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 467 km round trip from Quinchía - roughly 10 h 07 in the saddle. It goes by way of Zone C, Zone A, Zone F and back through Zone A. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
Zone B is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zone A.
Colombian coffee does not grow on big estates. It grows on steep green slopes in small farms, where families pick the red cherries by hand and dry them on patios by the house, and the cultural landscape that has grown from this way of life, in the central Andes, was listed by UNESCO in 2011. The region is known as the Eje Cafetero, the coffee axis, and the Zone A on our list is one of the main areas of the property, a mix of hills, valleys and villages of small farms and old towns.
Read the complete Zone A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 104 km into the recorded legs you reach Zone A. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Zone A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zone A sits at 185 km, about halfway. Next is back through Zone C.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zone C comes up about 396 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Zone B closes the day.
Zone B → Zone C is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone C → Zone A is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone A → Zone F is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Zone F → back through Zone A is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Zone A → back through Zone C is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zone C → Zone B is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.