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 455 km round trip from Marsella - roughly 9 h 49 in the saddle. On the way it passes Zone F, Zone B, Zone C and back through Zone B. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The hills around Marsella, in Risaralda, are steep enough that you wonder how anyone harvests coffee on them at all, and the answer is by hand, bean by bean, on slopes where the pickers lean into the hillside. This is the heart of Colombia's coffee region, the Eje Cafetero, and the cultural landscape of coffee growing here was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2011. The listing covers farms, towns and the traditions of a culture built around a crop that has shaped the country's history and identity.
Read the complete Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is where the day begins. Next is Zone F.
Zone F is one of the patches of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, a World Heritage site spread across the steep green slopes of the Central and Western Cordilleras. This part lies in western Risaralda, around the towns of Santuario, Apía and La Celia, on hillsides so steep that you wonder how anyone stands upright to pick the beans. The answer is that people have been doing it for well over a century, by hand, on slopes where no machine could follow.
Read the complete Zone F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zone F comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zone B.
North of Pereira, where Risaralda meets Caldas, the coffee country climbs into higher, wilder ground above the deep canyon of the Cauca river. Quinchía, two kilometres from this point, is a hill town in Zone B of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, the World Heritage Site inscribed in 2011. Here the coffee farms share the slopes with sugar cane for panela, plantain and forest, and the towns feel less visited than the classic stops further south.
Read the complete Zone B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 170 km into the recorded legs you reach Zone B. Next is Zone C.
Zone C of the Coffee Cultural Landscape lies north of Armenia, in the steeper, higher country of Caldas, near Filadelfia and Aranzazu. This is the same UNESCO landscape, but it feels different from the Quindío end: the slopes are bigger, the farms more scattered, and the volcano Nevado del Ruiz, which looms to the east, often stands out against the sky on a clear morning. The eruption of that volcano in 1985 caused one of Colombia's worst disasters, and its presence remains part of local life.
Read the complete Zone C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zone C, about halfway. Next is back through Zone B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zone B sits at 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Zone F.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zone F comes up about 385 km into the recorded legs. Next is Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia closes the day.
Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia → Zone F is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone F → Zone B is 105 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone B → Zone C is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone C → back through Zone B is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zone B → back through Zone F is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zone F → Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.