CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 535 km round trip from Tutamandahostel - roughly 6 h in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Pimán - Caranqui, Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito, Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal and Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Quito sits almost on the equator and almost two miles up, and the two facts together explain a lot. At about 2,850 metres the air is thin, the sun is fierce, and the days are mild whatever the calendar says, so the city lives in a permanent early spring. It stretches for kilometres along a narrow Andean valley, with Pichincha volcano rising on the western side and, on clear mornings, the snow cone of Cotopaxi and other peaks visible to the south and east.
Read the complete Quito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quito is where the day begins. Next is Segment Pimán - Caranqui.
Ibarra sits in a high basin in northern Ecuador at around 2,200 metres, beneath the green slopes of Imbabura volcano, and the Inca road ran right through this valley. The Qhapaq Ñan, the Andean road system, stretched over 30,000 kilometres from Colombia to Chile and Argentina, linking the Inca empire, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2014. The segment between Pimán and Caranqui is one of the preserved sections in Ecuador, a stretch of old path through farmland and hills, with dry-stone edging in places and the kind of steady, sensible gradient Inca engineers favoured for runners and llama trains. Caranqui, now a suburb of Ibarra, was an important Inca centre, and local tradition claims it as the birthplace of Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor.
Read the complete Segment Pimán - Caranqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Pimán - Caranqui comes up about 119 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito.
High in the Andes of northern Ecuador, between El Ángel and Pimampiro in the province of Carchi, a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the great road network of the Inca Empire, crosses the páramo, the high grassland that blankets the mountains above the tree line. The Inca built more than thirty thousand kilometres of roads across their empire, from Colombia to Chile and Argentina, linking towns, temples and storehouses, and this northern section, near the empire's frontier, was among the last to be built before the Spanish conquest. The Qhapaq Ñan was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2014 as a transnational site shared by six countries, with hundreds of individual segments, including this one.
Read the complete Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito. Next is Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal.
Northern Ecuador is where the Andes narrow and the country almost touches Colombia, and this stretch between Juan Montalvo and Cabuyal lies in the highland province of Carchi, not far from the little town of El Ángel. The area sits in the shadow of the páramo, the cold, treeless grassland above the forest line, where frailejones, the tall, silvery, furry-leaved plants, stand like crowds of strange sentinels. The El Ángel Ecological Reserve, a short way off, protects a large stretch of this habitat, and on a cloudy day it feels like another planet.
Read the complete Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal, about halfway. Next is Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
The province of Carchi, at the northern tip of Ecuador, is high, green and cool, a land of potato fields, dairy farms and páramo, the high-altitude grassland of the Andes. The Inca road ran through here on its way north, and the segment between La Paz and the Quebrada Tupala is one of the Ecuadorian sections of the Qhapaq Ñan listed by UNESCO. Near the village of La Paz, a natural cave in the rock, the Gruta de La Paz, has been turned into a shrine to the Virgin, with a church inside the cave, and it draws pilgrims from across the region.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala sits at 174 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal comes up about 355 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 368 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito. Next is back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Pimán - Caranqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui, late in the day. Next is Quito.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Quito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 535 km.
Quito → Segment Pimán - Caranqui is 119 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Pimán - Caranqui → Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito → Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal → Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → back through Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal → back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito → back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui → Quito is 118 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.