Everyone who researches a trip to Guatapé reads the same complaint in the reviews: the traffic. On a weekend, the last stretch from Marinilla to Guatapé can double or triple the drive, and you spend your day trip sitting in a van.
This Guatapé bike tour doesn’t go that way. We take the back roads, quiet lanes through the hills of eastern Antioquia that almost no tourist ever sees, and arrive at the lake on an e-bike, with the wind in your face instead of a bumper in front of you.
The most adventurous way to reach Guatapé
It works like this. We shuttle you and the bikes out to San Vicente Ferrer, and from there you ride: 68 km of public roads with little to no traffic, through two of Antioquia’s best-preserved heritage towns, past a waterfall, and finally along the Guatapé reservoir itself. When you arrive, the shuttle is waiting to bring you back, or to hold your luggage if you’re staying on.
These are Specialized Turbo Levo e-bikes, so the distance isn’t the obstacle it sounds like. The first 40 km are paved and gently rolling; the last 28 are off-road with the real climbing. The motor does the heavy lifting on the hills. What you bring is a willingness to sit on a bike saddle for the better part of a day and enjoy the ride. Prefer to stay closer to the city? The same bikes run on our Arví Park e-bike tour.
Two towns most visitors never see
The point of going the back way isn’t only the traffic. It’s what’s on the back way. Concepción and Alejandría are National-Heritage-grade colonial towns, cobblestoned and largely untouched by mass tourism, and we stop and explore both. Coffee in the main square. Local food. Eighteenth-century churches. A swim beneath a waterfall. This is the Antioquia that the direct road to El Peñol skips entirely.
By the time you reach Guatapé, you’ve already had the best day. The town is the finish line, not the whole point.
