Bikepacking the Gran Canaria Grande
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- Опубликовано: 6 мар 2023
- In this bikepacking documentary film, Tristan Ridley and Egon Klett cycle a spectacular and challenging new bikepacking route in Gran Canaria, showing off what makes the island so special and why bike trips are just so much fun. This film features some breathtaking drone shots of the island, lots of incredible riding, some sublime wild camping experiences, and plenty of coffee and banter along the way.
The Gran Canaria Grande is a 5-day bikepacking route in Gran Canaria, at the heart of the Canary Islands. Forming a challenging but spectacular bike touring loop which starts and finishes at Maspalomas, the Gran Canaria Grande is an incredible showcase of the island, taking in most of the most famous must-see spots whilst at the same time staying mostly off the beaten track, and featuring some truly spectacular mountain landscapes. The route covers mixed terrain, with plenty of gravel, dirt roads and singletrack, but it also has plenty of good paved road sections, where traffic is very light. The route is therefore very well suited to gravel cycling, although a mountain bike can be nice for extra comfort and capability on the descents.
Gran Canaria has a fantastic climate with great weather all year-around, even in winter, and this makes it one of the best destinations in Europe for anyone looking for a week's cycling holiday in the sun. Flights are cheap, so Gran Canaria makes for a perfect winter escape.
For the full route GPX and some extra background on the story behind the route, see: bikepacking.com/plog/gran-can...
WEBSITE: www.tristanridley.com
INSTAGRAM: / tristanrid
BIKEPACKING SETUP AND GEAR LIST: www.tristanridley.com/gear
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PAYPAL: paypal.me/tristanrid
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I hope you enjoy the film! The full route GPX, along with some extra background behind the making of this route, is now live at: bikepacking.com/plog/gran-canaria-grande-video/
A lot of work goes into making these films and developing these routes, so if you like what I'm doing please consider supporting me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/join/tristanrid
This is amazing. What a combination of cinematography, editing, and bikepacking skill. Not to mention a great personality.
This is what it looks like when someone finds their calling.
Thanks so much for the kind words, I really appreciate it!
By far this is is the most beautiful place I have ever seen on a bike tour! Absolutely Gorgeous! Thanks for Sharing this Tristan and Egon! May You Both Always Enjoy Coffee! Happy Riding!
Thank you!
Just discovered your channel as a result of this video. Blown away by this place. Rode there on a commercial mtb tour as a youth, but nearly 30 years on memories fade. I think you have just inspired us to make the trip and make some fresh memories. Really excellent video and great characters the pair of you. If you’re ever up in Scotland for a bumble around, give us a shout. Thanks, Keith & Lindsay
Thanks for the kind words! I'm always happy to get back to Scotland and I'm sure I'll get there again before too long, so I'll let you know :)
Aupa ahí!
Love the video and definitely want to bike 🚴 your amazing route 👏🏻💪🏻👍🏻
Thanks, I hope you get to ride it, Gran Canaria is a hell of a place!
Watching this I really got an idea of the beauty of Gran Canaria, and the experience of bikepacking that i missed when I visited. I spent a lot of time getting lost, riding tracks that ended up in someones backyard, or scrambling through dried up rivers being shredded by prickly pears, and everything has thorns on it over there🤣
I realised that I wasn't there long enough to explore the rideable routes. I appreciate it must have taken a lot of hard work to create this route, and now i look forward to riding it in the future😊
Ha yeah I did a lot of scrambling up prickly cliffsides and being stopped by locked gates when putting the route together, it was definitely a challenge! Very happy with how it came out though, I hope you get to ride it!
I just came back from following your route. What a great route, on an amazing island.
My brother and I where on gravel bikes, with tents, cooking stuff and all. Amazing views of the island, very diverse landscape and vegetation.
Unfortunately we weren’t that lucky with the weather, and had to split day 3 because of the rain, and bailed out to a hostel for a good, dry night of sleep, and a warm shower.
For anyone in doubt about doing this trip, don’t be, do it! You won’t regret it.
Thanks Tristan for making this route available!
