Such Great Heights

“There’s one flat road on Tenerife. It’s called the airport.”

Picture six amateur cyclists, all strangers to each other, assembled for an arrival-day briefing session in a hotel lobby. Picture tanned, muscular Alberto Delgado, one of the two brothers who run Tenerife Bike Tours, delivering the line above — one he must have rolled out hundreds of times. Picture an outbreak of nervous laughter.

We had arrived on this volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean for a weeklong cycling break. All of us had one aim: to test our legs against one of the world’s most formidable cycling challenges, the ascent of Mount Teide. Which pretty much means the ascent of Tenerife, as the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands is simply the upper half of a mountain with its base on the seafloor and its head in the clouds. Beyond the airport, the nearest you get to flat on the rest of the island is a succession of switchback ups and downs, like the magnificent balcony road from San Miguel de Abona northeast to Güímar. What locals call “the road of a thousand curves” is an undulating needle threaded through a scatter of charming rural villages, past the tilting giants of wind farms, into gullies where prickly pears and carob trees fight for supremacy.

That is where we found ourselves two days later, battling the Calima, the easterly wind that blows across the Canary Islands from Africa, bringing with it Saharan sand and dust, softening the landscape with a hazy filter. But by this stage we’d already had our first taste of the mountain, compared with which cycling against a headwind felt like a walk in el parque.

Over six days of cycling, we were promised two shots at Teide. The first came on day two, which dawned mild and bright. As we began the ascent from Playa San Juan, my fellow rider Rob, a London-based asset manager, turned to me and said, “There’s something really satisfying about going for a long bike ride on a Monday morning.” I concurred, and we chatted briefly before he scooted ahead with a burst of power I had neither the desire nor the muscles to match. Two hours later, as I continued to mash down on the pedals, legs aching, lungs bursting, I reflected that a day in the office has its upside, too.

If by this point you’re asking “Why?”…well, you’re probably not a cyclist. If you are a cyclist, you’ll most likely start, as I did, full of enthusiasm, and begin to pose the “Why?” question only when, legs flooded with lactic acid, you glance up at a road sign to see that you’re still 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, from the top. However, cyclists are like three-year-olds: Dark despair and boisterous joy are only a sugar rush apart. Back at the last café stop, I had made sure to stuff an extra trucha frita — a sort of turnover-doughnut filled with sweet potato paste — into my jersey pocket. I took a bite and all was well with the world…at least until the next distance marker.

Cyclists collect climbs the way boxers collect bruises. Spend some time with a group of serious European road cyclists and the talk will inevitably turn to epic ascents like Mont Ventoux and the Alpe d’Huez in France, Italy’s Stelvio, the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees. All feature regularly in pro cycling’s great twin summer events, the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. But in cyclist bragging contests, Teide beats them all — in part because it’s the longest continual cycling ascent available anywhere in Europe, in part because it’s so relentless. In his 2015 book The World of Cycling According to G, British pro cyclist and Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas wrote: “Before I had experienced Mount Teide in Tenerife with its 30-kilometer climbs, even 15 minutes seemed an age.”

Teide generates superlatives even outside of the cycling confraternity. Rising from sea level to 12,118 feet (3,715 meters), it’s the highest peak in the Atlantic, and if you measure its total height from the seabed, it ranks as the world’s third tallest volcano, after Hawai‘i’s Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. It also casts the world’s biggest shadow over the sea, one that in certain atmospheric conditions appears to project above the horizon.

The final ascent of Teide’s volcanic cone — at its most evocative at sunrise and sunset, when the sea shadow reaches its maximum extent — is reserved for walkers in possession of a special permit. This leaves a mere 7,730 feet (2,356 meters) for cyclists to conquer, on one of several roads that lead from sea level to the rim of the caldera, a windswept basin formed by the collapse of an even higher ancient volcano. Factor in the island’s mild winter temperatures — during my stay in January, they rarely dropped below 64°F (18°C) or went much over 72°F (22°C) — and it’s easy to see why Tenerife has become the go-to winter training venue for many pro cycling teams, including Geraint Thomas’s Ineos Grenadiers. It’s also easy to see why so many keen amateurs are joining them. I live in central Italy, where the winters can be surprisingly chilly: 39°F (4°C) the morning I left for the airport, otherwise known in cycling circles as “indoor training weather.”

For years, I used a bike only as a means of transport, taking my life in my hands as I braved the Roman traffic. When my wife and I moved to the Umbrian countryside, I started in on road cycling for the sake of it. At first, the five miles to the next village seemed an epic ride. Soon enough, it became a warm-up. I entered a few amateur races, but always preferred the camaraderie of long rides with friends. It wasn’t the desire to go faster that took me to Tenerife, but the thrill of a challenge and the chance to do it in what, luckily, turned out to be congenial company. Among my companions was Francis, a London postman, and John, a former high school headmaster from northeast England.

The Delgado brothers, Alberto and Marcos, both formidable cyclists, were our guides and guardian angels for the week. Their company, Tenerife Bike Tours, aims to satisfy the increasing demand from northern European cyclists for Canary Island winter breaks. Typically, a week on Tenerife with the Delgados will include six days’ cycling — a warm-up day, a Teide ascent, an intermediate day, a second Teide ascent, and two final days dedicated to exploring the greener north, which receives almost three-quarters of the island’s annual rainfall.

Over the first four days, we became well acquainted with Vilaflor, the highest village in the Canary Islands and one of the highest in Spain. It may stand at a lofty 4,600 feet (1,400 meters), draping itself across a wide scoop of land on the shoulder of the volcano, but we learned to see this mountain settlement as a mere halfway house on the climb to the top. Between and around its simple whitewashed houses are small terraced farms dedicated to the cultivation of vines and the small Canarian potatoes that go into that simplest of local dishes, papas arrugadas (literally “wrinkled potatoes”). Perfect post-ride pick-me-ups, these are boiled skin-on in salty water until it evaporates, leaving them coated in salt, then served accompanied by a spicy red-bell-pepper sauce called mojo.

We all needed our mojo working as we climbed out of Vilaflor. There is nothing worse than forcing yourself back onto the bike after a café stop. You can practically hear your legs scream. As we ascended, the exposed slopes gave way to a verdant forest of Canary Island pines. Toward the top, the trees thin out, and the few groves seem to be rooted in rock and dust. But it’s only when you touch the rim of the caldera, and you can ease off the pedals at last, that the strange beauty of the place really hits you. There’s something extraterrestrial about the expanse of rock that extends as far as the eye can see, limited to the north only by the great wavelike cone of the “new” volcano that began to sprout almost 200,000 years ago within the shell of its ancient ancestor. On a closer view, you realize that this Martian landscape is rich in plant life: wispy asphodel, clumps of pink-flowered pterocephalus, and the transparent skeletons of the Mount Teide bugloss, which in May and June explode into huge red floral spikes.

As we exchanged high fives at the mirador (viewpoint), I remembered what John had said back at the last coffee stop as we all complained about our sore legs: “There’s no comparison between doing a road by bike and doing it by car…the effort you put in is part of the beauty of the thing.”

That’s exactly what you would expect a headmaster to say. But it’s also about the best answer I or any other cyclist could give to the “Why do that to yourself?” question. That, and the ability to eat three truchas fritas in a row, guilt-free.

Tenerife Bike Tours offers various packages for individual cyclists and groups, including those traveling with non-cycling partners, in the Canary Islands and across Europe.

Lee Marshall is a travel and film writer based in rural Umbria, Italy. Originally from England, he contributes to Condé Nast Traveler, the Telegraph, Screen International, Travel + Leisure, and others.