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.
From Armenia it runs 477 km to Armenia; allow about 10 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Cultural Landscape of Colombia, Zone F, Zone B and back through Zone F. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 66 km this is Colombia Coffee Triangle Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Armenia, Colombia, is not the best-known part of the country, but the hills around it are the heart of the Eje Cafetero, the coffee axis. The Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of several zones, and Zone D lies in Quindío, in the high green country close to Armenia, Circasia and Montenegro. This is where the coffee farms cling to steep slopes, shaded by plantain and tall guadua bamboo, and the farmhouses are painted in bright colours with carved balconies.
Read the complete Zone D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zone D is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 66 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach Zone F. Next is Zone B.
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, about halfway. Next is back through Zone F.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zone F sits at 184 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 414 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zone D.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zone D write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zone D closes the day.
Zone D → Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia → Zone F is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone F → Zone B is 104 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zone B → back through Zone F is 107 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Zone F → back through Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia → Zone D is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.