Cycling
Cycling guide to Lanzarote
Riding in Lanzarote: the five races where the bike is the main discipline, the timed climbs, the volcanic surface, the wind and the bike legs of the island's triathlons.
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Lanzarote has five races where the bicycle is the main discipline: two on the road and three off it. Add the triathlons, where the bike leg is the longest part of the day, and cycling is the biggest reason people bring a bike to this island. This guide gathers what each organiser publishes and what is already verified on our event pages: distances, timed climbs, dates, prices and what to carry.
The five races built around the bike
| Race | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|
| Yaiza Extremo Sur | MTB, 60 km and 30 km | 6 and 7 November 2026, entries open until 3 November |
| Lanzarote Cycling Tour | Road, two stages | Raced on 3 and 4 October 2026 |
| 4 Stage Mountain Bike Race Lanzarote | MTB stage race | Raced from 3 to 6 September 2026 |
| Cronoescalada Valle del Malpaso | Individual uphill time trial | Two editions, both in December; the 2026 one still had no date on 20 August 2026 |
| Ultrabike Lanzarote | MTB, two stages, one of them on La Graciosa | No edition announced as of 6 September 2026 |
Road racing: two stages and three timed climbs
The Lanzarote Cycling Tour is Club La Santa’s road event, and 2026 was its third edition: 189 kilometres across two stages, 115 km on Saturday and 74 km on Sunday, starting at 08:30 both days. It is not raced as a closed peloton. What decides the standings are three timed climbs:
- Haría to Mirador del Río, 8.5 km and 310 metres of elevation gain, on the road up to the Risco de Famara.
- Las Casitas to Femés, 5.3 km and 170 metres.
- Timanfaya to Mancha Blanca, 12.7 km and 220 metres, crossing the national park.
These are long, steady climbs rather than walls. That single fact changes preparation more than anything else for riders arriving from a mountain region: here you climb seated for a long time, and what wears you down is the wind on the straights across the lava field.
The other road event is the Cronoescalada Valle del Malpaso in Haría, an individual uphill time trial with staggered starts, run by the town council alongside Summits Sports Events. Two editions have been raced and the course changed between them. The 2024 edition covered 4.9 km with around 350 metres of climbing at an average gradient of 6.6%, from the square in Haría to the Mirador de Los Helechos. The 2025 edition climbed from Tabayesco to Peñas del Chache, the highest point on the island, and the timing company classified it as 10,000 metres: 46 riders finished and the winner averaged 22.37 km/h, which on a sustained climb says more than any adjective. The 2026 edition still had no announced date on 20 August 2026.
Mountain biking: abrasive ground and back-to-back stages
The 4 Stage Mountain Bike Race Lanzarote raced its twenty-fourth edition in 2026, from 3 to 6 September, based at Club La Santa. Four consecutive days: a 21 km time trial from Caleta de Famara up to the Ermita de Las Nieves, a 56 km stage, the queen stage over 83 km counting as UCI XCMS S1 (53 km in the e-bike category) and 50 km on the final day. All four days started at 09:00. A total of 107 riders completed all four stages, 99 men and 8 women. There are both four-stage and two-stage entries, so the format allows you to take only the weekend.
Yaiza Extremo Sur is the November date and it has entries open: Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November 2026, with the children’s race on Friday at 15:00 and the MTB races on Saturday, 60 km at 8:00 and 30 km at 9:00. Starts and finish are in the THB Tropical Island area, in Playa Blanca. Entries close on 3 November at 23:59 and go through Cronoline. Prices read on 12 October 2026 were 60 euros for the 60 km, 40 euros for the 30 km and 10 euros for the children’s race, up from 48 and 32 on 10 October, when the first price band sold out in two days. The price that counts is whatever the platform shows on the day you sign up.
Ultrabike Lanzarote is the one that crosses to La Graciosa: two stages over a weekend, Saturday on the eighth island and Sunday on Lanzarote, based in Costa Teguise. The tenth edition was raced on 27 and 28 April 2024. The eleventh, called for 3 and 4 May 2025 with more than 400 entries, was postponed two days beforehand after the Canary Islands Government issued a report warning that the course could affect a bird nesting area. As of 6 September 2026 there was no edition announced. If you are interested, the thing to watch is the notice on the official site rather than the calendar.
