21/02 – 04 – Gran Canaria

At the beginning of 2021, in the midst of Covid, I found myself looking for a place to go where restrictions allowed tourists to visit.

After searching the internet for such places where it’s warm enough in February to do some motorcycling or mountain biking, I quickly stumbled on Gran Canaria, the third-largest island of the Canary Islands.

I initially wanted to stay for just two weeks, staying at an Airbnb and doing some tours with a mountain bike guide that I found through watching his YouTube videos. Since I was working and studying from home at the time, I packed my work laptop as well and thought about staying there for a bit longer, working and studying remotely. And indeed I did end up staying longer: I returned home in April after staying at the same Airbnb for 2.5 months.

Getting there

I flew from Zurich to Gran Canaria via Madrid in early February. Arriving at the airport, I picked up a car that I rented for the first week of my trip. Getting there in the evening, I drove to the south and met my Airbnb host Neil, who I’d become friends with later on. At the time, Neil owned an apartment in San Fernando, which is part of the Maspalomas area in the very south of the island. He had two rooms available to rent out to his Airbnb guests.

Exploring the island

The first two weeks consisted of exploring the island by car and going on mountain bike tours with Fabio, a seasoned mountain bike guide from Italy. I quickly started to like the island’s varied landscape, containing everything from sand beaches to rocky mountain tops. Also, it wasn’t very busy at the time: shops and restaurants were open, but still there were far less tourists than usual due to Covid. Accommodation and rental cars were very cheap, I remember that renting a cheap car costed less than 10 Euros per day!

Some of the island’s highlights for me personally were Pico de Las Nieves, Gran Canaria’s highest peak located pretty much in the center of the island, and Roque Nublo, a prominently shaped volcanic rock. In the very south, the mountains are contrasted by the Dunas de Maspalomas, an area of sand dunes along the coast. Furthermore, a trip from the dry south to the green north is worthwhile in any case, as is a drive along the spectacular west coast. This I’ll explain further in the Motorcycling section.

Participating in Fabio’s mountain bike tours, I got to meet Matteo and his friend Federico, they were staying not far from my Airbnb for a while to work remotely. Also, I met Ben, a guy from Luxembourg looking for some winter mountain biking, just as I did. Besides doing mountain bike tours together with Matteo, I often joined them for dinner at Sun’s Gardens resort, where they were staying.

Mountain biking

Looking for a place to go mountain biking was how I got the idea to go to Gran Canaria. After watching a bunch of his Youtube videos, I quickly decided to inquire about some guided tours with Fabio. The whole deal was very easy: I brought my own riding gear, and everything else he organized, including a Specialized Stumpjumper from Freemotion, a bike rental business with multiple offices on the island. Also, a friend of his acted as the shuttle driver, as for every tour, guests are picked up from where they are staying and then the shuttle takes people and bikes up to the mountains. One of the tours started at Pico de Las Nieves itself, giving you the opportunity to make your way all the way down to the beach, concluding with a lunch there. Needless to say, the trails we took were a lot of fun to ride, and the company of Ben and Matteo added a lot to the experience.

Besides the guided tours, I rented a bike with Freemotion a couple of other times to go riding by myself or together with Federico and Matteo. Also, while I was living at the BnB in Maspalomas, Matteo interrupted his teleworking stay on the island for a couple of weeks and went back to Italy, during which I rented his mountain bike he brought from home. This meant I had the opportunity to go on an evening ride every couple of days, pedaling up GC-60 towards the mountains, then riding one of the trails starting at the Mirador de la Degollada viewpoint back down into town.

Towards the end of my stay, my friend Ramon flew in from Switzerland to spend a week of vacation. Since Ramon enjoys mountain biking as well, we decided to look for another opportunity for some tours. As Fabio didn’t offer tours at that time, we found a local guide named Manuel, who runs his own bike shop and offers guided tours as well. Manuel provided us with Kona Process bikes and showed us many more trails, also venturing into the island’s green north.

Motorcycling

As the island’s varied landscape features many windy roads, it is a great place for riding motorbikes as well. First, I rented a Honda CB 500 X and then a Suzuki V-Strom 650 for a couple of days from a place in Playa del Ingles, not far from my Airbnb. Most of the places I went to by motorcycle I had already visited by car, but of course, it was a lot more fun by motorbike. Some of the best roads, in my opinion, are GC-60, which takes you from Maspalomas towards the island’s mountainous center, as well as the spectacular coastal road GC-200 on the west coast. GC-200 is often mentioned as Gran Canaria’s most spectacular or technical road, as it is carved directly into the rock and terrain drops off vertically right next to the road. When I visited, a short section of the road was closed, as rock slides occur frequently. The GC-2 freeway replaces the most spectacular sections of the road, avoiding the technical terrain using tunnels. At the time of my visit in 2021, some sections were still under construction.

See this Youtube video for getting an idea what riding a motorcycle on GC-200 looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZAHfYh4wyg

In one of the last weeks of my trip, I rented a Yamaha Tracer 700 from Canary Ride in Las Palmas for a day, taking it on my favorite roads again before heading home.

Conclusion

All in all, I really enjoyed my stay in Gran Canaria. I met a lot of very nice people, and working from somewhere else in a time where most of us didn’t get to leave the house much was a welcome change. Also, the island’s warm climate year-round and the spectacular landscape ensure ideal conditions for outdoor activities. Since I also had a great time at Neil’s Airbnb, I returned for a week a year later, in March 2022.