- EasyJet, Europe's big low-cost airline, wanted us to shed
light on some of the fantastic and easily accessible
riding locations on this continent.
A short flight for a long weekend or week away.
- Yeah, but we didn't just want to take you to
somewhere you've already seen like Mont Ventoux again,
or the Stelvio, again.
No, we wanted to show you somewhere that you might never
have thought about riding your bike before.
Like...
Gran Canaria!
Look at that!
Oh and yes, we did get speedy boarding.
(rock music)
- [Simon] We flew from Gatwick Airport
just south of London in the UK.
Leaving cold and rainy England at seven a.m.
And then just over four hours later
after breakfast and a cup of tea,
arriving in Gran Canaria.
We picked up our car and heading over to our hotel
to unpack, build bikes and scope out
a decent coffee shop for the morning.
After after, any bucket list ride should start
in coffee shop, and our Gran Canaria ride is no different.
We're in La Aldea de San Nicolas,
a small town on the west side of the island.
Which is where exactly, I hear you ask.
Well Gran Canaria is one of the Canary Island,
a Spanish Archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.
Just off the northwest coast of Africa.
It's neighbours, Tenerife and Lanzarote are more famous
for cycling perhaps, but we don't think
they're quite as good.
Someone should really tell all those pro cyclist
stuck at the top of a volcano altitude training
on Tenerife just across the water.
Our ride today is 73 kilometres long.
It's not an epic, it's doable by a broad range of abilities.
If you give yourself enough time.
But do give yourself plenty of time because Gran Canaria
is incredibility mountainous.
As you're about to find out.
You might very well be wondering why we're at
a coffee shop and Dan's topless.
And it turns out he put his undervest on inside-out.
- Oops, I did just get a woof or two though, by a bloke.
- Yeah, we're not quite sure he was all there, anyway.
(lively music)
- [Dan] We haven't given you that
much opportunity for a warm up on this ride,
so you might want to do some flat riding
before you start it, if you need to get your legs turning.
But we'll give you some more details for this
opening climb shortly.
We wanted though to give you a bit of an overview
of what this route is all about.
- That's right, so, we've got a fairly big opening climb,
and then we're on a rolling road where we hit the first
of our very important cafe stops.
And then we hit the bottom of
another pretty monstrous climb.
- [Dan] We do, yeah, we planned this meticulously,
I think you might say.
We wanted this to be beautiful, almost epic.
Achievable, plenty of coffee stops, a nice place for lunch,
and it finishes on a descent.
So our last descent is called the Valley of Tears.
Now that a bucket list climb for a lot of people.
But why would you want to climb the Valley of Tears?
- Yeah you'd probably end up crying, surly, yeah.
(lively music)
- [Dan] So let's give you some of the key stats
for this opening climb of our ride.
It is seven and a half kilometres long
and an average gradient of eight and half percent.
But the last four kilometres, which we are on now,
average a little under ten percent,
so it does begin to bite.
It is called the GC200, not really romantic
in terms of its name.
And actually it really doesn't do the beauty
of this climb any justice at all.
- Now if we're talking times the record is a little over
23 minutes, set by pro-rider Matteo Montaguti.
We're gonna take a little bit longer than that,
aren't we mate?
- [Dan] Yeah we've already been slogging along,
and in fact we've already taken a lot longer than that.
- [Simon] 29 minutes.
I don't know about you Dan, but straight out of the blocks
you just feel like this place is exotic,
I mean like the vegetation is so different,
just the whole air quality is so dry, it's fantastic.
- Not only that but there is almost zero wind here today.
And we'll talk a lot more about weather during this video
you'll be pleased to know.
But it's such an incredibly still day today.
- Yeah, now the the other thing about this climb,
other than the grade and the length,
is the quality of the road surface.
Like, it sounds kinda stupid but it's so important
that only have we got no leg-warmers on, no overshoes,
we've got an extra 20 PSI in our tyres.
And we're just rolling effortlessly.
(upbeat music)
Now we've only done 19 kilometres but given that this
is a bucket ride where we basically just get to do
whatever we want and enjoy it, seems like the
perfect opportunity for cafe stop number one.
- Yes, let's do it.
- Perfectly located.
Know what, I might get one of those juices
as well as a coffee.
- I'm gonna get too, yeah.
It might feel a little bit early to stop for coffee,
let's be honest, but we have got another large climb
coming up and it's gonna take some time to get
to the top where we planned lunch
So I think it's probably the perfect place to have them.
Now we've got a small cortado and a large corado.
Later on we are planning on getting a leche leche,
sometimes known as a cafe bon bon which apparently
involves condensed milk inside the coffee.
So for that sugar hit at the end we got that in reserve.
- I can't believe how English or middle-aged you sound.
"Apparently it's got condensed milk."
- Yeah, well we're English and middle-aged,
what do you want.
- You are mate, I mean.
- Yes, okay.
- Right, now before we start we did talk about
the fact that it's a bucket list ride, therefore
we can do what we want and we are allowed to stop
for coffee after 20 K's.
It does beg the question doesn't it?
