A new mountain bike route around the island of Lanzarote was inaugurated on the 3rd December 2009 at the Castillo de San José and now will be the Libyan Challenge equivalent for William Fairbairn and Jonty Fernandez (unoffically Team NZ) after the Libyan Challenge was callcelled due to the politcal uprisings gribbing the country.

The total route is 205.67 kilometres in length but has been divided up into 6 individual stages that connect with each other. Each of the routes have been graded in their level of difficulty, road surface and maps with full route details are available for download below, courtesy of the website Lanzarote en Bici. The MTB routes were unveiled by professional cyclist Iñaki Lejarreta Errasti who attended the Olympic Games 2008.

William Fairbairn and Jonty fernandez will start the 205km journey at 4am Tuesday 22nd Feb, just 4 hours after they were due to start racing the Libyan Challenge. Their goal is to run the event the under the same conditions and rules as the libyan Challenge.

We wish kiwi boys the very best of luck and look forward to an update. See the below link for details....