So glad you enjoyed the route, good job on riding it! Bad luck with the weather, it's normally pretty good in GC but when it does turn bad up there in the mountains things can get nasty very quickly!
There are lots of awesome bike trails, dudes. Warm greetings from Tugu monument of the Special Territory of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
I cycled through Yogyakarta back in 2016, very cool place! Hope all's good with you, thanks for watching!
Wow! thanks for scouting this route and giving it to us, cheers, magic!
No worries, it's such a beautiful place so happy to show the island off a bit and hopefully get some other cyclists out there to discover it!
I really appreciate how you are presenting the content. Thank you
I appreciate that, thanks!
Your film makes me come back to Gran Canaria sometime, thanks for your route and guidance
Awesome video. Can't wait for the route.
Thank you! Hopefully not too long for the route, just weighing up a few last little tweaks :)
So amazing...
Thank you!
A grand biking video! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
Brilliant video. Very inspiring! Thanks!
Thank you!
Nice island beautiful footage thank you for sharing
Thanks for watching!
I hiked the GR131 through gran canaria not long ago. Was a joy to see you hit a lot of the same locations on this bike packing trip. A stunning place when you get away from the tourist towns. Might have to go back with a bike setup after seeing this
Yeah GC is such an amazing place for both hiking and biking, definitely my favourite island in the Canaries!
wowwwww.....
Tristan, thank you so much for the film about this amazing place! You did a great job. Special thanks for the music, it's great as always.
I hope Egon's knee feels good now!
Thanks for the kind words, glad you enjoyed it, and I'm happy to say Egon has fully recovered 😁
That looks awesome Tristan! Great work on developing this new route - well done on another great production.
Thank you!
Awesome trip & landscapes. Amazing video. Big hugs from Argentina
Gracias amigo!
Gran Canaria is great, but god it is steep!!!
Yeah it's a tough one on the legs, that's for sure, but always worth it!
Well done - some other views and Impressions from CC. Love it
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video, drone footage makes it next level. Some of those places look super familiar 😀 Epic place to cycle
Thanks man, as one of the original guinea pigs for the route your input was invaluable. You'll notice I left out your favourite bit of hike-a-bike 😅
I just did half of your route after I spent a week in Fuerteventura. I rode your route from Maspalomas to Agaete, from where I'll take the ferry. I watched your video while riding to Maspalomas from Las Palmas.
The first gravel segment was freaking amazing! So beautiful. I did it on a cloudy day so the vibes were extra mystical.
The second off-road segment from Tunte up was pure torture but beautiful. It starts with about 20 angry farm dogs barking at you from all sides while pushing the bike up that steep section to the hiking trail. The hiking trail up was mostly pushing and carrying for me. I ride a steel gravel bike with 38mm tires and loaded it a bit on the heavy side. I slept under that rock over hang on the trail. Once at the top it was pretty easy riding. Lots of hikers.
I skipped one gravel segment and took a shortcut because I ran out of water and I feared that I might have to push the bike again. Also there was a restaurant with vegi burgers on the shortcut.
I also did the hike-a-bike descent down that hiking trail. Honestly, if your idea was to make that route accessible I'd not include that part. It was beautiful but also kinda dangerous to lower a loaded bike down that trail. It had rained over night so things were extra slippery and it's super steep.
I did sleep in that creepy cave. The Voodoo stuff was gone but the drawn on furniture was still there. Slept pretty well but the echo in there is spooky.
BTW, that spot in Llanos de la Pez that you marked as a camp site is just a recreational area and you're not allowed to camp there. For the other actual camp sites in that area you need a permit. Anyway, I bivy camped in Llanos de la Pez and no one complained. But you might get in trouble if you pitch a tent and a ranger shows up.
Nice job, hope you had fun! Yeah I didn't really make this route to be easy so I decided to include the downhill hike-a-bike towards Agaete just because it's a really cool section and the only way to get down to the coast there without taking a huge detour, so I think it's worth including, even if it's not going to be for everyone.
