| photos : GPS tracks | 2022 visit

We made two mountain-biking trips to GC, in March 2014 and April-May 2022, about a fortnight each time. This page contains a little general information and an account of our 2014 rides. A companion page describes our 2022 rides (including routes we did both times).

General notes

Legality: we have heard contradictory reports concerning the legality of off-road cycling in GC (it’s essentially impossible in Tenerife), and we have reason to suspect that the rules changed between our two visits. While planning our 2022 visit we asked for clarification from the tourist board, and received a categorical reply: “Mountain biking is permitted everywhere”. (Even so, we got shouted at by some roadies, whose information may have been out of date.)

Maps: on our first visit we used the Kompass map (no. 237). On our second we also used the publicpress.de map of the south. We rode with GPS on our second trip, downloading routes from Wikiloc and elsewhere.

GPS: we had no GPS on our first visit. In order to record our routes we downloaded tracks from the internet. We believe these correspond to the routes we cycled but cannot guarantee. On our second trip we used Wikiloc and other sources to plan our routes, and recorded our own tracks for inclusion here.

Accommodation: we stayed in rental houses; near Valsequillo and at Chira during our first trip; near Santa Lucia and near Ayagaures on our second. Three of the four had pools. We also spent a night at the Vecindario Elba airport hotel during our second visit, and it was perfectly suitable.

Transport: we hired cars on both occasions.

Weather: the north and east trap cloud and rain during wet spells, including most of our time at Valsequillo, so we had little choice but to drive over the watershed to the south west; the clouds roll over the ridges and disperse in the drier air.

Bike shops: Freemotion in Maspalomas have two large shops and organise tours, as do some other companies.

Food can be hit-and-miss. There are delicious Canarian specialities (often vegetable-based), but restaurants are prone to serving meaty main courses. We recommend papas arrugadas, potaje, ropa vieja and garbonzada and tapas dishes often offered as starters.

Cruz Llanos de la Pez, Cruz de Tejeda.Sun 16th.

Took the road towards Vega San Mateo, then took first L turn up minor road towards La Lechucilla. This was one turn earlier than we’d intended and this we would only recommend for masochists as it involves eyewateringly steep section. Continued on minor road and joined GC-600, then rode up through pine forest to summit. Tried to ride as much as possible in the shade because guess what, we forgot to take the suncream.

Ate at La Cumbre restaurant 500m on S side. The papas arrugadas are ok here but avoid the spag. Then on road towards Cruz de Tejeda, but picking up ridge footpath just before Mirador de Bercerra. (It may be possible to pick up this path earlier). This was our first experiment with riding on footpaths. This was an excellent run of singletrack, a great ride and fantastic views. From Cruz de Tejeda we followed the road back home except for a small diversion on path cutting the corner of the GC-230/600 junction that didn’t look too steep on the map. This was nice.

nice rocks

Mon 17th. Cruz de Tejeda – Tejeda – Artenara : [GPS track]

Drove to the pass. Did the ridge path in the reverse direction, then down on the track to Llanos de Garanon, which was easy, followed by the continuation past the Embalse, which wasn’t, consisting of rock built steps, sometimes a push, down to reservoir then a long push up rocks to the road. Road to Tejeda, nice lunch on the main square. Road to Artenara, then tried to find the track back but it looked a bit of a push to start so we took the road instead. Cloud building up over the N side.

Tues 18th. Montana de los Cardos – La Gavia

Road ride to summit between Valsequillo and San Mateo, then followed the road/track down towards La Gavia. It’s road for a km or two and then the ridge track becomes dirt. This was a good ride, technical in places. Continue downhill to La Gavia and plummet steeply through the village. Followed by toilsome uphill ride back to Valsequillo. Lunch at house and lazy afternoon.

