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 532 km round trip from Quinchía - roughly 11 h 54 in the saddle. On the way it passes Zone A, Zone C, Cultural Landscape of Colombia and Zone F. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 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.
Zone A comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Zone C. Next is Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia.
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, about halfway. 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 sits at 160 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia comes up about 332 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 443 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Zone C. 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 532 km.
Zone B → Zone A is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone A → Zone C is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone C → Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia → Zone F is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone F → back through Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia → back through Zone C is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Zone C → back through Zone A is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zone A → Zone B is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.