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 505 km round trip from Alausí - roughly 10 h 29 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Cerro de Cojitambo, Segment San Antonio - San Antonio and back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,750 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 100 km this is Avenue of the Volcanoes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Achupallas is a high village in Chimborazo province, about sixteen kilometres from Alausí, and the walking trail named after it, which runs south towards Ingapirca, is one of Ecuador's best-known treks. For motorcyclists the point is the landscape and the road beside it: bare páramo at over three thousand metres, with the volcanic cone of Sangay on a clear day, and little else but sheep, lupins and the odd shepherd's hut.
Read the complete Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca is where the day begins. Next is Segment Cerro de Cojitambo.
Cojitambo is a rocky hill that rises abruptly above the valley of Azogues, in the province of Cañar, in the southern Andes of Ecuador. Its summit and slopes hold the remains of a Cañari and Inca settlement, with walls, terraces and stairways, and the Inca road ran past it, a segment of the Qhapaq Ñan listed by UNESCO. The Cañari were the people of this region before the Inca conquest, and they resisted fiercely, later siding with the Spanish against their Inca overlords. Today the hill is also a popular spot for rock climbing, with routes on its cliffs.
Read the complete Segment Cerro de Cojitambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Cerro de Cojitambo comes up about 148 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment San Antonio - San Antonio.
What I can say is that the point lies on the steep western slope of the Andes, in the country between the highlands near Cuenca and the coastal plain, with Naranjal the nearest real town, thirty-odd kilometres off on the lowlands.
Read the complete Segment San Antonio - San Antonio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 248 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment San Antonio - San Antonio. Next is back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Cerro de Cojitambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo, late in the day. Next is Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca. That is the ride.
Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca → Segment Cerro de Cojitambo is 148 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Cerro de Cojitambo → Segment San Antonio - San Antonio is 100 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment San Antonio - San Antonio → back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo → Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca is 149 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.