Cycling in Tenerife
Went cycling again today, my third day with my hired mountain bike. There are 2 problems with cycling in Tenerife; well the south of the island anyway. The first is that the island is just one big volcano, with a peak in the middle (and crater) which slopes down to the sea. And no, it hasn’t erupted in a long time. It’s safe, thanks for asking. The second problem is that the one big volcano is surrounded by lots of smaller cones. So it’s just mountains and hills everywhere. If you start at a beach resort, i.e. at sea level, then pretty much every direction except along the coast involves going up.
Today I cycled to Arona, which is only something like 7 miles away, but it was literally 7 miles uphill all the way there, and then 7 miles downhill all the way back. The freewheeling down was fantastic, but the uphill was a slow hot grind. But I didn’t melt, and neither did the bike, but I’ll not be doing it again tomorrow.
Oh and by the way, the bike is a Specialised. It’s got great big balloon tyres like a moon buggy, and quite dodgy gears, but it’s not bad.
Tags: Cycling
September 3rd, 2011 at 08:24
If you get up into the NW, the Butterfly House in Icod is much more impressive than I expected. In the NE La Laguna is much less impressive than I expected from a UNESCO city, but Candelaria has an excellent series of statues along the seafront. I’ll be impressed if you reach any of those by bike though.