Iago Garay Explores Tenerife in ‘Not Far From Home’ – Video
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Words by Iago Garay: With all the travel restrictions due to the pandemic is the perfect scenario to go to those places we have heard of and are just a days drive away, or in this case a short two hour flight to Tenerife.
When most people think about Tenerife or the Canary Islands, they usually visualize long sandy beaches and very dry, hot weather. What most people probably don’t know is that Tenerife is one of the best mountain bike destinations in the world.
Picture this: Tenerife is basically a massive volcano that comes straight out of the Atlantic Ocean. Pico del Teide is 3715 meters high, making it the tallest mountain in Spain and the perfect trap for storms traveling across the Atlantic. A lot of those clouds get stuck halfway up the mountain creating a ring of green, lush forests around the island. Usually those storms bring rain to the north side, forming jungle like thick rainforests while they keep the South dry and almost desert-like.
With this, there is every type of riding you could ask for all packed in one little island. Slippery tight tracks in the north jungle, grippy and loamy trails halfway up the mountain, dry and rocky terrain in the south and loose volcanic dirt at the top of Teide mountain. In one run from the top you can hit at least three different eco systems and track types.
There are trails everywhere and there is only one man that knows them all… Edgar Carballo.
When I started the Not Far From home series I knew that at some point we had to go to Tenerife to ride with Edgar, so once the travel restrictions allowed it I got the usual crew together: Kike Abelleira (photo), Nacho Trueba (video) and Sergio Layos (professional kids bike rider and occasional MTBer) and went to visit him.
