Gandia Concentracion

The usual Sunday rideouts and morning meetings are called Matinals (I think Matinal is Valencian for Morning), so if there is a 'Concentracion', then this is a weekend do. Last weekend, from Friday to Sunday, there was a big meeting in Gandia. We missed the evening and daytime events, arriving for just the Sunday.

It was excellent (as usual). There was a large bbq, for breakfast baps, and the usual drinks, T-shirts etc. The only odd thing, was that if you wanted coffee, you had to queue on one side of the same kiosk that sold the cold drinks, and queue on another side for the cold drinks! Very odd! This time, there were several stands selling bikes, and a much bigger selection of stands selling clothes and other accessories.

The location was in a big park, and as we arrived, a lady was trying to swing from the children's rings on the climbing frame. A man was trying to show her how to do it, but she failed miserably. To our amusement, Paco stepped up, and swung from the bottom to the top, turned around, and made his way back, stopping en route, to lift himself upside down (using his abs)and then finishing with a grand dismount. Everyone clapped. I asked him for a repeat show later, to film, which was good, but not quite so spectacular.

This time, we decided to go out on the ride-out that they always organise. This, as we suspected, turned out to be a slow crawl through the streets, ending up with arm pump from playing the clutch! It was good though. There were loads of people lining the street, clapping and cheering, many of them filming. Had I been on the back of Ed, I would have been able to get some great photo's, but I'm not organised enough to use 2 hands to ride a bike, and take photos at the same time. However, I did manage to wave for the cameras.

On the way home, we took the scenic (bendy) route, and had great fun. The only bad bit, was as we rode over the dam. The smell was awful. A terrible sewage/sulphur smell. I have a geocache hidden near here, no wonder only a few people have bothered to find it so far!