Miguelitro's Ongoing Ecuador Ride Report

[miguelitro]

I am going to be throwing my ride reports in here in the future.
Just to kick it off here are a few from the past!

[miguelitro]

Up the Coast to Montañita
We took the new bike for an overnighter up the coast to Montanita as I am trying to get 1000K on the odo so I can get the 1st scheduled maintenance done. The bike came with a 1 year or 12,000km warranty and the work must be done by the authorized mechanic(I’ll take pics of his “shop”, its classic 3rd world). Its also free, well included in the purchase price!

Playa Rosada




We then followed the coast up a nice graded dirt road to Ayangue for lunch.

:D

[miguelitro]

After lunch it was a quick run up to Montanita


We went to visit Tio Poeta and have some pina coladas


Saw a good live reggae band, drank a bunch of beers, woke up a little hungover and since my wife had to work we headed home without getting to do any more side trips. There is a neat waterfall near montanita though its probably pretty dry right now as well as some great beaches up the coast.
We stopped here for the sole reason that it’s a friggin ship. Apparently food on Spanish Galeons is expensive so we just grabbed a beer.

[miguelitro]

I had not noticed that my helmet is from a well named company.


You can see the high rises of Salinas through the haze


Put nearly 200 kms on the bike and used just under 2 gallons of fuel at 2.10$ a gallon:D
This little 200cc china bike really rides pretty nice with the 2 of us on there and gets up to 80 kph pretty well.
Mike

[miguelitro]

Dec. 2012
We set out for a long weekend ride from our home in Salinas, Ecuador on the coast up to the town of Cuenca, a historical mountain town and the 3rd largest in Ecuador. A friend's wedding, and all the free booze that comes with such an affair was the main reason but why not do something stupid on our little 200cc china bike at the same time!
We rode past my favorite billboard…

and headed towards Ecuador's largest city with a short break to say adios to my riding buddy Kiwi Steve where he noticed I had a broken spoke…

Steve rides a different model of the same bike as mine but his has some differences we are still tryin to figure out. Mainly his is blue though.

Through Guayaquil and across the bridges over the river.

stopped for gas on the island between the 2 bridges and even got some McDonalds as we dont have one in Salinas, yep it sucked:D and then headed through the farmlands, mostly rice and sugarcane.

[miguelitro]

Finally getting to some hills, but not the big ones yet.

There, dead ahead are the Andes!

I would guess after climbing around 3000' to 4000' we got above the 1st layer of clouds.

A few thousand feet of climbing later we noticed that we were maybe half way up the hill, but hell the bike was still pulling 55 kph so no worries!

By this time I had put a long sleeve shirt on under my jacket and zipped it up while my fearless wife had donned her snowboarding gear. Not going to lie, I was jealous!

High in the mountains we started coming across trout farms which also allow "sport fishing" where if you bring your own rod they will sell you feed pellets to put on a hook and pull as many fish out as you want for a few bucks. They will also cook them up for you for a few dollars more! Not my style of sport fishing so we chugged on up the hill at a steady 35 kph sometime as low as 25kph and sometimes ecen slower through thick fog!


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Finally we had reached the summit in Cajas National Park, above the tree line, full alpine beauty! My crappy pictures do not do this place justice!


I am pretty sure these three crosses at Tres Cruzes are where they buried the previous 3 china bikes that didn't make it.

More pics of Cajas!




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From here it was pretty much all fast down hill to Cuenca and this ride report seems to go down hill even faster as the only other pictures i have are some of the wedding and a few around town…

one of Wonderwomen's saintly sister…

one of the door on the New Cathedral, way better than the old cathedral…

Here is that new cathedral on the new side of the Parque Central, the old, crappy side is directly opposite but no pictures of that obviously…look at those awesome new blue domes!

These are some famous stairs leading down to one of the 4 rivers of Cuenca (full name is Santa Ana de los cuatro rios de Cuenca).

This is an Incan ruin which is much better than those "other" ruins up north with all that Dec. 21st mierda.

Here they are again. Hey I was riding a bus so this is a ride report right???


---------- Post added at 11:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 PM ----------

Cuenca has lots of street art and this one really spoke to me!

This is a great view of the city and that canyon in the hills there is the one we rode out of and would be riding back up the next day!

This is a dog.

We woke up, rode through freezing cold rain and then descended through 10,000' of thick fog so I didn't get any pictures of the ride back. Oh, remember the mention of the broken spoke? well three more gave out along the side of the road in the ghetto outskirts of guayaquil and gave me a flat tire so i tightened the rest down woth the really terrible supplied pliers in my tool kit and rode on a flat tire on the shoulder getting passed by giant trucks at 3 times my speed to the nearest gas station 10 kliks up the road where the tube miraculously held air and then we rode home and only stopped for 1 beer we were so tired.
El Fin Pendejos,
Mike

[miguelitro]

Mid January, 2013
Got invited to take a nice Sunday cruise down the coast to a little fishing village called Engaboa. Luckily for me my wife had to work so I would get to fully enjoy the riding that day! Along for the cruise were Steve(the local guru of these china bikes) his wife Jessica, and Jim and Sheri who are opening Salinas' first REAL coffee shop and waffle house!
Through Atahualpa-

Back into the countryside, notice the road quality deteriorating.

And finally into some fun dirt road riding that felt, looked and smelled exactly like northern baja which is one of the few things I miss(well missed 'cuz now i can pretend!)
Steve on his 'motard with the little wheels.






Jim and Sheri



Bike parking in Engoboa.

We had some fresh seafood, a couple cold bears and watched the locals scrounge up a few scrappy waves.

Headed back pretty much the same way we came in with a quick stop for some water.

Not a bad way to spend a sunday though i am currently working on putting a ride that is at least 50% dirt and the other fellows are trying to figure out how to get their wives to stay home:D
Mike

[milton]

Many thanks for sharing your rides. Mighty interesting read from the other side of hemisphere. Keep it coming.

Cheers!

[miguelitro]

Many thanks for sharing your rides. Mighty interesting read from the other side of hemisphere. Keep it coming.

Cheers!

Forums only work if everyone contributes something! I am searching for info about the various makes and models coming to EC from China and this is what I have to contribute!
Mike