Bikepacking the Gran Guanche Trail

Landed.

I landed in Arrecife, Lanzarote and teamed up with Walter, an old friend of mine living in Barcelona, with whom I’ve done quite some BMX and street MTB riding. As we still figure out bikes, we found our interest in Bikepacking and Bikepack Racing. Walter had recently ridden his 26-inch mountain bike from Barcelona to China and is obviously experienced in bikepacking. Meanwhile, I worked at my bike shop, “Fanzy Bikes,” upcycled some bikes, and did a few bike messenger shifts on the side. Out of curiosity, we signed up for the Capitals Bikepacking Race in Catalunya this year. To figure out how we work as a team, how fast we could go, and how riding at night works, we decided to do the Gran Guanche Trail as a preparation.

The Gran Guanche Trail is a mountainbike route crossing 5 of 7 Canary Islands. It covers 800km and 20.000 m of elevation gain and is provided by Matteo Minelli. Following the desrciption "It’s a demanding route for experienced riders. Includes serious climbs, high mountains, and remote areas. Experienced means well trained, technically skilled, and wisely equipped.", we knew this would be perfect. Since it was meant to prepare us for our first Bikepacking Race, we still knew that the top priority was to have a great time and enjoy ourselves.

Lanzarote.

It’s hard to say if we were on the Moon, in Uzbekistan, in Mexico, or in Lanzarote today. But it’s easy to say that I had one of the most impressive bike rides of my life. We covered nearly 150 km with 2600 m of elevation gain in 10 hours of riding time on our first day. The volcanic landscape of Lanzarote is breathtaking, and the trails looked like from a movie. Around every corner, there was something new: from freshly paved mountain roads to sandy trails along surfers paradise, through the desert to Mars, and then back to the Moon. The volcanic rocks in many colors and the downhill sections on black sand felt like surfing the perfect waves to our right. If this bike tour wasn’t the most epic already, I’d probably considered going surfing.

As darkness fell and the moon rises, we felt like we’re lost in Morocco. Lights and ultra-mode on. Lots of pushing through wild terrain with no signs of civilization. Rolling into our first night felt strange. Darkness brought out our primal instincts, and soon we’re silent. We’re focused on the beam of our lights, concentrated on the trail, and listened to our surroundings. My mind was wandering and I hoped to get a bit more comfortable with it over the next few days. The next 15 km took us 2 hours, but it felt like 8. Then, slowly appearing on the horizon, lights, cars, society, Burger King. As we arrived, starving for food, we felt like adventurers, heroes, dirty, homeless, yet happier than ever. With full stomachs, we laid down next to a soccer field and fell asleep watching the stars.

Fuerteventura.

We woke up, shopped like ultra cyclists, and took the ferry to Fuerteventura. With cheap but great coffee we enjoyed the morning sun, a salty breeze in the air, while watching Lanzarote disappear on the horizon. With pressure on our pedals, we rode along the beach, watching the surfers. The sea was incredibly blue, and the tailwind carried us along. I remembered the girl who knocked on our hotel room door two nights ago. Only to climb out of the fourth-floor balcony into the neighboring room. Her panicked mother was beside her, and me and Walter were in our underwear, hardly able to believe what had just happened. I laughed thinking about it. We made friends with two Atlas squirrels before finding ourselves in the desert again. After what felt like an eternity, we found a restaurant, which was our only chance to resupply for the next 70 km. Unfortunately, the kitchen in the fancy restaurant burned our meal, and we had to wait for two more hours. In the meanwhile it was me naked in the bathroom washing my cycling pants. After many apologies, we were invited for various dishes. In the end we only had to pay for the coffee. A bikepackers dream, but an ultras nightmare, I thought.

