Between the dropouts of a rusty steel bike hanging two metres up a tree, the pair of four-spoke carbon Spinergy wheels couldn’t appear stranger. Yet considering where we are, in a sense they’re appropriate.
The tree is outside Mauricio Ardila’s house, built atop what looks like a hillside mainly because everything, even the floor, is high in Colombia. We’re little more than an hour from Medellín, having wound our way up and out of the cleft in which the city nestles, but the contrast is stark.
The horn-honking and ceaseless reggaeton playing out of bars and car windows is gone; in its place just the occasional howl of a dog. Where earlier we were surrounded by glowing high-rises, Mauricio’s house teeters alone on a 2,400m precipice in the pitch dark, the only light an occasional flash from a thunderstorm so far away it can’t be heard.
Like all riders in a country that loves cycling nearly as much as it loves football, this slight man, with a smile nearly as wide as he is tall, is a legend. At his peak Mauricio won the Tour of Britain, rode for Rabobank and nearly joined US Postal (he was rejected because his haematocrit levels were deemed too low), and during that time he had the foresight to build this house and guesthouse, the Casa del Ciclista, which is our base.
At first Mauricio would come here – nearest town Santa Elena – with countryman Rigoberto Urán to train between European races. Later Egan Bernal and Esteban Chaves would do the same.
Besides me and Ben, who runs PiCO cycle tours and who will ride with me tomorrow, Mauricio has two other guests staying tonight: young pros Dylan and Thomas, who have stayed on after the Tour of Colombia that finished just last week. (They are Swiss, however, so coincidence and Welsh poets are lost on them.)
That means tonight is a drinking night, and Mauricio has opened ‘a very special 30-year-old rum’ that could well strip enamel from a radiator, and certainly prompts the ex-pro into regaling several stories in Spanish, which Ben translates for me.
‘He says Paolo Savoldelli gave him $25,000 to help him win the Giro in 2005, even though they were on different teams. It was half his wages for the season.’
I try surreptitiously to Google this, at which point Mauricio produces a YouTube clip on his phone. Sure enough, it’s the penultimate stage on the gravelly Colle delle Finestre and there’s all 58kg of Mauricio, nursing a knackered-looking Paolo Savoldelli through chalk clouds kicked up by the motorbikes.
Savoldelli is unmistakeable in pink emblazoned with the logos of the Discovery Channel; Mauricio is in the red of his team Davitamon-Lotto. Apparently the pay-off was all above board because the teams’ sporting directors were old friends.
At any rate, that kind of money went a long way in Colombia, enough to buy the land and the buildings we’re in.
That Spinergy-wheeled bike now seems quite apt, an embodiment of the meeting of well-heeled Europeans with the realities of a country where bikes mostly mean transport, not professional contracts.
In the morning, there is a case to say my head is a touch sore, but I refuse to make it, and neither does Nena, who runs a nearby restaurant and who has come over to make us breakfast.
It consists of fried plantain, fruit salad and what I soon learn is an accompaniment to virtually every meal in Colombia, avocado.
The coffee – or tinto – is strong and acrid but not unpleasant, albeit a far cry from the proudly touted ‘Colombian single origin’ flat whites of London.
Ben, a Londoner himself once upon a time, explains that while Colombians love coffee even more than they love football and bikes (a hierarchy is emerging here), this is about as good as it gets, a combination of ‘sending the best stuff’ overseas and tintos being a matter of practicality not speciality.
Outside, condensation has gathered on our bikes, their metal frames cold to the touch. Though Medellín is known as the ‘City of Eternal Spring’ for its consistently clement weather, higher up in the central Andes as we are, nights are crisp.
Today temperatures will rise into the 30s and, although it’s still chilly, we’re at altitude and the air is already stifling. We pedal off down a gravel track and I immediately feel the kind of breathlessness you get from running up stairs too fast.
Into thin air
At first I can’t return much of Ben’s conversation, but after 20 minutes I find a manageable rhythm to my breathing and can discuss the finer points of how buying a three-bed house in London ‘at the right time’ then renting it out allows Ben to ostensibly run PiCO for pocket money.
It sounds like a fine life, residing in the lively bustle of Medellín then bussing out to this jungle-side to ride amidst the fincas at the weekend. Weekday cycling does sound a bit less fun though – pretty much any loop means negotiating the 12km-long ‘Palmas’ climb out of Medellín to Las Palmas, with its 7% average and 2,569m peak.
