Vilaflor Up-Down Ride ... with a Motor !

Beautiful late afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, so Anna and I decided to go up to Vilaflor and do a circular ride that she 'pioneered' a few weeks ago. It starts from our usual spot, but instead of taking the 'motorway' main track, you climb up the road for twenty minutes, then turn off towards Teide onto quite a rough track for another forty minutes of tough off-road climbing, and then fourty-five minutes of rocky, loose downhill takes you back down to the main track, and back to the car.

To be honest, the thought of slogging for an hour uphill with my dodgy knees didn't really appeal to me, so I decided to do it on Nikki's electric mountain bike (a Focus Jarifa Pro). Anna is in her element slogging uphill, so she wasn't bothered.

I the end it was a good decision as we had to get round in two hours max before the light started to fail, and I stopped a lot less than I normally do, and moaned a lot less about shlogging uphill with dodgy knees. I was also trying out my new Shimano hydration backpack, as Nikki's bike doesn't have room for a bottle cage, and it worked superbly, also meaning no stopping for a drink.

As you can see from the pics, taken on Anna's phone, the light was exceptionally clear and the colours very strong: the greens of the trees, against the red / black of the lava, against the intense blue of the sky at >2000 metres.