Anyone been, any good?

Nope, but if it’s near Alicante, Martin at the bike shop in Xabia knows some good routes.

I’d be interested myself, the outlaws live down that way.

Its more of a road bike area into the mountains behind Benidorm.

There is a private bike park with downhill runs and limited cross country routes near Alicante,but i can’t remember its name.

The best mtb area is down the road to the Sierra Espuna,about 90 minutes away.Orange test prototypes there.

Camping Sierra Espuna is the best base and they can give you loads of advice.

Been lots as my OH’s dad has a house in the area. Lovely place, I’ve never really looked into the mountain biking around and about but as already mentioned, it does seem to be popular with Roadies. The Col de rates is a nice little challenge 🙂

Stayed in jalon many many times but always go with family so never looked into MTB, there are lots of tracks all over and some great landscape but only ever seen one group riding MTB, locals on a sunday. Area is full of roadies normally, have done a couple of quad treks from calpe, would have made a great MTB ride out with some great decents and climbs

A group of us are out there in a couple of weeks, road bike thing though.
These people do guided mtb rides out of Calpe.

http://www.solybike.com/index_en.html

Got this link on the site, but its all in Spanish.

http://www.ciclostonycalpe.com/index.html

If your’e riding out of Calpe don’t forget to call at the German bar at the top of the Col du Rates.

It would be an insult not to EGF. 😀

Is that Verde Vent? If not add Verde Vent to your list.

Huge Sunday lunch with as much cheap red wine as you can drink 🙂

It would be an insult not to EGF.

I’ve never actually ridden it, but have been up there a few times by car & noticed all the ‘roadie writing’ on the road so know It’s a popular ride. Went into the cafe one Sunday lunchtime, bit misty & cool outside. Full of Germans (obviously) but there was an English bloke with a Scottish female ‘partner’ singing folk songs while we were eating sauerkraut & pork.
Was a bit surreal at the time.

Cheers guys. Folks have just got a place out there. I know the Spanish road riding association type people are based in Denia and figured there would be a lot of roadies.

Looks like it will be worth taking the bike at some point.

Thanks again.

esselgruntfuttock – Member
If your’e riding out of Calpe don’t forget to call at the German bar at the top of the Col du Rates.

Yep – sounding better and better the closer it gets .. 😆

I’d second the place at Verdi Vent (a couple of miles away from Jalon) for food £17 for a set menu and it was superb (you need to book in advance).

I can give you a couple of local routes that we rode, one is near Benissa (only a few miles away) and was short but very good (we did it twice). The 2nd is in the hills above Xabia/Javea.

Some routes would be great, cheers.

Went to the Siera Espuna region in ’07 and had a couple of rides with some local (orange) people. If you get my drift 😉

Could be a part of the world I start visiting regulary, once the twins are a bit bigger.

I’ve done the Javea route B.A.Nana mentions above, good fun.

The best source locally is Xabia Bikes in Xabia/Javea, you can do rides with them and/or get local routes from them, you can also hire good bikes from them. They have a facebook page. There is a pdf of local routes on their website, but neither of the routes we did appear on their list, so I presume the ones they have published are easy and/or totally legal routes. The best stuff will be word of mouth I suspect.
If you’ve already been to the area, then it all looks as though it should be very good for MTB. unfortunately, the maps are a bit rubbish and there don’t appear to be any local guidebooks, like we have in the UK. But, as in the UK, all the best stuff will be locals knowledge. I’ve heard good things about Guadalest, which is not too far away.

What I know about Jalon, apart from Verdi Vent, which is excellent, we went to the big flea market which is on a Saturday I think. Also, the local Bodegas sells really good cheap red wine in 2L plastic containers. That’s about it.

I’ll try and sort out those two routes for you, probably just a rough line on a map I’m afraid. Both these routes were given to us by the Xabia Bikes bloke. Mugboo^ went out on one of their Sat afternoon rides. I’ve got a load of gps files or something that someone emailed me (might have been portlyone) which I’ll email to you if you want them, but I think they are the same as the routes detailed on the Xabia Bikes website.

This is the Benissa one that starts a short distance away from Jalon (you could probably ride there on your bike), it’s a couple of hours ride (max) and we thought is was pretty good as a short blast route with a few interesting tech bits.

Description as I recall it: Park just after you pass over (might have been under?) the motorway. Ride up a track that is a Utility access road (I think it went to some houses as well). The track continues/heads up the hillside (this Utility access track is very visible on the hillside from miles away) to a concrete view point. continue up on the track/concrete drive to and just beyond a chainlink fence type thing. On the left is an obvious little track/path, take this. continue along the track, any junctions enroute, always go/trend left. It will eventually come out back at the road. ride back down the road to your car.

top section of the utility track up the hillside

The view point

The chainlink fence and start of singletrack trail

some of the trail (it was starting to get dark)

Sorry BA never thanked you for this cheers. Might get out this summer, if we can sort the logistics with the kids.