About what actually is a bucket-list ride.
What does one have to do to have to qualify
to be an ultimate ride.
What's your thinking, Dan?
- Well I think it's quite hard to completely define,
I'm loving the fact that the weather's great
but I don't think that is necessarily a given
for a bucket-list ride.
We might need to have an epic one with really bad
weather conditions.
But just to come to somewhere where you feel like you're
achieving something on your bike,
I think is first and foremost, isn't it?
And this route already feels like it's gonna be like that.
And it is just so beautiful.
I did the research before we came out here
but it is way better than I even thought it was goin to be.
- And it also, for me, this one qualifies in the same ways
because it's taken us away from home, and winter, and wet,
and cold, and overshoes, and bib tights,
so even though perhaps by the end of summer
this would feel like less of a treat,
right now at this time of year in January
this feels like the ultimate treat.
And yet it was kinda so easy to get here.
It's brilliant isn't it.
- I'm actually looking forward to finishing the drinks
and carrying on.
That is what would constitute as a bucket-list ride
when you want to leave the cafe.
That's the definition.
- So let's see, Dan firstly put his undervest on
inside-out, and got naked at the cafe,
and in the second cafe we stopped at today
Dan appears to be getting naked again and now
it's because he decided he doesn't want an undervest on.
- Well we got that big climb to get up.
I was hot in the first one and nine in the morning.
(lively music)
- We've just turned off the coast road and onto
climb number two, this is called the Serenity Climb,
which I do like the sound of.
It's eight and a half K's long.
A little bit shallower than our first climb
at six and a half percent.
- Yeah, it sounds a lot more appealing both in terms
of it's name and also in terms of it's gradient.
And actually from what I've read about this climb,
I've got some very high hopes about how epic
it's going to be.
It really seems like it's very narrow
with some of the best views you can imagine
seeing on a bike.
Let's see if that's true.
It's also hugely popular, 27 thousand attempts in Strava.
That's quite a lot of people.
(mellow music)
One of the advantaged of Gran Canaria over some other
popular cycling locations is the climate.
In the summer months the average high
is 27 or 28 degrees Celsius, which is warm
but it's not excessive for riding your bike.
But it doesn't deviate much so in the middle of winter,
now in January, it's at it's lowest point
but it's average high temperature
is still 21 degrees Celsius which is absolutely perfect
for cycling, and actually today it's 24 degrees
right now here at 900 metres above sea level.
And on top of that, versus some of it's neighbouring
islands, it's much less windy.
- [Dan] And in fact, the least windy month is right now
in January, there is barely a breath of wind today.
It's absolutely fantastic.
- Sorry mate, just had to make sure
I was getting in an instabanger.
You talking about wind again?
- [Dan] So I was getting a picture for the bike vault.
- [Simon] Yeah something about the weather
is absolutely incredible.
- [Dan] I'm starting in the big ring.
- [Simon] You left it in the big ring, show-off.
(energetic music)
How cool is this, literally just crested climb
number two to find some blokes at a roadside
store giving away oranges.
- [Dan] This is just about going to keep Si going
until our planned lunch stop because he's recently
been talking about chocolate energy gels
and what he's gonna have for lunch.
- Just saw the signs for white chocolate energy
that was really very good.
- Again, you thought about mojo potatoes,
he's absolutely obsessed with them.
- We'll explain more in a little bit about mojo.
(upbeat music)
When you crest the top of the second climb
there's a bit of a change of scene.
There's a lot more vegetation up here.
And we're on kind of a plateau basically.
It's a little bit up and down but we're generally
bowling along quite quickly.
Taking off the K's, brilliant quite pleasant way I guess.
- Yeah, we've been chatting a bit more as well
about what makes a bucket-list ride
and since we've been on this Serenity Climb,
we've decided that one thing that can make a
bucket-list ride is a road like this
that feels like it has been designed solely
to ride your bike on.
- Yeah, it's narrow, it's almost like a bike path width
in places, and then it's rarely straight,
in fact this bit here could be the longest
straight we've ridden on in about 15 K.
Just constant twist and turns, just fantastic.
- What I really loved about that climb most
was the the fact that it wasn't a steady gradient
all the way up, you had bits where it was quite difficult,
bits where you would climb leisurely first.
But for me, most importantly,
areas where it was flat or downhill
and you picked up a little bit of speed.
Today it's fair to say I'm not quite as fit
as I used to be, so I really appreciate those bits.
But the do make you feel good, don't they?
Because you hit these little sections
and you carry your speed into them,
and then you kind of recover on the next bit.
- [Simon] Yeah I agree with you, to just ride up and enjoy,
it's fantastic.
(energetic music)
Hello everyone, the bike rack.
Here's your place, second coffee stop as promised,
we order leche leche's.
Do you think we stir it or what?
- [Dan] Oh we will stir it in a second yeah,
it's basically everything you need for the last part
of a ride in a very small glass.
You've got lots of sugar in the form of condensed milk,
and then plenty of caffeine in the form of coffee
just on top of it.
And there might be mainly descent back to the end
of this ride but, unfortunately there is still a little bit
of climbing to go before we get to it.
