Is Kokkini Chani good for cycling?

Kokkini Hani is situated at a small flat area in front of the sea. If you want to ride east or west the road, EO90, is flat for several kilometers (rare for Crete) but if you want to ride south here starts the difficult. Although there are no big mountains close to Kokkini, exactly behind the new highway A90 (just 500meters from the beach direction south) there are only big hills to climb. But here you will find amazing low traffic roads, picturesque villages and amazing landscapes.

The old national road of Crete EO90 passes through the town from west to east and most of the shops are located at the two sides of the road. The locals when they go shoping they park their cars on this road outside of the shops so it is narrow with traffic and you have to be very carefull when you ride on this part or the town from Knossos Hotel (west side of Kokkini) until Rinela Hotel east side of Kokkini. For this 2 kilometers the road is also very bad (until 2020 when I wrote this post) but all the rest of the Cretan road network is perfect for road cycling.

From Kokkini Hani there are 6 roads to go south and all of them go to the same place, the roundabout before Episkopi village. Three pass through Anopoli village, two from Elia Village and the main road from Karteros which goes directly to Episkopi. All of them have steep uphillsections. We prefer to use the easternmost road after Rinella hotel as it has almost no traffic as also the road from Arina Hotel. When we go south we avoid the main road from Karteros as it is very steep and there is more traffic but when we return back it is ok.

For the mountain bike lovers there are tours to do but we prefer the area between Galipe and Gouves. Although the area is hilly (not mountainous) there many small but deep canyons so riding from village to village it can be really hard and steep. The hills of the area are made mainly from clay and when it is wet it is very slippery and it sticks on the tires like glue.

All the bike tours that we uplooad on this page follow small and quiet lower traffic back roads through the cretan countryside.We use the EO90 only to move a little bit east or west until we reach the roads thats goes south. We do not ride on the north Cretan high way on which cycling is not allowed.