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.
From Padang it runs 303 km to Padang; allow about 3 h 57 of riding. The stops in between: Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto, Batu Tabal Train Station, Tinggi Bridge and back through Batu Tabal Train Station. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Coal needs a harbour, and for the Ombilin mines the harbour was at Padang, on Sumatra's west coast, about five kilometres from the site. The Dutch built a deep-water port in the bay south of the town, naming it Emmahaven after the queen consort, and the railway from Sawahlunto ended here at the quay and the storage yards. Today the port is known as Teluk Bayur, and some of the old coal-handling structures can still be seen.
Read the complete Coal Storage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coal Storage is where the day begins. Next is Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto.
Sawahlunto sits in a steep green bowl in the hills of West Sumatra, and until the 1890s there was nothing here but forest and a few villages. Then the Dutch found out what lay beneath. A Dutch geologist, Willem Hendrik de Greve, surveyed the Ombilin valley and reported a huge coal deposit in 1868, and the colonial government decided to exploit it, building a mine, a railway down to the coast at Padang, and a town to house the workers. The first coal went out in 1892. The town grew around the mine, with European quarters, a power station, a hospital, a mosque and houses laid out on the hillsides.
Read the complete Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Batu Tabal Train Station.
High in the mountains of West Sumatra, a railway line built by the Dutch in the late nineteenth century snakes between volcanoes, lakes and rice terraces. It was laid to carry coal from the mines of Sawahlunto down to the port of Padang, and the whole system, mines, company town and railway, forms the Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto, listed by UNESCO in 2019. Batu Tabal is one of the small stations along the route, near the shores of Lake Singkarak, where the line runs right along the water's edge.
Read the complete Batu Tabal Train Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 128 km into the recorded legs you reach Batu Tabal Train Station. Next is Tinggi Bridge.
Sumatra's western highlands are the home of the Minangkabau, a matrilineal people whose houses have roofs curved like buffalo horns, and the road up from the coast at Padang to the cool plateau around Bukittinggi is one of the great short climbs in Indonesia. It passes through the Anai valley, past a waterfall that falls close to the roadside, and through the little railway halt of Kayu Tanam, where the old line from Padang once began its steep ascent on its way to the Ombilin coal fields. That railway, built by the Dutch in the late nineteenth century with a rack section to climb the grade, is now part of the UNESCO-listed Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto.
Read the complete Tinggi Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tinggi Bridge, about halfway. Next is back through Batu Tabal Train Station.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Batu Tabal Train Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Batu Tabal Train Station sits at 181 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto comes up about 226 km into the recorded legs. Next is Coal Storage.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coal Storage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coal Storage closes the day.
Coal Storage → Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto → Batu Tabal Train Station is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Batu Tabal Train Station → Tinggi Bridge is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tinggi Bridge → back through Batu Tabal Train Station is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Batu Tabal Train Station → back through Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ombilin Coal Mining Heritage of Sawahlunto → Coal Storage is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.