And yeah Llanos de la Pez is technically not a place you're allowed to camp, but I've camped there many times without any issues and without ever seeing anyone, I suspect that if a ranger did show up they would probably leave you alone or at worst just ask you to move along, and there's another place you can camp just around the corner. In my experience, rules are usually more like 'guidelines' in Spain!
@@tristanrid Oh yeah I definitively enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for the scouting out this route! In the end it's all about living outside and seeing beautiful things and enjoying freedom in its purest form. And though days double-function as character building exercises :D I might not have bad the perfect bike for some of the stuff. I'm back home now after two weeks in the Canaries (it was my third time there).
Since big parts of the islands are national parks the fines for wild camping can be quite high. Up to 1.5k Euros I've been told by hikers. I'd definitively generally keep it stealthy. I've never been caught but I have been confronted by a ranger in Tenerife after I had already packed up. He wasn't happy but let me go.
Really awesome that you reply to all the comments!
That is so inspiring, and made me wanna go on a bikepacking ride!!
Thank you
Thanks, I hope you do it, and have fun!
I am glad you enjoyed the island where I live.
Thank you, Gran Canaria is such a special place!
I'm only ten minutes in but already have to get out and ride this route. Excellent vid (so far!!!). Cheers.
Thank you!
I'm surprised to see such a rugged off road route in a popular tourist destination but I guess that's often the way it is just outside of the tourist spots. Great camera work and filmmaking too!
Thank you! Yeah it's amazing how different Gran Canaria is once you get off the beaten track; I don't really like the coast of the island much at all, for the most part, as it's so touristy, but in the mountains it's a different world!
❤❤❤❤❤
🙏
Really nice video Man!
Appreciate it!
Very cool
Thanks :)
I wish I had some quality bike like yours I'd bikepack full time
For what it's worth you definitely don't need an expensive bike to go bikepacking, you can cycle around the world on just about anything if you're determined enough! :)
Nublo drone footage is 👌
Well worth nearly crashing the drone for I'd say 😂
The stress doesn't show in that smooth orbit 😅
When did you do this ride?
GC is a cycling paradise, but you've got a like climbing, lots of it, steep, steep. Even if you just do the classic road bike routes Valley of the Tears which is still pretty spec, you miss out on so much. I did what you did April/May 2022 riding off road trails as well as roads and loved it. Wild camped as well. Leave no trace and definitely NO fires as it is tinder dry. If you camp and cause a fire you face doing a long jail term and big big fines. But GC is spectacular especially around Le Roc Nublo. Fantastic views from Pico de las Nieves. Great campsite nearby overlooking Le Roc Nublo and beyond. Could be a view of the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley, Arizona.
Thanks for making this video.
Nice bike the Tout Terrain Pinion. Is it a Scrambler?
We did the ride in December 2022, and I originally scouted the route over the winter of 2021. How were the temperatures in April/May?
And thanks, my bike is a Tout Terrain Outback Xplore 29, it's an incredible ride!
Absolutely stunning, Grand Canaria is so amazing, nice video, nice guys! Happy cycling mates! Btw where is Green Valley looks amazing ? :D
Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it! The Green Valley drops down from Artenara towards Agaete; if you search on Google maps for 'Refugio El Hornillo' you'll see where the downhill hike-a-bike section starts :)
@@tristanrid thanks ! 🙏
Beautiful video!
But it's not a bikepacking adventure without porridge.😝
greetings from Spain
Haha true, porridge is hard to beat for a bikepacking breakfast!
Great video. Where can we find the GPX file for the route? Also am I right in supposing this route better done with a mountain bike than a gravel bike?
Thanks! I'm just making a few last tweaks to the GPX but I'll be publishing it soon so if you keep an eye on my website and socials I'll be sure to post to both once it's ready. Personally, I'd rather do the route on a mountain bike, but it's also perfectly doable on a gravel bike so either is fine :)
Great video! Thanks @tristanrid . One question, any hints where to leave a bike box during the trip? are there any possibilities at the airport?
