Gökçeada is a fantastic place to explore on a bike: the island is full of interesting places to see, and fun undulating roads. Carry your swimming gear while biking and you can go swimming in numerous beaches that are not easy to get to on a car. Below you will find 4 routes, suitable for day trips, each about 50 - 100 km, on mixed gravel and paved roads.
Horn of Kefalos and The Southern Shore (Length of route: 82 km, elevation gain: 1260 m, GPX file, Gravel index: 4)
Eastern Shore (Length of route: 50 km, elevation gain: 1050 m, GPX file, Gravel index: 3)
Tour of the Villages (Length of route: 56 km, elevation gain: 1170 m, GPX file, Gravel index: 2)
Marmaros Waterfall (Length of route: 62 km, elevation gain: 1160 m, GPX file, Gravel index: 3-4)
Gravel index is a number between 1 to 5 to give some information about the road surface. 1 would be suitable on a road bike, while 5 is more suitable on a full-suspention MTB. The "toughest" section of a route to determines the index. If this section is smooth paved road then I use 1,if it is smooth gravel road or patchy paved road then I use 2, if it consists of small gravel then I use 3, if it contains sections that require pushing the bike (i.e. 50 m of soft sand or unridable rock) I use 4, if one has to carry the bike on the back I use 5. All the routes on this page were ridden on a gravel bike with 38 mm tyres, except for short sections they should be rideble.
All the routes start and end in Gokceada Centrum as that has most options for accomodation. Some of the routes include short loops (Volkite beach -- Horn of Kefalos, Derekoy -- Maramaros Waterfall, Kuzulimani -- Northern beach). Usually these are the more tricky sections hence you might want to either drive to the trailhead of these loops and ride these more fun sections only, or alternatively you might want to skip them to enjoy more of a road-bike outing.
If you are planning to follow the full routes as they are listed above (or the GPS file) its good to allocate about a day each. These are not inteded as "fast-paced" road rides but more as exploration/adventure rides; so if you are curious about swimming in many beaches or trying ice cream from different vendors it definetely helps to allocate about a day so you have a more relaxed time.
When I completed the tours in August 2020 there was roadwork between Zeytinlikoy - Tepekoy and east of Derekoy. Hence some roads were not rideable, you may need to adjust the above routes to accomodate the on-site conditions.
The GPX files listed above were generated as I was touring the island hence may include some travel in the wrong direction or long searches for ice cream, use with caution.
As usual : these routes are recommendations based on my experience in Gokceada, make sure you adjust them to your ability level and current conditions as necessary.
If you are looking for other sources of information for bike routes in Gökçeada here are some recommendations:
visitgokceada.com (if you can't reach the website try the wayback machine, eg via tihis link)
Asla Durma (Fatih Topçu) is triathlon focused youtuber, he has a nice video on Gökçeada.
Wikiloc (some of the hiking routes look interesting for biking)
Strava (the heatmap feature is particularly useful)