{"id":22360,"date":"2023-07-13T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T07:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=22360"},"modified":"2023-07-09T07:30:23","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T14:30:23","slug":"volcan-nevado-del-ruiz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/07\/13\/volcan-nevado-del-ruiz\/","title":{"rendered":"Volcan Nevado del Ruiz"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

That big photo above?\u00a0 That’s my old HJC carbon fiber helmet at an elevation of 13,576 feet, and the gunk you see on it is ash.\u00a0 As in volcanic ash.\u00a0 We’ve written about Colombia’s Volcan Nevado del Ruiz before here on ExNotes.\u00a0 I’m writing about my ride there again because it seems the old girl has awakened again.<\/p>\n

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The view from afar. I would be a several hour ride and a monstrous elevation climb (but on amazing roads) to get to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Volcan Nevado del Ruiz is an active Colombian volcano 80 miles west of Bogot\u00e1.\u00a0 Starting in April of this year, it started acting up again.\u00a0 I say “again” because in 1985, Nevado del Ruiz erupted and killed 25,000 Colombians. That event was not only Colombia’s deadliest eruption…it was all of South America’s.<\/p>\n

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The National Park entrance. They turned us around a half hour after we arrived when the volcano started spewing ash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve been to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz.\u00a0 I rode to the top on a motorcycle with good buddies Juan and Carlos.\u00a0 We were there in 2015, and a short while after we entered the Colombia’s Brisas National Park at the 4,138-meter summit, the park rangers told us we had to leave because the volcano was active.\u00a0 It had started spewing ash.\u00a0 It was snowing at that elevation, too.\u00a0 It made for a fine mess and exciting riding.<\/p>\n

The ride up to the top of the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz was awesome.\u00a0 The roads were typical Andes Mountains Colombian switchbacks and we were in rare form.\u00a0 The day was beautiful at the lower elevations, but that was about to change as we continued our Andean ascent.<\/p>\n

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Ah, the Andes. The riding in Colombia is amazing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On that ride, we were mounted on AKT Motos RS3 motorcycles.\u00a0 That’s the Colombian equivalent of CSC’s RX3, but with carburetors instead of fuel injectors.\u00a0 The fuel is a bit more flaky in Colombia, so AKT opted for carbs instead of injectors.\u00a0 People have asked if the carbs were problematic or if the bikes were slower than the US RX3.\u00a0 I couldn’t tell the difference.<\/p>\n

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Volcanic ash on my beautiful black AKT motorcycle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colombia has a pretty good deal for AKT making Zongshen motorcycles over there.\u00a0 If AKT brings in assembled bikes, they would have to pay a 30% import duty on them.\u00a0 If they components from Zongshen and then buy 15% of the bikes’ content in Colombia (thus encouraging Colombian manufacturing), AKT pays only a 2% import duty.\u00a0 Ah, if only our politicians were that smart.<\/p>\n

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Carlos and I at the park entrance. It was cold, wet, and gritty with the airborne volcanic ash mixing with the snow.\u00a0 This wasn’t a beer and burger run to Cook’s Corner!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My Olympia motorcycle jacket, spotted with ash and my CSC pilot wings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After running to the top of Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, we descended along dirt roads to a magnificent Colombian hotel just a few miles down the road, the Termales Del Ruiz.\u00a0 My buddy Juan knows how to organize a great ride, and I sure had an awesome time.\u00a0 The Termales Del Ruiz is at the end of that dirt road somewhere in the fog, and it’s at 3,500 meters above sea level (still pretty high).\u00a0 It has a thermal pool fed by water (heated by the volcano, I guess) and that water was hot!\u00a0 The air was bitter cold, but the water was nice.\u00a0 It was one of the best nights in Colombia, and that’s saying something.\u00a0 \u00a0Every night was awesome.<\/p>\n

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So, back to the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz going live again:\u00a0 It’s really happening, and it wasn’t that many years ago that this same volcano killed 25,000 people in Colombia.\u00a0\u00a0Here’s a recent news story on what’s happening now:<\/p>\n