Weds 19th. Cruz de Tejeda – Artenara – Cruz de Tejeda : [GPS track]

Ridge path

Drove to Cruz de Tejeda. Then along ridge footpath towards Artenara. This is brilliant, very precipitous but pretty with forests and shrubs. Fantastic views. Pay careful attention to the route if you want to follow the edge path because the signposts tend to point you down the doubletrack. Some of the edge FP (esp just after the cave) is too technical for us anyway. End with twisty steep loose path to Atenara. The restaurant on the square (Tamabada) with the view is good, serves big portions. Back along the track south of the main road. This is very remote, very quiet and beautiful but descends a lot then climbs steeply. Back on the old road to the Cruz (the new road is a soul-destroying ramp).

Roque Nublo

Thu 20th. Pico de las Nieves – Caldera de las Marteles.

Drove to Cruz Llanos. Road up to the Pico de las Nieves summit, past the golfball, look at view into Tirajana. Backtrack, then R on GC 135 (gravel) towards the big red masts. Road continues as dirt downhill on edge of Caldera de Urian (?) following the “main ” track. The tracks don’t quite correspond exactly with the map but we followed this to where it abandons its track nature and becomes a steep path to Sta Lucia. We reversed but took a R to take an alternative way back. We got back to a junction we’d passed earlier where there is a footpath sign. The “La Calderilla” sign appears to point not to the track but to a path between two lengths of low wall – a typical signifier of a path start. This was a short but very enjoyable singletrack curving round the inlet valley and emerging at a junction in woods. We took the natural continuation round and down, which put us on a deep gravel section above the small settlement Los Bucios and to the main road. The track we emerged on has a private property sign so maybe we had taken a wrong turn, but this seems to be marked as a waymarked trail on the map. This is by the volcanic hole of the Caldera de las Marteles. Rode back up to the Cruz via the road, a vicious little climb.

After lunch we tried out the track from Llanos towards Cruz Grande. Wonderful wide stone “camino real” that ends up at a rock plateau, the track plunging down in a steep zigzag. We turned back here. This was a great technical trail – we returned the next week to do it all.

Fri 21st. Ayacata – Cruz de Huesita – Ayacata

Teide

The clouds encroached more over the crest today driving us further south. We drove to near Ayacata, rode the circuit down through Juncal, over the Cruz de Huesita and back to the main road. from Juncal it was a gravel sort of track, very quiet. Lunch at the spaghetti den at Ayacata with a horde of roadies.

Cruz de Timagada – Tejeda

There were a lot of roadies about today. In search of something more interesting we tried the path from Cruz de Timagada to Tejeda. This was generally pretty steep, and not much of it was rideable by us, though the minority rideable portions were good fun.

Sat 22

nice rocks

Cuevas de Corcho to Teror.

(Transferred from Valsequillo to Chira). Drove through San Mateo, to junction of GC-421 and GC-400 (we parked a km before the junction.) Climb quite steeply through Arinez to junction with GC-230. Downhill a couple of km to Cuevas do Corcho, then pick up footpath. This is excellent and not a secret to local mtb-ers. Beware of a sort of junction after a great little run on rocks – you must take the left fork to cross the ridge. (If you head right you get to an unrideable rock. ) Whizzy bermed descent. After this we tried the continuation of the path that starts just after the Bar in Lanzarote.

Lush valley

This is a very narrow footpath descending in a broad curve in a lovely lush tight valley. There is a fork : the L seems to go nowhere, the R descends to meet a section of concrete road, a push up out of the valley to a little more road, descend, a steep path to the stream then cross for a whizzy singletrack section, and onto the road to Teror.

Sun 23 Obvious Chira ride.

From Chira south on the GC 604 which gives up the tar soon after the dam wall. To think, we thought of driving to Maspalomas this way! We have seen quite a few bemused car-bound tourists stop here who clearly fell for it as well. The track is fairly straightforward, but we half planned on doing the path that cuts a corner and did this inadvertently anyway. It starts like the continuation of the road but narrows alarmingly to a precipice before looking like it is totally going nowhere, but heads back away from the edge and down very steeply. Back on main track, which drops a little then climbs again to a ridge end. Great views of the pair of cliffs flanking the ends of the gorge. The track goes up fairly steeply in a rock cutting, then emerges onto a plateau. At an enclosure here take the faint double track to the R and follow this. This is a little more technical than the outward ride, with rock sections, and a longer climb. Climb to a mirador, then descend to junction. Here, the R takes you to the summit of the ridge which is a rocky crag, the map shows a path coming right up here but it surely can’t. We failed to see anything of the “ridge” path but it must exist because FreeMotion use it. Descend to Chira and lunch.

