Cycling the Route of Revolutionary Simón Bolívar: A Fully Supported, 900-Mile Touring Holiday from Bogotá to the Sea
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- A new Ride & Seek Bolívar tour offers a cycling journey from high-altitude Bogotá to Cartagena’s Caribbean waterfront, tracing Colombia’s dramatic Andes, coffee country and colonial coast.
- A historically themed route inspired by Simón Bolívar highlights the nation’s evolving social and political landscape.
- The three-week itinerary balances big climbs like Alto del Sifón with flexible support, showcasing Colombia’s rising culinary scene and intimate coffee culture.
For a cycling destination, Colombia has an odd reputation problem. The country that produced cycling legends like Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, and Rigoberto Urán remains largely unexplored on two wheels by most international travelers. The roads are there. The culture is there. What’s missing was a well-planned tour that connected the pieces.
Ride & Seek’s new Bolívar tour does exactly that. Starting in Bogotá at 8,600 feet in the Andes and finishing three weeks later on the Caribbean waterfront in Cartagena, the route covers more than 900 miles and 83,000 feet of elevation gain. It’s a full sweep of the country, from high plateau to mountain pass to colonial coast.
Dylan Reynolds, Ride & Seek’s founder, says the crossing concept was central from the first ideation of what this latest tour would entail. “From a cycling perspective, you can leave Bogotá in the high Andes, ride through some of the most dramatic mountain landscapes, then descend into the Coffee Triangle, pass through colonial towns, and eventually arrive on the Caribbean coast in Cartagena,” he explained in an email interview with Travel by LA Times Studios. “It’s a genuine crossing of the country, and those are always the journeys that excite us most.”
Ride & Seek has been building historically-themed cycling tours in Europe, Asia, and Oceania for years. Colombia is the company’s first South American itinerary. The tour takes its name from Simón Bolívar, known as “El Libertador,” whose campaign to end Spanish colonial rule still shapes how Colombians percieve their history and identity. Reynolds says the Bolívar thread was part of what made the route click. The story mapped naturally onto the terrain, connecting differently each time they looked at another region.
The tour opens in Bogotá with a warm-up ride during the city’s famous weekly Ciclovía, when 75 miles of streets are closed to cars and filled instead with cyclists and pedestrians. Two hours north, colonial Villa de Leyva makes a different first impression: a vast cobblestone plaza that looks largely unchanged since the 16th century, quiet roads through high desert, and farmlands that are rich in fossils. Then the serious climbing begins.
The centerpiece of the Andean section is the Alto del Sifón, one of the longest continuous paved climbs in the world. It stretches over 70 miles with 15,000 feet of elevation gain. Strong riders can take on the whole thing. Those who’d rather cover a section and spend the rest of the day touring the countryside can do that too. Support vehicles run throughout, and Reynolds is clear that the experience doesn’t depend on taking every climb at full commitment.
“We’ve always believed that challenges should be available, but not compulsory,” he says. “Our goal isn’t to create a race. It’s to create an unforgettable adventure that works for a range of riders.”
From the high Andes, the route descends into the Coffee Triangle — the UNESCO-listed Zona Cafetera spread roughly between the Colombian towns of Manizales, Pereira, and Armenia. Roads roll through plantations and into small towns, with mid-morning coffee stops built into the structure of the ride. Family-run fincas roast their own beans, the small strong tintos come with the territory, and the distance between where you’re riding and where the coffee you’re sipping on was grown is often measured in yards.
Reynolds says the culinary element has become one of the tour’s more compelling angles for those who sign up. “The food scene is also evolving rapidly,” he says. “There’s a creativity and confidence in Colombian cuisine that surprises many visitors. Combined with the country’s coffee culture, it gives us wonderful opportunities to tell stories beyond the bike.”
A rest day in Medellín sits about two-thirds of the way through — time to absorb the city’s lush landscape, urban culture, and what Reynolds describes as Colombia’s “remarkable social and political transformation” before the route pushes toward the coast. The final descent from altitude brings a literal change of atmosphere: out of the cool mountain air and into the heat and humidity of the Caribbean. Here, Cartagena’s colonial old town, brightly painted facades, and shaded plazas are a vivid contrast to where the trip began.
The tour grades at 3.5 out of 4 on Ride & Seek’s espresso cup scale. Reynolds describes the ideal guest as someone driven more by curiosity than by speed. Experienced cycling travelers will find enough on the road to keep them engaged. Those drawn equally by history, food, and culture will find just as much to experience off the bike.
As for what stays with riders when they’re home, Reynolds doesn’t think it will be any single moment on the route. “I suspect people will simply say, ‘I can’t believe we cycled across Colombia,’” he says. “When you stand in Cartagena having started in Bogotá, you realize you’ve experienced Colombia in a way that very few visitors ever do. That’s the story I hope people will still be telling years later.”
Departures run November 7, 2026, and November 6, 2027. The price starts at $11,880 per person based on double occupancy and includes all accommodations in restored haciendas, all breakfasts and group dinners, most lunches, ride nutrition, GPS with preloaded routes, a Ride & Seek kit and water bottle, and guided support throughout. Full details and booking at rideandseek.com.