We continued riding, grinning, into the sunset. Far and wide, there was nothing – no signal, no people, just a few goats. Then, out of nowhere, a fisherman on a quad appeared, ascending our hike a bike full gas, to soon disappeared behind the next hill. We pushed through the dark to the next village, did a resupply, and ate so we could keep riding into the night. Dogs barked left and right as we pushed our bikes through the dark, soon feeling comfortable. Then we rolled down to the sea and pitched our tent on the beach – at least, I did. Very tired I was struggling with my cooker, to then give up on it and eat some nuts instead. Happy to finally get some rest, I fell asleep listening to the waves and a voice message from my girl.

Gran Canaria.

I slept like a princess and woke up to the sunshine by the sea. I looked at Walter, and he looked like he had a cold night, wrapped up in his sleeping bag, but without his tent. On our way to the harbor, we met two Hamburgers – not the kind you eat, but bikepackers from germany riding a similar route on their gravel bikes. Happy to finally meet cyclists we had breakfast together and exchanged stories before our paths parted. As we rode along the beach next to big hotels, we took the opportunity to clean and do our laundry with a beach shower. While mostly riding through remote places you can feel that tourism took over in an unhealthy way in some places. Apparently it became a big problem, as our local friend Fran from Tenerife would tell us later. We made our way to the harbor to take the ferry to Gran Canaria. A new island, with a new climate, new vegetation, and new challenges. With a hole in Walters tire we boarded in the very last moment.

Two bags of chips, a coffee, a coke, and a nap later, I saw tall mountains rise behind the clouds, and a new sense of excitement took over. Gran Canaria! We reached the island, and once again, everything looked different. The desert had turned into fertile land, and plants like cacti, bananas and aloe vera were growing. The few small white desert settlements, beside the hotels, had become many colorful houses stacked in a South American manner up the mountains. The many tourists had turned into many Gran Canarios, and it was lively. While Walter jammed a tire plug into his flat tire, I battled a physical low. I’d eaten too much junk food, and I was determined to change that. We rode through a beautiful wild canyon between the houses high up in the city. Dogs barked, and exotic birds sang. Soon, it was getting dark. We stopped for pizza – damn, didn’t I want to eat well? – and continued up the steep canyon, climbing steadily. I bit into a ginger root I had brought along and felt a physical and mental boost. I felt great again and made a note to always bring ginger from now on. We found a camping spot higher up on an artificially built terrace in the mountain, where something was once cultivated, and now only wild aloe vera grew. Walter taught me that under trees, no dew forms, because the tree absorbs everything. It was cold, but I was well-packed and slept like a baby. I woke up to birds chirping and, look, the tent was dry, even though the grass around it was wet. I made coffee and started writing. I had stopped counting the days and was now soaking everything in. I was stepping out of my comfort zone in every way and pushing my physical and mental boundaries. It felt so good to ride longer and farther than ever before – riding through the night in unfamiliar terrain, into the unknown like an adventurer, camping wild, being wild, smelling wild.

I had never ridden such an impressive mountain bike route (yes, I'm from Austria). The power of nature really hit me. It was absolutely stunning, and I was overwhelmed by Gran Canarias majestic beauty. With a banana, two corn bars, a pack of gummy bears, two Snickers, a small bag of chips, two packs of instant ramen, and a pack of peanuts, we rode nearly 90 km with 2700 m of elevation gain. Don’t ask me where we took that energy from. We felt wild. Just like the landscape. Like the trails. We pushed our bikes through sandy paths in a cliff and marveled at the landscape while listening to African rock on Walters bluetooth speaker. We took lots of photos, tried to capture the breathtaking views. During the last descent, I realized that I needed a suspension fork. From now on, I thought, I wanted to be a real mountain biker. Out of energy we reached the harbor in the dark and raided the Spar market before setting up our tents nearby and cooked. I was already quite comfortable with the hobo lifestyle – wild camping and wet wipe showers. Showers – who needs showers? Or beds? The next morning I washed up in the ferry’s toilet, ordered a coffee, and reflected on the best descents of my life on Gran Canaria

Tenerife.

