One of my friends went over the edge at the bottom of those steps. Lucky for him both he, and his bike, landed in a tree that was growing out of the cliff side.

I stumbled off the side of the Extreme Canal Tow Path – not something I’d care to repeat! I really didn’t have the low-speed balance to cope with that trail.

ECTP was a zen-like experience. Complete opposite of most of the weeks riding, I loved it.

That said, I’m not sure I’d have the guts to ride it all again. There was a certain element of not knowing what you were getting into 😯

I got a bit impatient with it, being committed to 4km of “oh no I can’t ride this” and having to carefully carry the bike on my back/shoulder without falling (which I failed to manage). It was the low-light of the trip for me, to be endured. Everything else was brill, even the pre-lunch death-march re-ascents!

I was disappointed to miss out the ET and the OCSR, they sounded awesome. But it was a sensible choice for me at that point. ECTP has blown my confidence and I was not at all comfortable on the back-up bike.

I have an excuse to go again!

pre-lunch death-march re-ascents

Despite those I actually managed to put weight on over the week.

Maybe I’ll have to bribe Jacky with crunchies for smaller helpings next time 😉

Thanks all for the advice. When scienceofficer said its like Parkamoor/Nibthwaite I thought it doesn’t sound too hard, but some of the comments since are making me nervous!

Definately going to take pads then!

Jez – yep group of 6 heading out saturday. Think our biggest issue at the moment is packing bikes below the weight limit. 20kg didn’t sound too bad till we started adding things up!

I’m assuming they do, but do Ciclo have clothes washing facilites? If so I guess clothing needed will be minimal – 2 pairs of bibs, 2 pairs of baggys, couple of jerseys, waterproof jacket, plus casual stuff? Anything in particular you would recommend clothing wise?

I’m probably taking them anyway, but is everyone on dual ply tyres?

Cheers

We were all on hans dampf tyres, jackie will do your washing if you as nicely, my bike bag came in at 29kg and the holdall was 13kg, easy jet were cool as we’d pre booked the bikes

we’ve prebooked but with monarch, there’s a 20kg limit for bikes, then 20kg again for the bag. bike+box/bag is tight at 20kg! you must have had a load of other stuff in there to get it to 29kg?

We used to take a bottle of hand wash stuff ( actually a small tube) washed in the sink and hung on the line. Worked well for us.
Gone were the days you put pedals and heavy stuff in the hand luggage. We flew Monarch and some of us were very heavy and they didnt penalise us, so you might be lucky.Some bike boxes weigh more than the bikes !!

We were thinking of possibly putting heavy stuff in hold bag if needs be, forks, pedals, cranks etc. That would be ok I’m guessing? Are you saying monarch don’t enforce the 20kg limit? I’ll give them a ring later

No, didnt say that, they just never really weighed them, as went to oversized luggage. one guy even had a bottle of meths in his bag for disc cleaning 😯

Thought i’d better say hello and a massive thanks also to Marco and Jacky for an amazing week. I can recall the nervous silence in the van each day on the way to more exposure and the thought of certain death. Great rocky, tech singletrack. My rear wheel will never be the same again!

Thanks to the rest of the Monkeys and the other guys who were with us too, Dhana, Trem, Mark and Brian. Dhana can become an honorary Singletrackmonkey after his completion of the Elephants tail with us.

Hi duner,
Jacky offers a wash service for a few euros.

Forecast looks pretty good…starting cool with a few showers on Saturday but then dry and warming up through the week.

Evenings might still be a bit chilly so a fleece or something for the walk up to the bar (if you’ve got the energy!). Some rides go quite high so deffo a shower/windproof. I’ll sometimes take a mid layer of some sort too (Endura jacket thing) if it’s on the cooler side.

I don’t use dual-plys myself, but it’s pretty tough on tyres so probably wise.

We went with easyjet, and although they weighed all our hold bags(including the bikes) they didn’t seem bother that some of us were overweight. Personally I’d not want to take the chance but YMMV.

The evenings were a little chilly, and a fleece or similar is certainly prudent. I think during the actual riding I used my wind-proof twice at re-group stops.

Our group had a number of punctures, mostly the tubed boys, although I managed to acquire a cut through the tread of my racing ralph. As candodavid has said we we mostly running Hans dampfs with snakeskin sidewalls – no problems with them.

Marco runs Maxxis Larsens. He reckons he gets about a month from one of them.

Looking at the tread on my Dampfs is say they’ve taken some damage from the gravelly trails, much more than they get from our dirt trails. Not surprised now to hear that Marco is changing tyres every month.

Cheers Col! Just need to make some time for my first ride with you guys once I’m back in The Shire. Swinley forest just isn’t the same after Spain.

A couple of us stayed in the casa by the fountain. It has a washing machine and we bought some washing tabs to use while we were there. Not a bad idea to take some handwash liquid for your tech fabric stuff.

@duner We flew BA. They penalised us for being over the 23kg limit from Gatwick, but a couple of other guys who flew BA on the way out weren’t. Our luggage was not weighed on the way back from Malaga. We flew Monarch the year before and they just sent us to the oversize baggage check in on the way out and didn’t care that we were over the weight limit. Seems like luck of the draw.

Tyre choice, well, the Hans Dampfs were great. Perhaps my Flow EX rims were a bit overkill, but I’d definitely take them with me again. 785mm bars were probably not ideal for some of the more tech sections, but I think Dave was running 800mm bars with no problems. More about skill than anything really.

It’s a skill choosing the right kit.

;o)