrouped, we set off down the mountain again via a technically demanding track that descends down to the next valley. I have not ridden this section of the route in more that 6 months and it was great to be back and be able to see the improvements in my mountain biking skills,… “technically demanding” is so much more fun when one is feeling fit and strong!

We stopped for another break in the next village, not because we needed one but, the days are longer now, and there was plenty of warmth in the day, so why not just spend a while enjoying the surroundings,… Next, it was the final leisurely climb through the forest and back to our starting point for the day. By 17:00 and with 40km on the clock we were back and Dave’s front door!
All that was left now, was for me to get back down the mountain to my own front door, another 6 km of free-wheeling downhill mayhem,…
Totals for the day :

• Trip 46.3km,
• Ride-Time 3:37:44,
• Max Speed 40.6kmph,  Ave Speed 12.82kmph
• Odometer 640km.

A fantastic day mountain biking, with great company, in the winter sunshine.

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Mountain Biking in the Jalon Valley Spain

So why the month off you may ask,….
I have been preparing for,… participating in,… and recovering from,.. the 2013 Gandia Km Vertical, that took place on the 13 January, a gruelling mountain race over 12km with an ascent of 1000m. My knees were a little shot post race so was ORDERED to REST!

So, on Tuesday, well rested and fully recovered, we set off (after out usual morning coffees) from the village of Jalon, the first 12 km was a steady climb from the Jalon Valley Spain, on a good surfaced road (CV-749), we had previously explored the off-road options on this section of the route, so were eager to get to the “new” section, and seeing as I had not been in the saddle for a while, having a good steady pedal seems to make sense.

We stopped for a early lunch, and then went off-road,… some beautiful, remote, technically challenging sections followed before the next part of the climb to get even higher,… more tracks and steady climb, and finally some very impressive views in a multitude of directions, and yes we could actually see the island of Ibiza in the distance.

A short break follow at a viewing point, and then we tackled the descent, a lovely sweeping stoney track of some 6-8 km to bring us back down to sea level, and a final 5km through the orchards to bring us back in the Village of Jalon. A 30km round trip that has again reminded me why I love to Mountain Bike in Spain.

Alicante Mountain Biking The diversity of the Alicante countryside provides endless possibilities for some superb guided cross-country mountain bike trips. The choice of terrain includes remote high mountain country with rocky tracks, lush green river valleys, tracks through ancient Mediterranean forests and coastal routes.

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