4700 m of elevation gain and 180 km awaited us. A little detour to decathlon prepared us for a cold night on the mountain. I bought new cycling pants because the other one got tangled in my disc brake while drying on my saddlebag and ripped. And since we were there, I bought an emergency blanket, food and some other stuff that caught my eye and I don’t really needed. Why would I buy a shower gel and a towel - now that I became so confident being dirty. Decathlon tricked me once again.

We rode uphill for a long time, and it got cold and dark. In my head, everything went haywire that night, and suddenly everything in the forest on the mountain was trying to kill me. A dog barked in the distance, and my heart raced. The night was still not my friend. I stopped, turned off my light, looked at the full moon, the stars, howled like a wolf and calmed down. I tried to become the night and soon we reached a shelter in the forest, set up our tents, cooked, and froze our asses off. I slept in all my clothes in a sleeping bag wrapped in an emergency blanket in my tent, and I felt like a mountaineer on Himalaya. That night I dreamed about my bike shop and the weird neighbour parking his cars in front of it, which made me upset. I woke up happy. Thinking of my usual comfort waking up in a warm bed with coffee and a book, I started to laugh. The morning was chilly, and I felt dizzy. We were now about to climb 20 km uphill, and I was battling with my body and mind. Walter told me about similar situations and said, “An hour later, the world will look different.” I took his advice and kept pedaling. An hour later, the sun rose over the mountain, and the world did look different. I pedaled toward the Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, and felt amazing. I thought about my loved ones and got a little emotional. I realized how important those people were and sent little life signs to Mom, Dad, Julia, and my Roommates. I listened to the new album “California Salzburg” by the Flirtmachine, which I sneakily downloaded onto my MP3 player before its even being released. I reflected on God, the world, and synthesizers, and before long, we reached the top. Then followed the most amazing descent of my life. It felt like it went on forever on dreamy forest roads. And because excited, I went for a wallride, hit a rock and dented my rim, but luckily, the air was holding. Something you couldn’t say about Walter’s tires. His choice, unfortunately, was poor. It felt like the downhill wouldn’t end and after about 30 km and 2000 m of elevation drop, we reached Los Cristianos. We checked in for the ferry and set over to La Palma.

La Palma

What a mystical island! We spent three days, because we thought we deserved it, with a room with a shower and a bed. A vacation vibe set in. At the same time, we realized that we’d reached the last island and the adventure would come to an end. We decided to take it easy on the last island and ride a shortened version of the Gran Guanche Trail in a daily stage. Finally without all the heavy gear. We ate well and slept great before embarking on our planned final ride. I called it the “Jingle Jungle Avocado Trail.” It led us on a 2500 m climb, my longest yet, to Pico de Cruz. With light bikes, we easily climbed the mountain through clouds and mist to the summit. We napped in the sun and enjoyed life a lot. The downhill was like heaven. We rode downhill like in a picture book, and we shot some cover photos for our imaginary “Super Magic Bike Magazine” (stay tuned). Soon, we entered the fog, and the volcanic landscape turned into a real jungle. It reminded me of Vietnam as we climbed a steep section through the green and found a wild avocado tree. We had an amazing time, and our final ride was one for the books. Back at the apartment, we cooked beans and toasted with a beer on this incredible journey.

Reflecting.

Then I sat in the morning sun, drank my second coffee and reflected on the trip. The man next to me was drinking wine and smoking in my face, but I didn’t mind. I was so chill after this adventurous ride, nothing could disturb me. I reflected on what I wanted to take away from this trip and found following: Conquer your fears, break through your boundaries, and grow beyond yourself by simply just going for it. Don’t be a bad tourist, travel sustainable and take care of the environment you’re exploring. Everything is temporary, a good team partner is key and lastly: ride bikes!

Thanks to Walter, Fran, Júlia, Raul, and David.

Much Love
Jakob