Steep learning curve: cycling in Boyaca

It started with a simple request. How do I find a decent bike ride when I’m in a foreign city? I was heading to Colombia and had dreams of pedalling over the roads used by Nairo Quintana, the cyclist whose mountain stage attacks in last year’s Tour de France set the whole race ablaze and who this month won the Giro d’Italia.

I wasn’t looking for an event, just a day’s riding. The best way, I decided, would be to contact a club – pretty simple with a spot of googling. But the language barrier kicked in and, in the end, I just asked my travel agent. He turned out to have a friend in Bogota who organises weekend rides with a local group. They were willing to take me along.

“They ride in Boyaca – Quintana’s home area,” he told me.

Two months later I’m at a roadside 80km northwest of Bogota waiting – rather apprehensively, in my Lycra – for a peloton from a local club to arrive.

I’m told they will come with a support vehicle bearing spare bikes, apparently a legal requirement in Colombia.

I tuck into some delicious arepas, flatbreads made from maize, and wash them down with weak coffee – Colombia grows great coffee, but doesn’t often make it well. As I finish, a gang of riders sweeps in, full of bonhomie and joie de vivre. Everyone is talking at me in impenetrable Colombian accents, but a smile seems an adequate reply for everything. Cycling here, I quickly ascertain, is intensely sociable.