First time I came to the Tenerife Island (one of Canary Islands) was 4 years ago and that place simply amazed me a lot. Why? It is simple. Winter it the Czech Republic isn´t really ideal place for mountain biking and for about 3-4 months we have snow and freezing temperatures like the rest of the central Europe. Another reason is that we don´t have such a good conditions for riding downhills or freerides. And on Tenerife in January you can easily ride in shorts and t-shirt and do freeride runs with almost 2000 meters high difference. It is something completely different than we have here in Czech.

During those 4 years I wanted to come back to Tenerife every year but school and other circumstances weren´t on my side. Finally this year I was able to put it all together, plan the trip to this great place again and enjoy few days riding on the sun with dust on the ground. And no snow at all!
With my friend Martin we packed our freeride bikes and flew to Tenerife for spending there a 10 days of riding and hard training for upcoming fourcross season. Our base was in a city Puerto de la Cruz which is probably the best place as a base for riding bike on Tenerife. Every morning there is bus coming up to the Pico del Teide (El Portillo bus station) and you can use it as shuttle for a downhill run. At the top (at almost 2000m high) you just have to choose one of many DH/FR trails that bring you down to the sea. It is good to meet and ride with some local riders as they know exactly where and how you can ride. They are really nice people and can also show you the best tracks on island, not just from El Portillo but also on other places. On the week days we met in the bus about 5-10riders and on weekends the bus is normally full of bikers and it is hard to get in with the bike. The cost is about 3,50 euro but you can have it cheaper if you buy a bus credit ticket for multiple runs. This is just one of many possibilities of riding on Tenerife. Basically you can ride from the hill (Pico del Teide) on almost all sides of the island.

Another very good location is close to north airport of Tenerife and La Laguna city. The direction to Teide is a great place for riding a XC bike. There are plenty of forest roads and you can find there some singletracks as well. Endless riding.

If you come to Tenerife with a bike you have to definitely visit a local bikepark. Even the hill is much smaller than a hills in the Alps you can find here about 4-5 tracks. The best bike for bikepark is probably the freeride bike (about 16-16cm of travel) but there are lots of guys riding downhill bikes as well as some hardtails. Shuttling here is provided by a truck and it takes you about 15minutes to make a run up and down. More info about riding and conditions of the bikepark can be found on www.bikeparktenerife.com.

Most of our stay we were riding from El Portillo down to Puerto. One day we tried other side of the island and did one really long track finishing in Arafo. Some parts of this track were completely different and we were riding on the lava sand. It was great fun and the same feeling as on the snow. Last day we spent with Zeno and Gumi who are really pushing biking on Tenerife and they showed us one trail that they want to repair and make ready for biking. The trail was pretty long, not too much downhill, more like enduro riding but there were still some really technical parts. The trail is in the natural park called Anaga (Parque Rural de Anaga). It starts on the hill called Pico del Ingles and finishes by the sea in Santa Cruz. This trail will be part of a trail net (approximately 5-6 trails enduro, freeride, dh) that should be opened in September. So the possibilities of riding on Tenerife will increase.

Starting our last ride with a sunny and hot weather we were little bit unlucky that in the middle of the trail the rain came to us. Fortunately it wasn´t cold at all and the ground was just a little bit muddy so it was fun to ride next to cactus on the wet trail.
10 days were gone too fast and we had to go back to Czech winter reality. We had sun and temperatures about 20-25 degrees Celsium almost every day which is for January great. I can´t thanks enough to local guys who rode with us and showed us great riding. Thanks to Dani, Zeno, Moises and for sure bikeparktenerife.com.

So if you are bored during winter time and don´t like snow you can try to come to Tenerife! I think you won´t be disappointed!

From: http://www.foxhead.com/us/mtb/blog/id/24076