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.
437 km from Tulcán to Tulcán, about 8 h 44 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito, Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma and back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito.
High in the Andes of northern Ecuador, between El Ángel and Pimampiro in the province of Carchi, a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the great road network of the Inca Empire, crosses the páramo, the high grassland that blankets the mountains above the tree line. The Inca built more than thirty thousand kilometres of roads across their empire, from Colombia to Chile and Argentina, linking towns, temples and storehouses, and this northern section, near the empire's frontier, was among the last to be built before the Spanish conquest. The Qhapaq Ñan was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2014 as a transnational site shared by six countries, with hundreds of individual segments, including this one.
Read the complete Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 215 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma. Next is back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito, late in the day. Next is Segment Pulcas - Troya A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Pulcas - Troya A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Segment Pulcas - Troya A. That is the ride.
Segment Pulcas - Troya A → Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito → Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma is 125 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma → back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito is 125 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito → Segment Pulcas - Troya A is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.