Our Colombia adventure continues…a circumnavigation of the Colombian Andes on a 250cc motorcycle. For those of you just joining in, I’m reposting a series of blogs I did for CSC Motorcycles describing my ride through the Andes Mountains in December 2015. After spending the previous day tearing around Medellin and its surroundings, I had become acclimatized to the mile-high altitudes. As the adventure continued, we would head even higher, all the way up to 14,000 feet, but that’s all coming later. On this, my second day in Colombia, we headed into the Andes and then down to the Caribbean. Our real journey had started, and here is that story.
Wow! I never thought I’d been typing this, but here I am. I just rode across the northernmost range of the Andes Mountains. On an RX3. Here they are: The Andes!
I took that shot from a cool little spot where we stopped for a typical Colombian breakfast…hot chocolate, scrambled eggs, and arrepa. More on that later…here’s a shot of the bikes at what has to be one of the coolest biker restaurants I’ve ever enjoyed.
And here’s another shot of my AKT Motos RS3 (the RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3).
I liked that restaurant a lot. They painted it to match my jacket.
We rode about 370 miles yesterday, and about half of it was in the Andes. 370 miles may not seem like a lot, but picture riding Glendora Ridge for 6 or 8 hours. The Andes are a motorcycling paradise. The Andes Mountains.
Wow!
I guess you never know what you’re going to see in the Andes. This old goat was kind of cool…and I had to grab a shot.
We stopped to take a break and some of the local paramilitary/police guys came over to check out the bikes. The RX3 is a prestige motorcycle in Colombia (just like it is in the USA) and these boys wanted a closer look. They gladly consented to a photo. They are most definitely well armed. You see police and military units everywhere.
These next photos are from the saddle after we descended from the Andes. Good times, my friends.
These next photos are of young ladies who are gas station attendants. When they saw our 250cc RX3 motos, they wanted to know what it was like riding such huge motorcycles. That’s a bit different from what you might hear in the USA, I suppose.
It was a long day, and it ended in a town called Covenas, right on the Caribbean. We stopped for a few shots with the sea in the background.
Keep an eye on the blog, folks. I won’t be able to post every day, but I’ll do my best.
And that wrapped up the second day of my time in Colombia, and the first day of our ride through the Andes. We’re going to make it a little easier to track this adventure for our blog readers. You can get all of the good stuff from our Colombian ride here. I’ll post the next blog from our Colombia adventure in a few days, so stay tuned!
The kind of stuff most of us can only dream of. Great adventures!
I still dream about it, Larry. Just exchanged emails with Juan and Carlos. Hard to believe that ride was over 4 years ago.
I presume there they wouldn’t think two up on an RX3 was overloading the bike. 😉
You know, I’ve never traveled extensive distances two up on any bike, and my presumption would have been that a 250 wouldn’t be right for it, but I was wrong on that. Orlando and Velma rode two up with us on the CSC Destinations Deal tour, and they did just fine. No problems keeping up with the group, and they got the same fuel economy as the rest of us. Go figure.
On one of the CSC Baja trips, Fathi and his girlfriend rode the RX3 two up, and they had no issues, either.
Great stuff to read from the couch….would be better to do of course but things being what they are….. It was amusing to hear how “big” the 250s were thought to be but looking at the pics they do look “big”. Vaguely reminds me of riding a Suzuki TJ 250 two up from North of Seattle to BC Canada across to Vancouver BC and back.. Didn’t think anything of it but those were “lighter 😉 ” times. Great story that paints a good picture of modern Columbia. ROck on!
Thanks, Steve. Please be sure to check out our Epic Rides page. There’s a story there about riding 150cc replica Mustangs to Cabo and back.