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 one-way ride of 552 km, Labuan Bajo to Maumere - roughly 6 h 36 in the saddle. The stops in between: Ruteng, Bajawa, Kelimutu and Moni. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 13 km this is Trans-Flores Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Labuan Bajo was a sleepy fishing village not so long ago, and it is still trying to catch up with its own fame. It sits at the western tip of Flores, in eastern Indonesia, facing a scatter of dry brown islands that rise from a bright blue sea, and it is the gateway to Komodo National Park, a UNESCO site since 1991, home of the Komodo dragon. The largest living lizard on earth, which can grow to about three metres, survives in the wild only on a few islands here, and boat trips from the harbour take visitors to see them on Komodo and Rinca.
Read the complete Labuan Bajo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Labuan Bajo is where the day begins. Next is Ruteng.
Ruteng sits on a cool plateau in the middle of Flores, about twelve hundred metres above the sea, in country that feels more like the Alps in a heat wave than the tropics. Mornings here are cold enough for a jacket, mist hangs over the rice fields, and the hills are green with coffee, vanilla and clove plantations. About thirty-five thousand people live in the town, the main centre of the Manggarai region, and the majority are Catholic, a legacy of Portuguese traders and later Dutch missionaries that makes Flores unusual in mostly Muslim Indonesia. The cathedral is a large and busy landmark.
Read the complete Ruteng write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ruteng comes up about 127 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bajawa.
Bajawa is a cool highland town in the middle of Flores, and the first thing the body notices is the temperature. You arrive from the sticky coast and climb to around eleven hundred metres, where evenings need a jacket and the air smells of woodsmoke and clove. The town sits in a bowl at the foot of Mount Inerie, a graceful volcano of over two thousand metres whose cone dominates the southern skyline, and its slopes are covered in coffee, vegetables and clove trees. This is the heartland of the Ngada people, whose villages of thatched houses, ancestral shrines and megalithic stones lie within an hour or two of the town.
Read the complete Bajawa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 262 km into the recorded legs you reach Bajawa. Next is Kelimutu.
Kelimutu is a volcano on the island of Flores, in Indonesia's Nusa Tenggara, and it has three crater lakes that change colour. At the summit, about sixteen hundred metres above the sea, the three lakes sit side by side in a rocky landscape, one a deep turquoise, one a milky green and one a dark, almost black, though the colours shift over the years, from blue to green to red to brown, apparently according to volcanic gases and minerals in the water. Nobody can predict when or how they will change, and that is part of their pull.
Read the complete Kelimutu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kelimutu, about halfway. Next is Moni.
Moni is a small village at the foot of Kelimutu, a cluster of homestays, guesthouses and tiny restaurants strung along the road, in a cool green landscape of rice terraces, coffee bushes and banana trees. At about a thousand metres, it is noticeably cooler than the coast, and the evenings bring a damp chill that sends everyone into their rooms with a pot of hot tea. Most travellers come to sleep before the sunrise climb to the lakes, but the village has a quiet charm of its own.
Read the complete Moni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moni sits at 484 km, late in the day. Next is Maumere.
Maumere is where the Trans-Flores road runs out of island, or begins, depending on which way you ride. It is the biggest town in the east of Flores, a trading port with a Catholic cathedral, a busy market and a long waterfront, and the heat and humidity here hit you the moment you stop.
Read the complete Maumere write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 552 km.
Labuan Bajo → Ruteng is 127 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ruteng → Bajawa is 135 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bajawa → Kelimutu is 186 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kelimutu → Moni is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moni → Maumere is 92 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.