This technical route is at the upper end of what a gravel bike can do. It’s totally rideable if you have good bike handling skills, and although the ride back down is possibly more suited to a full suspension downhill mountain bike, it’s fantastic fun on a gravel bike with fat tyres (44+mm). The rocky, rutted road was originally constructed to take materials up to an antenna complex on the top of a 3,640masl peak, and the vistas on the way up and from the top are quite simply magnificent! Make sure to take a detour up the footpath that appears on your right hand side on the way up, just after the ruins of an old house. After 50m or so there’s a great spot to take a breather that has some spectacular views of Bogotá and the Monserrate and Guadalupe hilltop churches. The gpx below includes the complete climb up from Bogotá. The best days to do this ride are Thursday between 5:30am and 9am, when you’ll find some of Bogotá’s best amateurs out hunting PRs, or at the weekend, when you’ll find yourself surrounded by literally hundreds of cyclists from all over the city. On the way back down, the Marquez del Once café is a great place to stop for arepas and aguapanela.

***UPDATE: The dirt road up to the summit was seriously affected by heavy rains in Dec 22 and Jan 23, and is now basically a rock garden. It is still just about ridable on a gravel bike, but only if you have excellent skills; I’ve updated the difficulty to hardcore because of this. TBH, right now it’s probably more suited to a full suspension MTB with 29×3″ tyres.

Download gpx