For years I’d been meaning to map a route north towards Bogotá from one of my favourite places in Colombia, San Agustin, using mostly gravel and b-roads, and in July 2023 I finally found time do it! I was still recovering from a 32 hour non-stop ride a few days before, so I decided to […]
San Agustin – Melgar Read More »
This picturesque route takes you out of Bogotá along the paved road to Guasca, before turning off onto the dirt for the challenging and stunning climb up to Monquentiva and the Pantano de Martus, a huge 700ha area of high mountain swampland that was originally an ancient lake, before it was drained in the 19th
If you’re looking for a challenge, this rollercoaster of a route is an absolute gem! It follows the main road out of Bogota to the town of La Calera, before turning off onto a concrete strip road where you’ll encounter the first challenge of the day: a 1,500m wall with an average gradient of 14.3%!
If you’re heading up to Bogota from southern Colombia the most direct route is through the town of Melgar. The problem is that the road is a busy highway and also just after Melgar there is a tunnel that bicycles are prohibited from using. This means either having to put your bike on a bus
Pueblo Nuevo – Silvania Read More »
If you’re heading up to Bogotá from southern Colombia, the most direct route is through the town of Melgar. The problem is that the road is a busy highway and also just after Melgar there is a tunnel that bicycles are prohibited from using. This means either having to put your bike on a bus
Pueblo Nuevo – Muña Read More »
This is actually the first part of what was (is?) going to be bikepacking.com‘s Chingaza route. I rode it for the first time with Lael Wilcox and Julian Manrique the night Lael started her FKT on the route; it was a beautiful, clear night with an almost full moon, and the vistas across the Páramo
VALS is the name given to the Bogotá roadie morning classic “Vuelta A La Sabana”, and GraVALS is the gravel equivalent. It starts and ends on the same paved roads as VALS, but the middle part takes in some lovely gravel roads with not too steep gradients and views out across the valleys. This route
This is one of a number of signposted off-road routes in the Department of Cundinamarca that have been developed in recent years. This one is about 50% off-road, and is a great way to get acclimatised to Colombia’s altitude and gradients. It takes you on a loop through the mountains to the east of Bogotá
I rode this route in late 2022, after dreaming about it for almost two decades, and wrote an article about the trip for Deriva, a Colombian gravel cycling magazine. It’s a 600km loop, the middle of which follows an old cattle trail through the jungle, plains and scrubland of eastern Colombia, and up into the
This picturesque loop takes you through the verdant coffee plantations to the south of San Agustin and returns along the edge of the archeological park. The first part follows a super-steep paved descent out of the village down to River Naranjos at 1,500 masl. The climb back up is paved for the first couple of
San Agustín – Naranjos Loop Read More »