Palmas is an arterial road and traffic is friendly, if occasionally liberal in its lane positioning, so most riders go out either in groups or with a moped-driving accomplice.
These drivers charge around £10 for their services and are found through Instagram or Facebook, both popular means of tracking any business down in Colombia. Websites don’t really seem to have caught on.
Views are far-reaching when we can see them, but in the main they’re cordoned off by trees and, for want of a better word, hedgerows.
Were it not for the terracotta soil and much punchier greens, the countryside here would appear almost European, and is not quite the rugged spectacle I envisaged.
Still, it’s pleasant in a sleepy-soft way, and now that the road has gone from up to down my lungs and legs are finally getting a chance to recover.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for my front tyre, which has acquired a sizeable cut through which the inner tube is bulging threateningly. Thus what would have been a rollercoaster ride down to the town of Las Palmas becomes a series of tentative corners that I hope leads to an open bike shop.
Part of the Union
Beggars can’t be choosers and I emerge from the bike shop 150,000 pesos (around £30) lighter, which to me is a lot for an entry-level tyre. Ben explains this is another quirk in Colombia: while things such as food and drink are cheap to a Western visitor, tax on items such as bike components makes them expensive.
At any rate, I now feel much more confident that I’m not about to blow out my front wheel in a corner, and my new tyre and I squeak off over the shopping mall’s tiles and back to the road.
We descend for 10 minutes… 20 minutes… 30 minutes. The conurbations of Las Palmas dwindle, traffic becomes less frequent and yet the road remains a relatively major highway.
We ride in the hard shoulder to be on the safe side, but there’s plenty of room to be two abreast and, unlike in the UK, it’s not full of debris. Mopeds buzz past and over-laden trucks grumble up the opposite side of the road.
It’s nearly an hour before it feels like we hit the flat, yet even then my bike computer says we’re at 2,097m.
Tyre changes aside we’re making good time, so when a large billboard displaying a familiar looking rider comes into view, Ben suggests taking a little detour.
This is the town of La Ceja, and the man proudly displayed on the billboard isn’t advertising a product, but rather is the product of the town advertising its man: sprinting ace Fernando Gaviria of UAE Team Emirates.
Yet not to be outdone it would seem, a pack of riders comes sprinting up the hill in the opposite direction, with flashes of blue spotted with a few telltale yellow circles.
‘That was Alaphilippe!’ exclaims Ben. I’m unsure, albeit the goatee did look familiar, and since Ben is utterly convinced, I’ll choose to believe this was the QuickStep man himself.
La Ceja’s main square is a building site, but that doesn’t stop throngs of locals bustling about. A proud church sits at one end; an even prouder man in a Stetson smokes a cigar and scans us with intrigue at the other. Gold, blue and red colours smatter shop fronts and clothes, mirroring the national flags hanging in the square.
Any other time, a plastic chair on a street corner would be all the invitation we need to while away several pleasurable hours, but we have an out-and-back climb to contend with nicknamed ‘the Unión’, because like Palmas going to Las Palmas, the Unión road joins La Ceja to a town called La Unión.
Apparently this is a favourite climb of Urán’s when he’s here. It’s 7km long at a steady 5% and is something the Colombian veteran does three times on a ride: first at high cadence, second at sustained power and third all out. Ben’s best time is a respectable 20 minutes; Urán’s is a mind-boggling 15 minutes 21 seconds.
By the time we make it to the little food stand at La Unión’s crest it has taken a hair under 26 minutes. My legs have tried immeasurably hard and my lungs sound like a broken Hoover.
I make a beeline for the freshly squeezed orange juice and a spot in the shade. It’s that altitude again. We’re back up near 2,500m, higher than most Alpine cols, yet the road we’ve just climbed is as innocuous-looking as a B-road in Surrey.
Spoke too soon
Descending back down from La Unión I relish the speed and thickening air that almost feels like it has been injected with more oxygen. Our overlong stop at the top has us running late for our lunch, so we make a dash to the next major town, San Antonio de Pereira.
We arrive at the Calichepan cafe just in time – they were about to close but it would appear our bikes have bought us favour. Certainly there are enough posters and photos of Colombian riders on the walls to indicate the owners rather like cyclists.
Dos tintos are ordered, along with a beguiling array of deep fried bready treats, each heavier and more calorific than the last. Top tip, says Ben: ‘Always ask for “coffee from the machine” to avoid the inevitable Nescafé.’
