CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From La Guancha it runs 325 km to La Guancha; allow about 6 h 36 of riding. On the way it passes San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr and back through San Cristóbal de La Laguna. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. Expect gradients and long views.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 55 km this is Teide National Park Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Spain's highest mountain is a volcano standing in the middle of an island in the Atlantic, and that alone makes Teide worth the ride. It rises to 3,715 metres above sea level, and from the ocean floor it is one of the tallest volcanic structures on Earth. The national park around it, listed by UNESCO in 2007, is a high desert of pumice, lava and strange rock towers, set in an ancient caldera, the Cañadas, and the road across it is among the most extraordinary on any motorcycle map. The Roques de García, a cluster of twisted, wind-carved pillars, stand in front of the mountain like a stage set.
Read the complete Teide National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Teide National Park is where the day begins. Next is San Cristóbal de La Laguna.
La Laguna was the first Spanish colonial town not built behind walls, and its plan, a grid of straight streets around open squares, became a model for towns in the Americas. It was founded in the late fifteenth century, after the Spanish conquest of Tenerife, and for centuries it was the island's capital, with a cathedral, convents, a university from the eighteenth century, and tall houses with carved wooden balconies. UNESCO listed the old town in 1999. The city is cool and often misty, because it sits at about five hundred metres on a plateau where the trade-wind clouds gather, and the fine drizzle that drifts in from the north-east is a local fixture.
Read the complete San Cristóbal de La Laguna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
San Cristóbal de La Laguna comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr.
Gran Canaria looks like a small island, but the interior is one of the most dramatic mountain landscapes in the Atlantic. The centre is a collapsed volcanic caldera, split by deep ravines, with crags like Roque Nublo and Roque Bentayga sticking out of it. For the island's pre-Hispanic people, who arrived about two thousand years ago, these rocks were sacred, and the whole area is now a World Heritage cultural landscape. Risco Caído is a cave complex where the early islanders carved out shrines and granaries, one of which seems to be aligned with the sun at the equinox, when a beam of light moves across the painted walls.
Read the complete Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 162 km into the recorded legs you reach Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr. Next is back through San Cristóbal de La Laguna.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete San Cristóbal de La Laguna write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through San Cristóbal de La Laguna, late in the day. Next is Teide National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Teide National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Teide National Park. That is the ride.
Teide National Park → San Cristóbal de La Laguna is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
San Cristóbal de La Laguna → Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Risco Caido and the Sacred Mountains of Gr → back through San Cristóbal de La Laguna is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through San Cristóbal de La Laguna → Teide National Park is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.