Bootcamps in Gran Canaria and Tenerife with the baby blue Aeroad 🌋🚴‍♂️

I wanted to share some pics of my pretty bike in the sun! I was in the Canaries for a bit of training, holidaying and photosynthesising.

Gran Canaria

I stayed in Las Palmas. Routes I took some inspiration from the Gran Canaria Bike Week. The island is quite nicely sized, as any route you do is about 100 km. I went up to Pico de las Nieves twice. There are also a lot more roads on GC than on Tenerife, so you can go up taking different routes. The capital is busy af though full of cars, but generally drivers very chill. It went mostly smoothly except that I came off my bike at this wet bend despite going really slowly. It was unbelievably stupid but it happened.

Tenerife

I stayed at Puerto de la Cruz because it was a lot cheaper, but weather is a bit more variable. I still got good days though. Nearly didn't make it because of train cancellations in the Netherlands 😛 Then, my bike died after arriving. I took it to a bike shop and the diagnosis was too much cycling in the wet back home and the shifting cables and internal sheaths needed replacing. I guess I could've done more preventive maintenance…

Again I went up to El Teide twice. One of the routes I did was the Vuelta al Teide. On both rides it was crazy descending – you go through the clouds and it instantly becomes wet and cold between around 1000 and 500 m elevation.

On one of those days just before the 40 km descent I managed to cut up the side wall of my tyre at the Mirador el Tabonal Negro on the rocky ground. I shoved a piece of plastic between the tube and the side wall and went down really slowly, checking the gash every 10 km (I didn't want to go any faster anyway because it got really cold). It was dodgy af in the mist and was getting dark too – I forgot to bring my rear light as I left it charging in the hotel 💀 I was very fortunate to make it back.

Overall

Both islands have spectacular views, I saw many pros and cyclists mainly from NL/BE/DE on both islands. I try to go to a Spanish island every year but this time it's twice as special. And finally people told me that my bike is very pretty 😍 I honestly think the baby blue colour is one of the best paint jobs Canyon has ever produced.

P.S. you can also put your bike in the luggage compartment of the bus to do one-way rides.