Vuelta Ciclista a Lanzarote 2026 preview: entries and where to watch

On Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October the third Vuelta Ciclista a Lanzarote is ridden: 189 kilometres organised by Club La Santa, split into two stages that cross all seven municipalities on the island. Start with what it is not. It is not a race. Only three climbs are timed. The rest is ridden in a group, with regrouping points and with feed stations turned into fan zones.

That changes who signs up, and the entry list shows it.

Who has entered, three weeks out

As of 12 September there are 394 riders entered. Of those, 360 are doing both stages, 21 have entered the second stage only and 13 the first only.

The age picture explains a lot about this event: 282 of the 394 are 40 or older, almost three in four. The biggest age group by some distance is Master 40 with 132 entries, then Master 50 with 90, Master 30 with 72 and Master 60 with 60. At the other end there are 31 elite riders, five under 23, one junior and three cadets, who may only ride the second stage. There are 75 women, 19 % of the list.

They come from 22 countries. Spain accounts for 269, and behind it come the United Kingdom with 48, Germany with 14, Ireland with 10, Colombia with 8 and Italy with 6.

Read that number with the calendar next to it: entries do not close until 29 September, and in 2025 the organisers announced more than 600 riders from 25 countries. So today’s list still has two and a half weeks to grow.

What the 2025 clocks left behind

In the combined classification of the three timed climbs, the fastest man in 2025 was Daniel Kierok (C.D. Mountainride) with 46:31. Behind him came Laurens Verluyten with 47:46 and Daniel Ocaña Rodríguez with 47:51, so the podium fitted inside a minute and twenty seconds.

Among the women, the fastest time was Anne Haug, entered with Club La Santa, in 52:45. Natalia Hackett was second with 58:16 and Sara Reimondo third with 1:02:29.

Neither of the two fastest riders of 2025 is on the 2026 list today. Two others from those podiums are: Sara Reimondo, entered for both stages, and Laurens Verluyten, who this time is riding only the second, the one containing the Femés and Timanfaya climbs. With that format, the best combined time is decided among those who ride both days.

The list also has two names from road racing: Luis Pasamontes, entered with The League of Gregarious, and Omar Fraile, with Mendiz Mendi, the Basque cycling school that the rider of that name gave his name to in 2018. The organisers have not announced any guest riders for this edition, so this is what the entry list says, not an announcement from the event.

Where it is decided

Stage 1, Saturday, 115 km from Club La Santa to Puerto del Carmen. The climb that shapes the weekend comes past halfway: the timed ascent from Haría to the Mirador del Río, 8.5 km and 310 metres, on the road up the Risco de Famara. The fastest time there in 2025 was 16:54 for men and 19:32 for women, which is between 27 and 32 kilometres per hour uphill.

Then comes the Guayo Rodríguez regrouping at the Castillo de San José, and after it a charity section: the tighter the group rides, the larger the donation the organisers make to a local association. After that, La Geria and the descent of Hoya Limpia to the Plaza de Las Naciones.

Stage 2, Sunday, 74 km back to Club La Santa, with two timed sections: Las Casitas to Femés, 5.3 km and 170 metres, and Timanfaya to Mancha Blanca, 12.7 km and 220 metres at an average of 3 %.

These are long, steady drags, not walls. What decides them is not the gradient: it is the wind on the straights across the lava field, and arriving at the second morning in one piece.

If you are going to watch

The 2026 maps and fan zones have not been published yet. The 2025 ones give a fair idea of how the day is spread out, because the route is the same: on the Saturday there were spectator zones at the Club La Santa stadium from 07:30 to 09:00, in Teguise from 08:30 to 10:30, in the Haría town square from 09:00 to 11:00, at the Castillo de San José from 11:00 to 13:00 and at the Plaza de Las Naciones from 12:30 to 14:30. On the Sunday, in Puerto del Carmen from 07:30 to 09:00, in Yaiza from 09:30 to 11:30 and at Club La Santa from 10:30 to 13:00.

If you want to watch actual racing rather than a parade, the two places are the Haría climb on Saturday morning and the Timanfaya road on Sunday mid-morning: those are the sections where every rider is on the clock.

And if you have to drive that weekend, in 2025 there were rolling road closures in Tinajo, Teguise, Haría, Arrecife, San Bartolomé and Tías on the Saturday, and in Tías, Yaiza and Tinajo on the Sunday, each lasting one to three hours. The organisers publish the traffic summary a few days beforehand; as soon as the 2026 one is out, we put it on the event page.

If you are going to ride it

The start is at 08:30 on both days, and race numbers are handed out on Friday 2 October, from 15:30 to 19:30, at the Club La Santa stadium. The briefings are on Wednesday 30 September, in English at 16:00 and in Spanish at 16:30.

The deadlines bite harder than the route:

• Until 22 September: 130 EUR for both stages, 70 EUR for one.
• From 23 to 29 September: 170 and 90 EUR.
• Entries close on 29 September at 23:59 CET, which is 22:59 in the Canaries.
• Canary Islands residents get 10 % off.
• Anyone entering from 24 August onwards does not get the jersey included.
• Teams are of four riders and the captain has to confirm the line-up before 28 September.

So waiting until the last week costs 40 EUR more for both stages and 20 EUR for one.

The full event page, with the price detail, the compulsory kit, the age groups and the organiser’s contact details, is at Lanzarote Cycling Tour. Those details are checked every morning against the organiser’s own website. The one thing you do have to go to their site for is entering: the payment is theirs.