- Yeah, according to my Wahoo, it's an extra 1,000 metres.
That's what it says. - You're joking.
- Yeah so someone's got something wrong, Strava or...
- I better two leche leche's.
(laughing)
- Next stop, and looks who stopped by.
- Benjamin swift, we saw Ben at the bottom
of the Serenity Climb and in the time that we've
done that climb he's done two.
I think he's gone up the Valley of Tears as well.
- How was it?
- He's taken an hour to get up here but he's also
just been talking about how beautiful the roads
are around the rest of the island.
And he's been coming here the last few years.
- Well Dan is currently what looks the pursuit of the
perfect selfie, I thought I'd take a moment
to talk about geology.
Oh don't skip the video, it'll be brief and interesting.
So the Canaries are volcanic islands
and they began life about 14 million years ago,
they built up and up and up over subsequent
volcanic eruptions until about nine million years ago
when there was a cataclysmic collapse
of the central coldarra on Gran Canaria.
Now you can't see it very clearly anymore
'cause there was another several million years
of eruptions after that, but you can still make it out.
Such as behind us right now.
Now fortunately there haven't been any really big
volcanic eruptions for about three million years.
But what that means is that the island is characterised
by these huge canyons that have been eroded into
the central massive, perfect for bike riding.
- Is that the end of the geology lesson, Si?
- For now, actually, I'm sure there's more to come.
- Fantastic weather here, isn't it?
Unbelievable.
- Do you need to start telling some more about wind, Dan?
(bumping music)
We got Tenerife in the background.
Wave to the pro cyclist stuck on top of a volcano
with no roads to ride.
- It is high up isn't it.
You almost have to lot up to it
from the top of this hill here.
- [Simon] Yeah, what is it, three and a half
thousand metres or something.
- [Dan] Talking of climbing, this point here
kind of marks the end of most of the climbing
for today ride with GCN.
From here on, it's pretty much a very long descent
back to our hotel, and again, I think for me
that's one of the things that constitutes
a good bucket-ride, descent to the finish.
- Hopefully the tailwind's up.
You can actually see it, you can make it out,
on the side of that valley there up to that tiny
little village where I believe there is a possibility
of a third coffee stop, I don't know about you.
After that leche leche I can't imagine anything
worse right now, but then it basically
just drops off the end.
- This is the Valley of Tears.
Should be alright going down though.
- I hope so.
There's a lot of aloe verra knocking around
so if we do fall off,
at least we can be soothed afterwards.
Hey Dan, why are you getting undressed now?
- I'm an indecisive guy who is very sensitive
to temperature changes.
(laughing)
(intense music)
We just stopped quickly because somebody shouted
at us and it echoed off the mountains here.
- For about 10 seconds.
- We've been doing the same thing, it's incredible.
Ready?
Three, two, one...
(yells) Echo!
Still going.
- I'll have a try then.
(yells) Echo!
Bloody hell, that is amazing.
Alright then, on with the bike ride.
There's a flippin' understatement.
Dan, awkward fist bump.
- That was a great ride wasn't it.
- That was an absolute party.
I mean genuinely, that's brilliant isn't it?
- Well, not only do we have a beer,
we have a beer, I say we, I bought a beer
because Si is gluten intolerant.
I got a beer that was awarded Artisan Beer of the Year
in 2015 and 2016 and the Superior Taste Award twice.
- Well mate, stick this in your pipe and smoke it.
My gluten free beer, high fives all around there,
is the worlds most award winning one.
So there you go, cheers to you.
- Is it really?
- Yeah. - Really?
- Well that's what it says in big letters at the top.
- The thing is about yours is only 5.4% and mines 5.5.
- Well having had a couple moments to gather ourselves
after that ride, we've got a few things that we need
to tell you, we think.
So where we have stayed on Gran Canaria is perfect
for this ride isn't it?
And it's gonna be perfect for the length of the trip.
We'll be here riding for three or four days.
But most people who do come to Gran Canaria with bikes
stay on the other side of the island where you can
clearly see on a map, there are a lot more roads
on which you can ride.
So that will be one consideration if you do come
over this direction.
- The other is that final descent.
Now I have no regrets for doing it that way around
because having spoken to Ben Swift,
it sounded like it was really hard even for him,
a top level pro, which I think we would have
struggled up there.
But it is technical to say the very least.
So go down there with caution.
- Yeah and one final thing as well,
we've got to say a big thanks to easyJet
who gave us the opportunity to come out here
and the excuse as well, because this has been a real treat.
- [Dan] And yeah, we wouldn't have come out here
if it wasn't for them suggesting it.
And I definitely think that we will be back filming here
in the not too distant future 'cause it's an amazing place.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Dude, please give this video a big thumbs up
if you would like to see more of this kind of thing,
we certainly hope you would like to see more
'cause we have fun doing it.
And then if you want another suggestion for
something for your cycling bucket-list,
why not check out the Taiwan KOM challenge
that Matt and I did back in October.
- Or if you've got suggestions for a bucket-list
ride leave them down below.