Well Monday was an interesting day! Some very demanding conditions made it one of those days I was glad to complete safely and in one piece.
We started the day at 2,600m asl in dull damp cold conditions with wet roads after overnight rain. I hadn’t slept too well, waking at 0400, and last night the restaurant food was pretty awful, so I wasn’t fuelled as well as I would have liked. The first phase of the day was more climbing on the same busy road as yesterday as we completed the crossing of the cordillera mountain range. As we were still high, gillet and arm warmers were the order of the day. Some descent followed but then a 9km climb up to our mid morning stop. It hadn’t been particularly pleasant riding as there are a lot of trucks and buses on this road. On the downhills we ride much faster than them, but they overtake us on the hills, as they have hundreds more Horsepower that the bikes. Downhill overtaking of the trucks is demanding and somewhat risky. More of that to come in a moment.
At the coffee stop, we checked bikes as the next phase was a 54km descent dropping over 2,500m. I had had my bike serviced before I came away, but with all the descending we have already done, my front brake pads didn’t have a lot of pad material left on them, so the tour guide kindly put a new set on out of my spares bag before the descent. What a way to bed in a new set of pads, 54km of descent!
The plan was to do the drop in two stages with a quick break half way down, as it’s a long way to concentrate on a technically demanding road. In addition I caught quite a few trucks, they tend to be in pairs or more going down as they get stuck behind each other, so to get past you have to find a safe spot to accelerate perhaps past a couple of vehicles. These trucks are huge, pictures here on this page. To add to the challenge we were descending through the cloud too, much of the first phase, with visibility dropping to as little as 40m at time. At the speed I was riding I had to slow to the vis limits as I couldn’t see the road far enough ahead for the speed I was going. So low vis, no knowledge of the road, trucks to overtake, getting sandwiched between trucks, fast road, all made for very demanding riding. I was also feeling very exposed from behind, as I didn’t have my best red back light on not expecting such conditions and anything coming down the hill fast such as cars, would come across me as a lone cyclist in poor vis. Needless to say I didn’t stop for any photos on this phase! Some of the time I got past trucks only for them to overtake me back on a uphill bit. It’s so disheartening to hear them coming up behind when you’ve spend ages timing an overtake. One faster truck I just stayed behind as I really decided it was not worth a life risking move to get past it.
We popped out of the cloud eventually and had a quick recovery stop before setting off on the second phase, which was a much poorer road surface but some nice sweeping bends which at least I could now see! I came across a wide load going down, with a digger on it. He tended to sit in the middle of the road, but we got past near some road works. Against picture of the size of vehicle we are talking about. The road eventually dropped right down to the river, where we stopped for lunch. Only four of the 7 of us riders attempted this downhill.
I can’t say it was one of the best descents I’ve ever done as the traffic and road conditions were just too much to be able to sit back and enjoy it. But certainly a sense of achievement getting down ok, and I’m an accomplished truck dodger now. By now we were hot and sweaty and filthy from truck dust and the black smog they belch out when they pass you on the up hills. Of course as we dropped down the temperature rose, although it stayed a bit overcast.
After lunch we had a 50 km section basically flat by the side of the river, still on a busy main road. 6 of us were riding this section with the two ride leaders, one at the front and one at the back. What followed was some of the worst ride leading I’ve encountered for a very long time. We were riding line astern, holding the wheel of the person in front. But the rider leader at the front’s aim seemed to be to drop people out of the back as much as possible rather than keep us in a smooth group. When a truck or bus passed the line of riders, he accelerated sharply to try to get onto the back of said truck or bus to draft off the back off it, which obviously started to spilt the group. I was at the back, which meant lots of putting big efforts in to keep up. I wasn’t the only one who thought it was awful, we have an ex pro racer (30 years ago) whose a very experienced rider who was doing a lot of shouting and gesticulating at this nonsense. It felt like a ride where the objective is to burn everyone out and drop the weaker riders. I eventually got spat out the back on an incline section and although I was helped onto the back by the wheel of our lovely Colombian ride leader, the group accelerated away again and once I was off the back again that was that. I could just imagine the talking to a ride leader behaving like that on a Mavs ride would get from the Chairman or our club coach. There was no need for that sort of “leading”, and I have no idea what the scenery was like on that stretch as I was focused on holding the wheel all the way.
At the end of the 146km today, we racked the bikes for a long 3 hour transfer to the night stop. We are off the mountains now on a flatter area. There were some interesting sights along the transfer. One town we went though had loads of people on scooters and mopeds. No one wore helmets but lots wore a face mask! So they won’t catch Covid on the moped, but if they crash, which is much more likely that catching Covid on a moped, in the heavy traffic, no head protection. I do wonder sometimes what the pandemic has done to people’s sense of risk and priorities. Some women were even carrying babies on the mopeds, wearing a face mask of course….
I’m not saying this was a dangerous ride today, it was just a bit interesting, but if you are thinking of doing this trip with Skedaddle, you will enjoy it more if you are confident in traffic with trucks and buses around you, and a confident descender. Oh, and like cycling up hill as there is a lot of that.
Stephanie in Colombia 2022 