Colombia
I am not in Bogota any more, but will return soon and plan to rent a bike and take a tour of the city from these guys. They look pretty qualified to inform me of the city’s bike infrastructure!
Since I try to keep this blog as focused as possible on issues of interest to Tucson bicyclists, I won’t go into my travels much except to say that Colombia is one heckuva beautiful country, with huge mountains, lush jungles, gigantic canyons, bad roads, and very friendly people. The bus rides are epic. My friend and I are making our way to Cartagena, a walled colonial city on the Caribbean coast.
One thing I have noticed is that the whole machismo thing that is so strong in Mexico is very, very much more subdued in Colombia. Women seem much more comfortable here to wear what they like, interact with men however they like, and do what they like without getting so much attention. I have rarely seen women on bicycles in Mexico other than on the Mexico City Ciclovia, but here I see women on bikes every day. Also on motorcycles (I don’t think I have ever seen that in Mexico) and even with their boyfriends as passengers. I love Mexico and will return all my life, but that machismo thing really gets to me sometimes.
The bicycle in general also seems much more common here than in Mexico, and this morning I saw many people, men and women, taking a recreational ride up a local mountain pass. Most on pretty junky mountain bikes, some on very nice bikes.
The bikes in general are very different from what I saw in Mexico. In Mexico there are huge numbers (though they are diminishing) of old Chinese Flying Pigeons with the stirrup brakes and rickety stamped-steel construction. I have only seen one of these bikes in Colombia, and I have been looking carefully. Most bikes I see are more recent vintage mountain bikes, usually very low-end.
It suggests to me that Colombians have only recently adopted the bicycle in great numbers. But that’s just a guess.
More soon!
–Erik Ryberg