Gran Canaria cycling/family time?

Graeme Jones

So with my 30th birthday not far away in June my wife mentioned we could go away for a weeks break and maybe look at some cycling friendly options for me to get some miles in aswell.

We have a 1 year old son who would be 1.5years (obviously) when June comes around and we would like to go somewhere with the luxuries of a normal sunny holiday, pool, decent food etc.

I would be hoping to get some decent quality rides in with plenty of climbs and from what I've read Gran Canaria has a lot to offer.

I have read that there are some companies that organise this with cycle hire and group rides out with standard and fast groups etc along with bike hire.

Any recommendation to trustworthy companies that offer a great 7 day packages?

bigpikle

Freemotion offer guided group rides but not a complete package. You need to put your own hotel etc together.

If you get a hotel around Taurito or Puerto Mogan on the SW corner, then you can ride direct from the hotel into the mountains and there are only a couple of roads so you cant really get lost. Have a look at a Google map of the island and you'll see what I mean. Its a great area for the family to spend a few hours in the sun each morning and you can ride 3-4 hours and be back for lunchtime. Its what I do for a week every Christmas

hjghg5

Happy biking are also good, a bit less flashy than freemotion but very friendly. I'm out here at the moment, my oh hired a bike from them for the week (I have my own as my parents live here and store it for me). We bumped into one of their group rides at a cafe stop while we were out on our own, they recognised him and came over for a chat about where we'd been, how he was finding the bike etc etc.

There is very little flat, but some of the climbs are amazing.

Graeme Jones

Cheers ill check them out

rogermunns

The Cordial Mogan Valle Apartments for Puerto Mogan are good for family holidays - Thomson have them listed.

Roger
http://www.banksinmonaco.com

Jacabus

I too can recommend Freemotion for hire bikes. They also have guided group rides that you pay for. Raymond Leddy at http://www.cyclegrancanaria.com/ can do a package for you. He uses the Cordial Green Golf and can provide bikes through Freemotion. He has lots of routes on his web page. I can recommend the VOTT route if you like a challenge.

The Island is great for road biking so you should have a good time.

Japzai

Just got back from Gran Canaria last week.

The riding is second to none, great road surfaces, very little but considerate traffic etc. Good all year round weather. It's quite straight forward to navigate the island. But beware, they've closed quite a few roads in the higher climbs for whatever reason. We found that out after hitting a few dead ends that were shown as passable roads on the maps.

With a good up-to-date map and a little planning you could save a little dosh by making your own way around. We picked most of our rides off of the 'Cycle Gran Canaria' app on the iPhone, although a couple of these led us to dead ends at the latter stages. No fault of the app developers though as the closures are recent.

Flew with Monarch from Birmingham and bike carriage was quite reasonable. The rental bikes seem to be mainly Specialized road bikes of a good standard. The only flat on the island is the runway, so use either a compact or get a 27/28 on the back. We rode on standard chainsets with 11-25's, do-able but tough.

If you want a taste of how good the riding is, I've uploaded three Youtube vids, first two are a couple of minutes, third is an epic.

Enjoy

Yogi.

Gran Canaria Road Bike Descent - Viewing platform at Fataga down into Fataga Town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwXhmvzn6cQ

Gran Canaria Road Bike Descent - Steep section of Pico de Las Nieves to the Cafe stop at Ayacata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzUo9UAX_6U

Gran Canaria Road Bike Descent, climb and descent - Ayacata to Fataga then on to Playa Del Inglés
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAHd0N-MZWU

bigpikle

Back for my 2nd trip of the year next week - sod staying int he freezing cold crap in the UK

Puerto Mogan to Pico de las Nieves is always the first ride I do when I get there. ~85km and ~2000m is a great way to open the account for the week and at Xmas this year Spartacus and lots of his team were riding there every day as well 8)

banditvic

Just got back from GC great cycling, free motion bikes were great. I had a CAAD 10 with a triple chain set, thought it might be OTT but was glad of it. Weather superb, but take a jacket it's cold on the descents from 1900m. Lot of very good cyclists out there so don't expect too many KOMS.