Coffee Capital of World

Todays feature image is of a truck which got toasted off the roadway.  Hard to believe that it got stuck into green field and nobody got hurt — but then again, these are crazy drivers so its not a shock.

I’m not really into bad news on this trip, but today the bad news bookend the day.  The middle was fantastic and amazing.  Ok, I dropped my bike twice today — no sympathy, it sucked but was not bad.  First thing this morning, we bring up our bikes from a super steep underground parking and no problem.  We line up to leave around an obstacle course and no problem.  We then get on the sidewalk sloped down just before the street and Marc in front of me stopped fast for oncoming car, I stopped fast and dropped at zero speed —  but its counted as a drop.  Out come the team to lift up my bike.  I’m pissed, but move on.  At the end of todays ride my drop was even fancier. We finished our ride and brought our bikes to the underground parking and all good.  I back my bike into the spot, awesome.  I was so excited about the day that I forgot to put down my kick-stand and …  Drop.  Now that is a first. Who does that?  Me.  The boys happily come running and lift my bike.  Thanks guys.  Note to Phil, please don’t do that again.

Anyway, today we left Medellin headed for Manizales.  Its kind of funny, I still don’t really know where I am, its just some strange place in Columbia but I will explain at the end the importance of this town which makes it a real interesting region in the world.  Not much time to get roots here though.  Go out tonight, play a bit and out again early tomorrow.

Moving on, we had a briefing last night and again this morning before leaving and I was not overly happy what I heard.  Today was going to be mountainous but not as bad.  The roads are under construction for past 3 years and expect oil on road, uneven roads, people dodging selling mangos, pot holes and stops that last hours — more about that later as well as bad roads and passing cars to overtake slower traffic.  Needless to say, while I try to compartmentalize this and go with it, I do that about 90%, the other 10% says to myself, that sucks.  Still, I am fully into this and love the challenge.

Oh one great thing, I almost forgot, Marc told the group that Phil will be in the Number “1″ position today.  Number One, that sounds so nice.  No, in this world, that means you are the following the teacher so he can watch you.  Sure, one can take it as a kick in the head, but not me, I am happy to be the teachers pet — Or maybe I’m the one the teacher has to work with after hours.  its the reality and I look at it as a blessing that on this trip, I get attention to become a better rider with people who deserve to be on this ride because they’ve rode their entire lives and are such strong riders.

To my surprise and bliss, the first few hours of the roads to our first coffee stop were better than I could have imagined with recently paved roads, first time I’ve seen that in a while, like when I was in the USA, super curvy with lots and lots of switchbacks, mountainous with lots of elevations and descents.   I felt like I was dancing on two wheels, like Mikhail Baryshnikov, the ballet guy — but I’m without the tights.  Following Marc, I was going fast within my zone, leaning into curves hard, passing the occasional car but there were not that many and just having so much fun because the road was great, the teacher was in front of me and the traffic was slight — Best fun.  We then head for a short stop along the highway and Marc comes up to me.  I think he is going to congratulate me on my riding.  He fist pumps me — even better — and then walks away.  Happy times.  About 30 seconds later he comes back to me for my debrief on my ride.  He says, stay away from the center line or you will get your head taken off, don’t go too wide near the crap on the side while he waves his pointer finger exagerating the importance on what he just told me, but otherwise its great.  I said that I will try.  I’ve been knocked down a few notches, ok, quite a few, but I am so positive.  He then said, watch my line during the next ride, it will help you.  Ok, done.  Its hard and focused work since were going real fast — much faster than I am used to and the guard rails down to the mountains drop can often be a stick holding a cheap fence  and the curves are more intense than I have ever seen before.  Nothing can hurt my feelings, I loved the ride and Marc was super nice.

Moving on, the rest of the days ride definitely deteriorated in terms of road quality but we went through countless towns and villages and at rocket speeds.  So fast, that I really find it hard at times to see my surroundings because I have to focus on the road and what I am doing.  I would say that is a negative thing about this trip so far.  We just don’t have tons of time to stop and take pictures — of which I see millions of amazing shots that are artistic and crazy shit, but we have to be in the bottom tip of the Earth in Argentina by March 18th and we need to keep to the plan.  The positive side of todays ride was it was flawless and I did follow Marc’s line and I am learning fast.  I have not been a burden on anyone and that is most important to me.  Uneven roads or rocks or pebbles take me more time to navigate for parking or stopping, but I do what I have to do.  That said, I would be fibbing if I did not say that everyone knows my flaws and they are such nice people they could care less.

An interesting series of events happened along the journey.  Because the road is under construction, the police manage the traffic flow at junctions where constriction is active.  That means that they close one lane, effectively stopping traffic and the opposite late continues.  The police then stop the opposite lane of traffic and then allow the other direction of traffic to proceed.  I hope that makes sense and its no big deal.  This road is very well traveled and the backup when the lane is stopped to allow the other lane to continue is long and could be a mile or more.  When our lane is closed, we then take the opportunity to lane-split and head to the front.  I’m getting pretty good at that  — I would even say confident now and have limited fear.  The interesting part of this ordeal is that the police can randomly wait 15 minutes or 1 hour to let one side traffic flow which can back up our side — its totally random.  We hit about 5 or 6 of these road closures and had to turn off out bikes and just wait.  And then, bang, the gate opens and our side gets to move representing almost like the gates opening for the Kentucky Derby and about 20 motorcycles ready to roll within seconds.  Because you get no advanced notice, you may be holding traffic because your helmet may be off because its over 90 degrees outside or your gloves were removed.  Anyway, its another thing.

Dinner tonight was with Manfred, Bert, Will and Tong.  We laughed and it was fun.  Will is showing his real person.  He is a hyper, very personable and fun 38 year old who likes to do stuff and laugh a lot.  We went into town and shoved down some food, then headed to a pub and had another beer of course — Manfred needed a beer and I had half.

A bit of information; Manizales is the Capital of Columbian Coffee and headquarters to the Coffee Growers Axis.  That’s cool.  We did pass miles and miles of dense coffee plantations on fabulous mountainous hill sides on the ride and I cursed myself that we could not stop to take pictures.  I suspect we will see plenty more on our ride to Cali tomorrow.