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 176 km round trip from Tanjungampalu - roughly 2 h 19 in the saddle. It goes by way of Batu Tabal Train Station, Padang Pandjang Train Station and back through Batu Tabal Train Station. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Colonial mining needed more than brute strength. It needed men who could read a gauge, repair a pump and keep records, and so the mining school at Sawahlunto is a small clue to how the Dutch tried to build a local skilled workforce. Education in the Indies was tightly rationed, and a technical school was a rare opening for the sons of Indonesian families, even if the best jobs stayed with European engineers.
Read the complete Mining School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mining School is where the day begins. 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.
Batu Tabal Train Station comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Next is Padang Pandjang Train Station.
Padang Panjang is a cool, rain-washed town in the highlands of West Sumatra, in the land of the Minangkabau, at the foot of two volcanoes, Marapi and Singgalang, each rising to nearly three thousand metres. The railway station here is a relic of the Dutch colonial network built in the 1890s to carry coal from the mines of Sawahlunto to the port of Padang. The line had a difficult climb to make from the coast, and part of it used a rack system, with a toothed rail between the running rails and special locomotives gripping it to haul trains up the steep slope.
Read the complete Padang Pandjang Train Station write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Padang Pandjang Train Station. 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, late in the day. Next is Mining School.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mining School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Mining School. That is the ride.
Mining School → Batu Tabal Train Station is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Batu Tabal Train Station → Padang Pandjang Train Station is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Padang Pandjang Train Station → back through Batu Tabal Train Station is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Batu Tabal Train Station → Mining School is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.