When I arrived home after the motorcycle tour, John, one of the other bike guides, immediately informed me I had made it back with perfect timing because we were scheduled to ride Pidigua the next day.
Pidigua has legend-status among the Colombian Bike Junkies guides. The trail has a reputation for being an incredibly unique downhill track featuring technical sections that make it impossible for most tourists to ride. The trailhead is at least two hours away and the trail has to be shuttled so it costs a decent amount in gas as well. These factors mean that the guides rarely get to ride there - I had less than a week left on my visa before an opportunity to ride the trail presented itself. Anticipation was high.
The next morning the bikes were loaded onto the Land Rover and seven people piled in. The drive to the trailhead snaked along a canyon wall following a small river upstream. Sitting in the back sideways-facing seats of a thrashed 4x4 was making me feel sick, a sensation that was made worse when we pulled onto a rough dirt road. We continued climbing, passing the town of Pidigua, crossing a bridge of lashed together logs, spinning all four wheels on a particularly steep section of road, and finally arriving at the school house which would serve as our staging area.
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| This is what a school looks like in rural Colombia. |
We unloaded the bikes, checked for any last-minute mechanical issues, and suited up. Getting to the top of the trail involved a 15-minute hike-a-bike climb through jungle and over strangely compact dirt. For some inexplicable reason I grabbed a handful of front brake on one of the short pedal-able sections and crashed immediately. It wasn't a great start.
The trail has been created by hundreds of years of goat herders walking the path - no construction, no hired trail builders, no thought to flow or lines at all. I could tell you more, but instead I'm just going to throw in some pictures. Enjoy.
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| John prepares to drop in. |
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| I tried looking at the view once and crashed. After that I stopped looking at the view. Photo credit: John Butler |
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| Loose corners require extreme concentration. Photo credit: John Butler |
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| John snakes through the trail. |
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| The trail was steep - check out the brake lever position. |
Mike - co-owner of Bike Junkies - has an incredibly encyclopedic knowledge of the roads and trails in the area and had planned for us to ride back towards San Gil by way of an awesome swimming hole. Unfortunately the road was under construction so Mike had to drive the Rover on a 2-hour detour but we were able to pedal over the mountains and descend into the pools at Curiti.
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| Jamie throws his signature backflip into Curiti. |