Mon 24 Degollada de los Hornos – Cruz Grande (Camino de Santiago)

See the notes from our 2022 visit.

Tue 25. Sardina – Barranco de Tirajana

We had to do a drive in order to get food. We drove to San Bart, but there are no supermarkets here just a panaderia. We rode down the road towards Sardina and up the Barranco del Tirajana – which we don’t recommend. A more intelligent reader of the map would have seen it is a dry river bed all the way up. It is a tough ride on smooth river stones and brings you to the base of the Tirajana Emblase from where there is a very evil concrete mountain.

Wed 26. Montana de la Data – Barranco de Fataga

For the shopping expedition attempt 2 we drove to Maspalomas (nearly an hour) down the Fataga valley. Rode up the Montana de la Data road (a knife-edge ridge) then down to Ayaguares, then what we thought would be a road is still roughstuff. This was a good ride, the scenery still pretty spectacular this close to the resort coast. Then into town for lunch – the main drag is a slightly depressing prospect but we found a halfway posh place near the south end of the drag. Dropped in on FreeMotion to extract info, and then to the big SPAR to shop for food.

Thu 27 Cruz Grande – Degollada de la Manzanilla.

This ride comprises three stretches we revisited in 2022 and describe on the companion page. Starting from Cruz Grande, we rode the Degollada de Manzanilla, and then made a cycle of the La Culata loop. We had lunch in San Bart and in the afternoon ill-advisedly returned to Cruz Grande along a section of the Camino de Santiago which makes much more sense in the opposite direction, and which we rode in this sense on our later visit.

Fri 28th

Colin on rocks

Double-pipe

Tracey on rocks

How better to spend our wedding anniversary than with some insane roughstuff? The forecast was rain but we knew to avoid the rain by heading south. So we drove to Embalse Cuevas de las Ninas, them rode down the doubletrack to Soria. Nontrivial track with some fun, and great cliffs to look at too. Steep road climb out (Tracey trying to pursue roadie but only just failing). Then possible naughty cutting across the juction from the Embalse Salto de Perro – very narrow rocky path that goes through deep wavy green grass. Meets a gravel track after halway then follow this.

Dinner at Chira

In afternoon, weather ok to ride but not swim so we did the walk described in a leaflet in the house. Steep concrete climb out of the village then rocky narrow path then entertainingly narrow path down to dam ( we rode about 20 cm of this ). After the dam the walk goes stright up to meet the track we’d come down on Sunday – too steep to ride so we took the track instead where it meets the path at a water works place – then you follow the obvious path that in fact is built over a double water pipe. This was a very strange ride indeed. It is certainly almost all rideable but a little unnerving and towards the end we were not at all convinved it was right. Indeed I didn’t dare to look at the leaflet (which would have confirmed its pipely nature). Ends between two concrete tanks where there really is a path down between – to an amused local. Concrete-mountain back home.

Sat 29th

Flight back was 6pm so we got a road-ride up and down the Barranco Guayadeque, a nice lush valley with cave houses. Restaurant Tagoror at the top is good, big portions of tasty potaje and ropa vieja and a very calorific banana and ice cream dessert.

GPS tracks

index : El Diablo : Fataga : Arguineguín : Artenara : Ayagaures–Arteara : Bumpy Barranco : Camino de Santiago : Chira loop : Degollada de Manzanilla : Embalse de Tirajana : La Culata : Las Tederas : Los Hornos : Los Palmitos : San Bart : Sorrueda : Yegua trail

| photos : GPS tracks | 2022 visit