Wind matters more than elevation
On the bike, wind is the condition that changes the day most, and both stage races say the same thing: on the 4 Stage it does more damage than the elevation, especially across El Jable, and on the Lanzarote Cycling Tour the average speed is deceptive, because a fast tailwind section does not pay for what you spend going the other way.
Before choosing wheels, read the guide to wind in Lanzarote, where the detail lives. The part that matters most on a bike: very deep-section wheels can be fast in theory and poor in practice without experience of crosswind gusts, and the technique is to relax your shoulders, keep your elbows unlocked and anticipate riders coming past. That guide also explains where to read the forecast and why the airport weather station is only a reference point for Famara, La Santa, Puerto del Carmen or Playa Blanca.
Wind can move an entire race date: the second Cronoescalada was set for Saturday 13 December 2025 and was raced a week later, on the 20th, because of hurricane-force winds.
Surface, tyres and a minimum kit list
Two lines from our event pages are worth more than a generic kit list. From the Lanzarote Cycling Tour: the northern road has sections of uneven surface, so very thin tyres do not pay off. From the 4 Stage: the volcanic ground is dry and abrasive, so a tough casing and sealant beat fast rubber.
The mandatory kit for the Lanzarote Cycling Tour also works as a minimum list for riding independently: an approved rigid helmet, clothing suited to the weather, food and water for 50 kilometres, a mobile phone carrying the organiser’s emergency number, and a rear light on the bike. On that race the feed stations are self-service and come roughly every 20 kilometres, with no spare bottles: the one in the rider pack is the one you have.
For everything else in the bag, there are the gear guide and the heat and hydration guide.
The bike leg of the triathlons
If you come to ride, you can also race a triathlon, where the bike is the longest leg. The distances each event page publishes:
- IRONMAN Lanzarote, 180.2 km, on 15 May 2027.
- Volcano Triathlon Lanzarote, 40 km, on a provisional date of 24 April 2027.
- Club La Santa Volcano Triathlon Half, 90 km, on a provisional date of 26 June 2027.
- World Triathlon Cup Lanzarote, 21 km in Costa Teguise, raced on 14 March 2026.
- II Duatlón Supersprint Ciudad de Arrecife, 8 km over four laps of a city circuit closed to traffic, with a provisional date of 12 December 2026.
Both Volcano dates are provisional because they come from the organiser’s official timekeeper, Race Result, read on 14 October 2026, and Club La Santa has not published them on its own website, checked that same day. The IRONMAN date is firm and its entries are already open. Entries for the three Club La Santa races open on 15 October 2026 at 14:00 Canary time, again according to the timekeeper.
If that is the route you want, the triathlon racing guide and the IRONMAN, Volcano and Ocean Lava comparison go into each format in detail.
Travelling with a bike
Logistics weigh on the weekend more than people expect, and 2026 gave two examples. Stage one of the Lanzarote Cycling Tour finished in Puerto del Carmen, around thirty kilometres from where it started, and the organisers laid on an optional bus at 15 euros with four departures. And the La Graciosa stage of the Ultrabike means crossing by ferry from Órzola with the bike, which shapes accommodation and timings for the whole weekend.
Assembly, the bike box, tools, storage space and the margin between your flight and the race are covered in the transport and logistics guide. To pick a base, see where to stay.
Riding on your own
Outside of racing you get the same mix the events use: roads open to traffic and farm tracks. The 2025 Yaiza Extremo Sur crossed the island from north to south on that combination, starting in Órzola and finishing in Playa Blanca. That calls for a rear light, reading the traffic and care at junctions.
It also calls for staying on the marked track. On volcanic ground a tyre mark takes a long time to disappear, and the 2025 postponement of the Ultrabike is the reminder that the landscape here carries protection designations that outrank the race calendar. La Graciosa, incidentally, can be ridden independently any day of the year: it is not the same as pinning on a number, but the terrain is.
To fit a target into the year, the month-by-month sports calendar shows how the races spread out. And the cycling and MTB listings collect every event page as it is updated.
