Road biking in Colombia

tomascyclota

has anybody thought about riding road biking in Colombia? Yes no why?

rrsodl

I wouldn't try it.

tomascyclota

thanks rrsodl... may I ask why?

andymiller

Tomas.

If you want to know why check out the warnings to UK travellers on the wbsite of the UK's Foreign Office. Seen from the outside Colombia can seem like a dangerous place - which is a shame as I'm sure that most of the country is safe and there's probably lots of great cycling.

And if you want to encourage people to go to Colombia then tell us about it - you probanly know a lit more than any of the other readers of this forum.

tomascyclota

Well Andy Thank you for your reply

More than talking about the bad sh*it, I would like to point some of the unique features that make cycling in Colombia amazing. For example is always amazing to move away from Bogotá, where the weather is usually cold, by our standards, around 50 F and just after 1 or 2 hours find yourself at 71 F, which also has a direct impact on the vegetation. All this in super nice 20 miles climbs reaching sometimes heights above 9000 ft it's truly amazing and I don't think that you can put it into words. This is perhaps why Colombia has many top climbers in the world, like Soler polka dot jersey winner for 2007 TDF.

this is just to point a remarkable fact about Colombia, but I think that the most important thing regarding your concerns Andy is that since I was 16 I've been riding, and I've come to know Colombia mostly riding my bike, either going to races or just touring around, and that I've never have felt in danger, or had any sort of close call or running. My only advice is to come over your fears and visit us, or talk to people who has come and see what they think about the country.