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.
578 km from Quito to Quito, about 11 h 34 of riding. The stops in between: Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma, Segment Pimán - Caranqui, Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala and Segment Pulcas - Troya A. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 72 km this is Avenue of the Volcanoes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The old town of Quito was one of the first places to be listed by UNESCO, in 1978, alongside Kraków, and it is easy to see why. The historic centre is the largest and best preserved in Latin America, a tight grid of steep streets, colonial squares and church domes laid across the slopes below the Panecillo hill. The Spanish founded the city in 1534 on top of an Inca settlement, and over the next two centuries it became a centre of religious art, the so-called Quito School, in which indigenous and European traditions mixed in painting and sculpture.
Read the complete City of Quito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City of Quito is where the day begins. Next is Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma.
The equator runs across northern Ecuador, a short ride from Quito, and the hills east of the capital, around Cayambe, hold some of the most interesting ancient sites in the country. This segment of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network recognised by UNESCO, links the pucará at Campana and the hill of Quitoloma, and the word pucará means fortress in Quechua. The Inca extended their empire into this region late, in the decades before the Spanish conquest, and they met fierce resistance from the local peoples, the Caranquis, who fought from hilltop forts. The landscape bears the marks of those wars in earthworks, ramparts and ditches on the hills.
Read the complete Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 151 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Pimán - Caranqui. 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, about halfway. Next is Segment Pulcas - Troya A.
Tulcán is the last Ecuadorian city before Colombia, a high, cold, windswept place at almost 3,000 metres, and it has one of the strangest sights in the Andes: a cemetery where cypress trees have been clipped into elaborate topiary, with figures, arches and geometric shapes, a tradition started by a local gardener in the 1930s. Near the city, the segment of Inca road between Pulcas and Troya is part of the Qhapaq Ñan World Heritage Site, marking the northern reaches of the Inca road system, which extended into what is now southern Colombia.
Read the complete Segment Pulcas - Troya A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Pulcas - Troya A sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala comes up about 347 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 428 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui. Next is back through Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma, late in the day. Next is City of Quito.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Quito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 578 km.
City of Quito → Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma → Segment Pimán - Caranqui is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Pimán - Caranqui → Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → Segment Pulcas - Troya A is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Pulcas - Troya A → back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Pimán - Caranqui → back through Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma → City of Quito is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.