Gran Canaria

Did 4 spins over Christmas. Will post up photos in the photo thread if I get around to it. Home base was Meloneras. Hired a hybrid, Connondale Quick 1 Disk, I think, (last minute change from road bike) from Free Motion. All good with them.

Spin 1: Warm up
Maspolomas out to El Doctoral on GC500, then up GC65 to Ayacata via Santa Lucia and San Bartolme (GC60 from there). A good starting climb. Back down on GC605, taking the left turn past the "no cycling" signs on the nice steep zig zags down to GC505. Then down the "alpe du huez" zig zags and long nearly flat run out to the coast and back to base via GC500.

A good opening spin. Only stops were for map reading, but plenty of opportunities in the villages, and good scenery.

Spin 2: Top of the Island
Head for the top... straight into it up (and down and up) GC60 via Fataga, and then repeating the upper section from San Bartolme to Ayacata. Turned onto GC600 there, and OMG finally found the steep stuff. Was down to secons lowest gear at one or two points. Once passed the parking sports for Rogue Nublo the slopes returned to something a bit less intense. Onto GC130, then GC134 to the top. Great views up there. started the return on GC130. Nice flowy descent. Intended to take the turn onto GC120, but confused myself with map reading too fast and missed it. So ended up North of the Airport in Telde a lot further from Meloneras than intended. Headed down GC100, which was actually grand for cycling. Luckily headwind wasn't too bad, and managed to make it back before sunset (just). Saw much more of the island than intended. Big day!

Spin 3: VOTT
Headed out for Puerto de Mogan on GC500. Enjoyed this section a lot. Lifted the bike over the barriers and joined about 100 people (99 walkers, one other cyclist!) on the closed section from Tarito to PdM. Cycled it all. Very obvious why it was closed to cars! Then up GC200 to Mogan itself, and onwards to La Aleda de San Nickolas. Took a while to make it to here, as lots of up and down, but very enjoyable roads for cycling. Then onto GC210 and Valley of the Tears. Big deterioration in road quality, but hardly mattered. some nice steep section up past 2 damns. Going passed the second of them I was thinking I had the back broken on the climbs as the views were really opening up. Boy was I wrong. Map check at the juntion of GC606 and realised I was going up it. Holy feck. I have rarely ever needed to use the bottom gear on a road cycle, but I must have been 20 minutes climbing here on the floor. And it kept on giving. Definitely the toughest climb I found, but so so rewarding. Views were super. And yes, there is no shop/cafe anywhere on the climb, so be aware of that. By the time I had topped out and was descending into Ayacata I knew I had done enough for the day, so descended down the previous spin's climb on GC60, with one or two little kicker climbs on the way to keep things honest.

A super spin, but doing it as a big loop like this is a big day out. Free Motion drive people out to Mogan and start the "loop" from there on their spin. Well worth it though.

Spin 4: "Alpe Du Huez"
Out a short section GC500 along the coast to Santa Agueda, and then up the valley along day 1's decent on GC505 with a gentle climb to Las Filipinas. All grand to there, then the climb kicks in. Nice relentless zig zagging climb of about 600 meters to Barabquillo Andres. A left turn there onto the poor quality "no cycling" road, which kicks up even steeper. Onto 2nd from bottom gear for a lot of this. Not quite as steep as VOTT, but nearly! Bt the time the road reaches the GC605 junction about 1000 meters has been climbed. Up GC605 to Ayacata seemed much easier than anticipated after that. Took a long-cut back, branching off GC60 at San Bartolome to head to Santa Lucia, where I took my first and last ice cream stop. Then cliumbed out on GC550. Took that to the GC551 junction just before Aguimes, taking that back to return onto GC65. Returned from there back along GC500 and dropped the bike back.

An easier day, but still plenty of interest. A good mix of harder and easier sections.

Overall it was superb. I think Tenerife is probably a bit harder in general, but GC has more variety. Both make for excellent cycling holidays.

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Can't believe you didn't go MTB'ing?

Yeah, I'd heard so much about how epic GC is for MTBing from Robin his crew for years before I ever got there. My first trip there many many years ago had me hiring a MTB and exploring under my own steam. That was the days before useful portable online mapping sites, or indeed any useful mapping of any kind that I could find, so anything I found was near random. I only "discovered" LOTR on a descent in an ultra running race there a few years ago... epic trail though! I wasn't able to figure out where TF I had managed to get to on my first trip on my most recent one though, dammit!

They've built a wall at the broken road in Playa de Mogan now.
You need to ride 2km on the GC-1 to get to Mogan.

Katie Butler on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2172780328

YouTube Evidence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS8r_hgHOks

In fairness, it's for our own safety. Who wants to be the one on it when it collapses even more?

Anatoly wrote: »

Planning this route next week so glad to know it'll be a few 100m less of climbing for the day.

Is it technically legal to go on the Gc1 on a bike?

technically, probably not.

Apparently you don't, strictly speaking, ride on the motorway itself. It's just a slip road, and ride the opposite way on it, against traffic, like.

Just heard that second hand so don't know how true it is.