Gran Canaria in TOUR 2/2014 with GPS data
If you come to Gran Canaria for a flat ride, you've booked wrong. The few flat sections are between the airport and Playa del Inglés and are not really recommended. The inland, where the 1,956 metre high Pico de las Nieves towers over everything, is scenic but also challenging and brutally steep - with ramps that sometimes exceed 20 percent. It is almost impossible to find a 100-kilometre tour with less than 1,500 vertical metres in your legs; the altimeter usually counts 2,500 to more than 3,000 vertical metres. Without a triple crank, pedalling is extremely difficult. The roads in the interior of the country have little traffic for the most part, some sections are perfectly tarmaced, others are quite bumpy, which can be annoying on the descents. The surface is also very rough on many side roads. Caution! Do not drive in the mountains when it is raining! The tarmac becomes slippery and the water washes debris onto the road.
These tours and the GPS data can be downloaded below:
- Tour 1: Go West (118 km, 3,050 m elevation gain, max. 16 per cent gradient)
- Tour 2: Valley of Tears (93 km, 2,450 m elevation gain, max. 23 per cent gradient)
- Tour 3: Bed castles and mountains (91 km, 1,500 m elevation gain, max. 15 per cent gradient)
- Tour 4: To the snow summit (108 km, 2,800 m elevation gain, max. 16 per cent gradient)
