How selling cycling holidays revealed what travelers actually come for.

What three years in the Colombian Andes taught us about how people travel now.

Colombici officially turns three in 2026.

Colombici's humble milestones: 2021 — 2026. Three years official. Five on the road.

In 2021, as Colombia reopened, seven riders set out on a week-long journey from Bogotá to Filandia via Alto de Letras. We left the capital with a humble van, and a mechanic on a moto. For most of us, it was the first time in Colombia. We were hooked, and returned the following years. That tour became the blueprint for everything we do, and Colombici was born from it.

We officially turned three this year. Many tours later, watching who came and what they came back for, we started to see how people travel now. Three insights stayed with us.

The morning of the Queen stage in 2021.

i. The new luxury is meaning.

A pattern showed up early, and it kept repeating. Riders arrived having already toured Colombia with another operator, and they told us the same story: they’d cycled the country without ever really experiencing it. Airport hotels. Breakfast buffets. The same dinner spread every night. Their words, not ours. The climbs were there, but the culture wasn’t. They came to us for the part the first trip missed: the meaning.

In early 2026 we made a strategic decision to travel smaller. Maximum ten riders, one van. Not because small is exclusive, but because small is deliberate. A group that fits around one table. A three-to-one rider-to-staff ratio. Where you sleep, where you stop to eat, the bathroom breaks on a long climb, all handled. We manage these details so our clients don't have to. Closer to the country, further from the crowd.

This is the heart of it: experience-led, immersive Colombia, ridden small enough to taste. It’s the promise in our manifesto, Colombia in Motion.

Closer to the country. Further from the crowd.

The climbs are the same. The culture is deeper with us.

Immersive travel in Colombia has a new meaning.

ii. Travel on your terms.

Most tour operators, us included, have always run on fixed dates. We set the calendar, and travelers signed up. It’s a simple model, and it still works for a certain kind of trip. But the friction is real. Work and life rarely align with a date picked by others. So more and more, travelers came to us with a different ask: their own dates, their own group, their own itinerary, down to the level of difficulty and the detail of each day. A solo rider extending a work trip. A couple marking an anniversary. A cycling club flying in from three cities to climb El Sifón from different sides.

Those requests defined the curated part of what we offer. The trip already existed in our clients’ heads. Our job was to build on it: the right hotels, the climbs they came for, an itinerary set to their level. The route can be fixed. How it fits each group never is.

Private tours used to be a luxury add-on. Today, it’s the most requested and the fastest-growing part of what we do.

Colombia, once a year. Every year.

Fruit most riders can't pronounce, and never forget.

Experience-led. Locally ridden.

iii. Colombia as an annual prescription.

David, from Los Angeles, has ridden with us once a year, every year, since 2021. Five trips. It’s one of the highlights of his calendar: a retreat, an escape, a challenge, a holiday, all of it in one week.

He calls it his Colombian annual prescription. He'll tell you about the guanábana en leche. Delicious fruits and bakery he still can’t pronounce. “In most countries cyclists are just about tolerated,” he says. “Colombia is different. You're celebrated, cheered on at every stage.” He isn’t alone, plenty of returning clients need and want their Colombia fix. The cycling becomes a literal vehicle to access something deeper, the kind that lives outside hotel restaurants and cookie-cutter tourism.

David often complains how expensive Guanábana juice is in L.A.

“In most countries cyclists are just about tolerated. Colombia is different. You're celebrated, cheered on at every stage.” |

“In most countries cyclists are just about tolerated. Colombia is different. You're celebrated, cheered on at every stage.” |

Roadside snacks are often underrated.

Colombia unfiltered.

The road ahead.

It took us three years to see ourselves clearly. We started as a cycling tour with no name. We grew into an identity, and now, a clearer offer.

Experience-led travel isn’t a niche or a micro trend. It’s the foundation of everything we do, and the philosophy we ride by.

We started Colombici to sell bike tours. Colombia is the reason they return.

They came for the ride. Colombia is the reason they return.

One van, one mechanic, small group cycling holidays, intimate Colombia.