We exit through a leafy suburb and rejoin a major road adjacent to the airport we landed at two days ago. It’s long, flat and something of a slog, but I content myself with counting the number of ancient Renault 9s that seem to be so popular in the area.
Ben explains that Renault is the top-selling manufacturer here, and even Pablo Escobar had a few. Apparently El Patrón rather enjoyed rally-racing his Renault 4.
We arrive at the foot of a languid climb back up to Santa Elena, where the road splits. Evidently the old road was deemed too slow for cars, so a tunnel was built through the mountainside.
Motor vehicles are siphoned off to leave the old road for the exclusive use of cyclists. It’s all uphill but it’s a tremendously happy uphill, the birds chirruping in the trees, the scent of warm wood and steaming leaves wafting through the air like a natural spa.
So it is with a sense of disappointment that we reach a crossroads familiar to me from this morning. This points to the end of the ride, and I now realise that today, for the first time, I’ve climbed to nearly 2,600m and I’m not totally breathless.
How great it would be to continue. But Nena has opened her restaurant especially for us and then, to seal the deal, Ben’s bike makes a ping followed by a tink tink tink tink tink – he’s broken a spoke.
We bend the spoke around its neighbour to stop it hitting the frame, loosen the brake slightly so it doesn’t rub and pedal gingerly for home. The slow pace suits the mood, giving us plenty of time to savour the last drops of this unique ride.
Bring me food
Because a rider’s got to eat
On the go
Colombia loves a carbie treat, so saddle up with arepas, cornmeal cakes that resemble an English muffin, and which are often found sizzling away on roadside grills. They come in different forms, but topped with carne (whatever meat is going) or stuffed with cheese – arepas de queso – are among the best. Another favourite with cyclists here is pastel de arequipe, a fried puff-pastry turnover stuffed with the soft toffee dulce de leche.
Restaurants
Good food comes in many forms, from truck-stop grills to picturesque spots overlooking vast country valleys, such as Mirador de Nena. They all serve the menú del día (menu of the day) from noon, and in general you’ll find two options: sencillo (simple), a main plate comprising fish or meat and a host of sides, or ejecutivo (executive), a main plate plus soup and a drink. Prices are incredibly cheap – expect to pay £2-£5 and to leave feeling full.
The rider’s ride
Scarab Letras, approx £2,700 (£2,000 frameset), scarabcycles.com
You’d be hard pushed to find a more exclusive bike. Scarab Cycles is one of only two Colombian-based framebuilders, and produces a relative handful of bikes per year. But what it does produce are beautifully brazed steel frames such as this, the Letras, named after what Colombians argue is the longest climb on Earth (we reckon it to be the longest continuously paved climb), the Alto de Letras: 80.7km long up to 3,650m and comprising an aggregate ascent of 3,800m.
This is one of Scarab’s lightest all-steel bikes, with a claimed frame weight of 1.6kg. With a mishmash of Shimano and Sram parts that speak to the frame’s shop-demo life, the whole thing is just over 8kg. But what it lost out in grams, it made up for in ride quality.
Some of Colombia’s roads are like plate glass, while others resemble the floor of a Greek wedding, so the springy nature of the Columbus Spirit and Kaisei tubing (the latter a Japanese company) was a fine trade-off. The Letras was a quietly confident partner I would happily dance with again, albeit I would opt for something different to the school-uniform grey. The frameset price includes custom geometry and custom paint, and these guys can turn out some maravillas (that’s Spanish for ‘humdingers’, I think).
How we did it
Travel
Cyclist flew to Medellín with Avianca on a 14-hour flight from Heathrow with a short stop in Bogotá. The spring is a good time to visit, and in February flights cost around £575. A taxi from the airport to the guesthouse is around £30, although Casa del Ciclista will be happy to arrange transfers.
Accommodation
The Casa del Ciclista is a private guesthouse that comfortably sleeps up to four, and costs around £160 for two people, including breakfast. Nena comes each day from her restaurant, Mirador de Nena, and is an all-round top chef and wonderful host. Search lacasadelciclistacol on Instagram for the guesthouse and call +57 314 5622614 for the Restaurante Mirador de Nena.
Thanks
Many thanks to Mauricio Ardila for his hospitality, company and rum; to Nena for looking after us so well, and to Ben Hitchins, who at the time of our visit ran PiCO bike travel, but for a number of reasons has had to wind down operations – for now. Never say never. Big thanks also to Andres ‘Pepito’ Phillipe, who drove our photographer around for the day.