Zombie thread from 2012?

I was down there two years ago and did a little riding. It depends on what one wants to do. I did the following:

a) I rented a bike in Quito and tooled around the neighborhoods. Streets and traffic were somewhat of an issue, but I like urban site seeing on a bike, particularly for those parts that aren't the obvious tourist neighborhoods.

b) as part of an arranged tour to Cotopaxi, downhill MTB riding! Leaving from Quito in a bus, you go up to where the road ends and hike up the sides of Cotopaxi a ways. (I got to around 16,000' or so. Later, I got to 17,000' on Chimborazo. Talk about sucking air!) afterwards, they give you MTBs with very wide tires and very low air pressure and you can descent a couple of thousand feet on the unpaved, very soft, very steep road. Super fun.

c) in Banos, I rented a MTB ($5/day). There are many rides one can do, including cycling La Ruta de las Cascadas. You can spend the day going down the road on the Ruta, stopping at many waterfalls, and then when you are done, for a small fee you pay a truck to take your bike back and you take a bus back up the mountain to town. As far as I can tell, few if any actually ride back up the mountain. I didn't do either (I toured La Ruta by car - highly recommended). Instead, I did a local climb on a partly paved road. It was about a 3000' climb over maybe 8 miles, in places very steep (15%). Elevation went frrom maybe 5000' to 8000'.

Some people cycle the Pan-American highway, touring. I'd be very wary of doing that.