I think you can ride the whole way from Alaska to Patagonia on the PanAmerican Highway. Some people, possibly most, do but it’s considered bad form. Sometimes you have no choice, like through Panama. Sometimes you can get around it but the route would be rediculously contrived, like Costa Rica. Most of the time it can be avoided without being silly. It’s useful for some of the better border crossings and that’s when most riders jump on it for a while.
So Hans, a while back, surprisingly tells me that the PanAmerican between Riobamba and Cuenca is one of the best paved rides in Ecuador.
That’s convenient because I want to head south quickly now.
The day’s track
It looks like this for most of the distance to Cuenca
Leave funky Riobamba
The road starts through heavily farmed and prosperous looking hills with huge Chimborazo in the far distance
Views of hills miles away
Stopped by construction and have to ride ripio for some miles. I was in the mood for it, so it’s good
Stop at a small town and watch some futbol
Then up into mountains. You can see the road clearly here. Perfect high-speed twisties – 3rd and 4th the whole way. Fantastic
Around one corner we can see a town in the Valley. Alausi – I’d heard about this place
Click on the video to the left for a panorama of this special town. We ride in and explore. If I wasn’t kinda desperate to get south after too much slack time I would have spent the night
Back into the mountains. The pic is worth a click
Clouds start building
As we topped out they started rolling across the landscape
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It had been nice to ride fast for hours. But we’d been goofing around too long in Alausi, time to stop taking photos and head into Cuenca before the final ride out of Ecuador
