Author: Simon McNamara

Location: Tenerife

I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to travel across to Tenerife in December to attend the CMPC Dec training camp with an idea to kick start my 2026 riding season with some quality miles in warm sunny conditions which seemed the perfect way to escape some of the UK’s dank winter riding conditions. As part of the trip, we had planned several big days of which one was to circle to Mt. Teide from the southern side and then ride the 40km climb from Santa De La Cruz on the northern side of the Island up to the top of the Mountain, well that was the plan.

This was the 6th day of the trip so the legs were a little heavy, however an amazing sunrise along with several bowls of cereal put me in good stead.

Leaving Arona at 10:00am the day was warm and a 15km descent down to Las Americas on the coast gave the legs a leisurely warm up before the climbing started.

The climb up to Chio was at a fairly steady gradient which could be tapped out at a good rhythm before switching on to a much steeper 5km section up to the top at Santiago Del Teide which saw the grade go over 10% for much of the effort.

A short descent and climb up past the Masca turn off bought us to the top, from here we had 25km down which was super fun as the descent snaked its way down to the coast through villages with twists and turns that could be taken at speed whilst having the deep blue ocean always visible to our left, to me these are genuinely the ‘feel good about life’ moments on the bike where the K’s flick past and it is just pure fun! 

All good things come to an end and we were soon heading up again (despite my brother having told me that there we’re a few rolling climbs on the way to Santa Cruz, 10km at a 6% grade was a bit more than a roller!). Once on the descent, we had a quick petrol station refuel stop to have a coke and a couple of donuts and stock the bar bag up with some Haribo and Snickers (I know, text book nutrition right!).

Hitting the road again, we soon started the main climb of the day whilst already having over 2000m of ascent in the legs, I was a little shocked when my Garmin flashed up ‘climb starting’ with 37km and 1900m of vert to the top. At this point we settled in at our individual climbing speeds (mine being slower) and cracked on with an epic climb that wound through villages before entering dense pine forests, I was rationing my Haribo’s out and rewarding myself with a jelly every 10 mins which I guess switched the mind across from the discomfort in my legs and back! Eventually I rode out of the forest and into the more volcanic rocked upper section of the climb, meeting my brother sat on the Armco getting some food in and saying that he was ‘broken’.

We rode the final section of the climb up and around the Lava fields, rolling turns on the front with absolutely no legs and then stopped to cape up for the descent down through the park past the Parador hotel, where many World Tour teams have their altitude camps.

It was now gone 4:00 in the afternoon and the sun was low in the sky, highlighting the amazing colours of the rocks and forests that circle this part of the Island.

One last climb, only 4km and not too steep and then it’s 20km all downhill to get home, the descent was fantastic as we pretty much had the road to ourselves and barely saw any cars.

The descent from the top down to Villaflor has a mix of gradual bends that you can take whilst barely touching the brakes, mixed in with some tighter hairpins that come back on yourself, which certainly keep you on your toes to not get over confident and overshoot 

Again, the views were fantastic with the sun setting on this side of the Island, it felt like we were heading down into a golden haze with the sea in the distance. This rounded off an epic day on the bike and one which is certainly well up there in my ‘top days’ on the bike list 

Some tech and stats for those that are interested:

Bike – Cannondale Super 6 Evo 4 High Mod fitted with our  HUNT 44_46 UD Carbon Spoke wheelset, Schwalbe Pro One 700 x 28c tan wall tyres set up as tubeless and inflated to 52psi at the front and 55psi at the rear.

For the gearing the bike has a Rotor InSpider PM with 39-54 chainrings and an 11-34 cassette to handle a lot of climbing.

Ride stats – 165km with a moving time of 6h:47m (7h 19m elapsed) 24.3 kph ave speed with 4325m of vertical ascent and a NP of 215w.

Total calorie burn for the ride – 4950.