Rough Riderz members Phil Hall, Dave Bower and Scott Parry visited the Canary Islands in November 2009 to ride some more of the great natural trails across Tenerife. This trip included another visit to Bikepark Tenerife, where we received another warm welcome from the staff and some of the regular visitors. Unfortunately, the trip started badly before we had even arrived as my old flatmate and friend “Johnny Boy” had an accident on one of the trails in the week prior to our visit, resulting in 2 broken fingers!
If that wasn’t bad enough, when we arrived at the airport I discovered that my case was still in Manchester! Nothing we could do about that until the next day so, the following morning I borrowed a load of protective gear and we met up with Matt, Manu, Juani, Aythami, Eto, Yeray, Peter and the rest of the lads and headed off into the mountains again for some seriously fast fun! We must say a big thank you to Matt, Miriam, John, Rob and Sonia who all helped us out during this visit…
Driving through the town of Güimar we headed up towards the Observatory, to a spot called La Crucita, at around 2000m above sea level. We set off along a wide, dusty trail that quickly dropped off into the tree line. The upper section had a good gradient and some fast sweeping bends, tightening up through the woods. As we got further down the trail the terrain got much rougher, with craggy rocks and sharp volcanic gravel making the descent very loose and slippy. Towards the end we reached a couple of shortcuts which we decided to try. The first one was virtually single track all the way, with deep ruts and rocks to negotiate, so it wasn’t very fast, but lots of fun! On the second one, we launched ourselves down a really steep slope, covered in volcanic debris, whilst trying to keep control of our rigs. After 30 seconds of madness we all slid off the hillside and rejoined the proper trail to continue our route.
The trail remained a reasonable width for the rest of the way down, with the good gradient making for some exciting, fast sections to ride. The trail continued until we reached an old road that led us into one of the villages above Güimar. We then negotiated the tarmac roads, concrete slopes and steps throughout the centre of the village, doing a bit of “street style” gravity biking at the end of the run, whilst trying not to upset any of the locals!
These man-made trails now offer various suitable routes to enjoy on four wheels. The overall layout has been changed quite a bit since my last making it even more suitable for our bikes. The first trail has all the features you would want on a trail, with steep, rocky drops, looser gravelled sections, berms and a variety of jumps. This is now a nice long trail too, with very little pushing required to negotiate the entire route.
The other trail is an alternative run on different terrain. The top section is made up of softer dust and dirt, with heavily banked corners to stop you sliding across the trail and into the nearest cactus… ouch! The trail cuts across the main road in the park and on to a large north shore ramp, dropping very steeply into a table top jump. This carries on through a “toboggan style” section of berms , down into the lower part of the park. There are some great features along the bottom section too, carrying lots of speed as it drops down into the ‘dust bowl’ at the end of the park.
See previous report for more information…
See previous report for more information…
■ Las Lajas to Los Olivos
■ Las Lagunetas to Agua Garcia