It's possible but I wouldn't trust them not to throw it away by mistake, which would leave you in a stressful situation last minute. I'd say the easiest bet would be booking a hotel for the first and last nights of your trip, and then leaving the box with them to store :)
Spectacular work Tristan! Videography and storytelling on point. I'm looking forward for the route to be published, the Canary Islands have long been in my bikepacking radar. How do you like that Durston tent? It seems very interesting for a bikepacker (weight, poles length, living space), but I've never had non-freestanding tents, does it work for you on rocks or hard grounds? Cheers from Finland!
Thanks mate, appreciate the kind words! I'm really liking the Durston, it's a super well-designed tent. The fact that it's not freestanding is probably the main downside with it, but I've found it's always possible to improvise using rocks. I've been using it in the Canaries and now Morocco, which is definitely not the ideal place for it as the ground is usually either rocky, sandy, or both, but I've always made it work. It probably wouldn't be my first choice if I were to cycle Cairo to Cape Town again, as freestanding is so helpful in Africa, but I'll be heading to Alaska next and out there I don't think it will be an issue at all. And as you said, the weight, pack size, and liveability, not to mention the weather resistance and price, are pretty hard to beat!
@@tristanrid thank you for opinion. Actually here in Northern Europe it wouldn't be much of a problem using a non-freestanding tent, but I'd like to start traveling a bit further, Central Asia, South America, North Africa... that's where a freestanding tent would be useful to sleep on hard ground, like in bus stations and places where you still want protection from creeping and flying stuff even if you're under a roof. But still, I'm not going to those places anytime soon, so it's always a possibility to invest in a Durston and look for something else in the future, or just find a way to erect it anywhere 😅. Thank you again for your opinion and for taking the time making this wonderful video. I hope the amazing result is a good compensation for a sweaty back for the weight of camera kit.
Wow have to say that looks an awesome trip how many miles was it in total and where can we find the route gpx ? So many questions about kit list and tents etc would love to do this a great video 👌
The GPX for the route is now live, if you check my pinned comment you'll see the link :) in total it's only 165 miles but a LOT of climbing so 4-5 days is what I'd suggest. My gear list is also on my website at www.tristanridley.com/gear if you'd like to have a look, and a video going through my gear and packing setup will be going up towards the end of next month :)
@@tristanrid thank you 🙏 😊 spring or early Autumn I reckon
Amazing video, very inspiring! Is it possible to ride the route, but without camping?
It would be possible but would require a bit of adjustment and planning, as there aren't many places for accommodation in the mountains, Tejeda is pretty much the only place up there with options as far as I know. Probably it would be something like day 1: to Tejeda (this would mean a slight detour), day 2: to Agaete, day 3: back to Tejeda, day 4: back to Maspalomas.
@@tristanrid thank you! That’s helpful, I will try to see if i could make this tour work
Hey there, great video. Wondering if you have any tips / info on the official campgrounds. Did you have to book ahead? Thanks!
If you have a Spanish passport it's easy to book them online. If you don't (like me) the booking system is a stupid nightmare that requires you to book in person in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which isn't at all practical, so I never bothered booking and just turned up. I never had a problem, so I wouldn't worry about it!
I absolutely enjoy the fim but as an aviator you know what a restrected area means and most drone footage has been taken in forbidden or restricted areas for drones. Send it to AESA. Cheers
Thanks, glad you liked the film! I'm not aware that any of it was taken in restricted airspace, though, what makes you think that?
What tent was that red and white one???
Egon's tent is an MSR Hubba Hubba :)
@@tristanrid huh I thought it was but I've nev3r seen the top flare up and out like that in any photos I've ever seen.
Hey. Is this a footage in January?
I believe this was December 2022
why you guys counting coffee ?
Just a bit of fun, I like to tease Egon about his coffee addiction :)
Great adventure! I know it may be a lot, please will you be able to share GPS Track?
Thanks, and yeah absolutely - the full route including the GPX track will be published soon, so stay tuned!
@@tristanrid thank you, you are having great adventures in all places, remote places are great, carry on 🤜
It seems to me like you don't have the right gear ratio for your bikes
How do you mean?
That looks too chunky for me.
It's mostly not too rough, the main exception is the final descent on the last day, which is a bit rowdy. The rest of it is fairly smooth for the most part :)
Coffee Junkey
They are the worst 😂