Exploring the trails of Tenerife this Christmas
This winter I spent 18 days mountain biking around the southern parts of Tenerife including one loop around the volcano Teide.
 |
| That's Teide (the volcano) in the background |
Contents
- Tips about where to stay on Tenerife and where the good singletrack is
- Some of the best trails with Strava links and videos
- My epic New Year's ride around the volcano
- My crash :(
Summary
This trip turned out great. The weather was perfect, the trails were great and I had a lot of fun. As you can tell by the amount of cycling that I did. Score: 10/10. Would revisit this place for sure.
Total days: 18
Sunny days / Rainy days: 18 / 0 (one rainy night)
Total distance: 1378 km in total, 77 km/day
Total time: 91 hours, 5.1 hours/day
Total climbing: 25661 m, 1426 m/day
Total crashes: 1
Strava KOMs: 10
Plus and Minus
The plusses and minuses are in relation to other winter mountain biking destinations that I've tried like Gran Canaria, Chiang Mai in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Plus
+ Cheap to fly to
+ No jetlag
+ Pleasant climate, not too cool, not too hot (one rainy night during my stay of 18 days)
+ Safe car drivers (they're used to cyclists on the roads)
+ Big selection of singletrack
+ Challenging downhill segments
Minus
- A lot of traffic in the cities
- Just 'okay' food
- Restaurants are expensive
- Expensive accommodations (I was lucky finding a cheap apartment but some are really expensive)
 |
| Safe traffic |
IMPORTANT if you visit Tenerife: Weather!
Average rainy days in December: North side of the island: 8 South side of the island: 1
If you're going here over the winter make sure you stay on the south part of the island
On so many days when I would ride on the south side of the island I would see dark clouds forming over the mountains north. But they never came down towards the sea and it never rained.
 |
| Example of weather being bad over the mountains |
Where are the good trails?
I stayed where the red arrow points. The green area is where you want to stay.
The green part is fairly flat and has a lot of fun singletrack. If you want more serious downhill you can go just north of it.
I stayed in the big city which was not optimal as riding in and out of it, to get to the trails, meant I had to handle a lot of traffic each time. If I had to chose again I would try to stay out of the bigger towns.
Favorite loop
This is a loop that I rode a few times. It has my favorite parts in it. The fun cliff downhill north of town, the airport downhill to the sea, and the fun singletrack close to the lighthouse.
Here's the Strava link if you wish to borrow the GPX:
Loop at Adeje / Caleta
First a technical and a bit dangerous downhill followed by a tough climb.
 |
| You actually ride up on top of that cliff and need to turn left before the 30 meter drop |
Downhill past airport to the sea
This is a lovely downhill segments with some jumps, drops and berms which ends up running down a canyon. See photos below.
Epic New Year's Eve ride: Looping the Volcano
I try to do an Epic New Year's Eve ride every year. This year I decided to loop Teide. I turned out pretty epic.
I started out from my base as soon as the sun rose, without breakfast. After 40km and 2000m of altitude gain I had breakfast in Vilaflor which consisted of two pieces of cake.
I was unsure about how the possibilities of refreshments and water were while going around the volcano so I picked up two powerbars as well which I put in my back pocket.
About 20km later I got to the lookout point called Boca Tauce where the loop around the volcano starts and ends. There were some Spanish tourists there, a man and a woman with their tiny dog, who let me fill up my water bottle from their big jug of water. This turned out to be very fortunate as I was not able to find any water anywhere while going around the volcano.
The loop around the volcano starts with this paved road that goes through an old lava field. Soon however you turn left off the main road and onto a gravel road that goes through the forest.
I did make it down safely and arrived back at my apartment at after 8 in the evening.
Crash on the last ride
On my last ride, the same day I was flying back home just a few hours later, I crashed on a rocky downhill segment that I'd done about 10 times before. There were some loose stones that just bounced the wrong way this particular time. I went down head first and my helmet saved me. My helmet and my nose. Ouch!
Photo dump
