PowerCycle

03/02 New record today! I blew away my old one day ascent record of 4,018 feet and hit 4,690 feet in one day. It’ll be fun to see the GPS elevation profile when I get get online. Nothing hurts on my old body so I’m pretty happy.

Finding a place to camp tonight was a pain. 99% of the time I was going up or down a steep canyon road that had nothing as far as a reasonably flat and secluded place to toss up my tent. The other thing that made it difficult is the number of people living in places that I wouldn’t have guessed anyone lived. The first place I found looked like an old trail that led down to a creek. I wasn’t there 20 minutes before a guy comes walking out of who knows where with a slingshot and a backpack. He didn’t seem to care that I was putting my tent up but he made it sound like the trail was a little more used than I thought. Even though I was pretty beat I packed up and kept climbing up the hill. I lucked out. Not 1/4 mile up the road I found another trail that goes back into the bushes about 50 feet. There’s even a little creek so I get to hear running water for the first time in a long time.

Speaking of wild, something dawned on me today. I haven’t seen a single wild animal since Baja. At least nothing bigger than a squirrel. I might have missed live things I guess but I’d at least see dead carcasses at the side of road. There hasn’t been a single thing. No deer, rabbits, coyotes, etc. It’s not hard to figure out why I suppose. Mexico is ranked among the five most heavily deforested countries in the world. No trees = no shelter = no animals.

Some stupid punk teenage girl annoyed me. In the last town I was in there was a sign next to a building that said La Cabana. A cabana sounded lke a good place to crash for the night so I asked how much. The entire time I was trying to ask about the place the girl was laughing like I was doing a stand-up routine. The Dad(?) was saying something but he talked so fast I couldn’t understand him. Finally I got fed up and left. I realized later that maybe she was laughing because that was the name of the “restaurant”; not that there was actually a cabana there. This place was a covered shack with no walls–it wasn’t any different than any other place I’ve seen so who knows. I hope I see her somewhere where they only speak English so I can laugh at her. We’ll see how she likes it.

It’s hilly on this mountain highway but the views are incredible. Water hasn’t been too hard to find which is good because I’m going through a lot of it. The towns/villages are populated by Indians, and even though I read you’re not supposed to, I couldn’t resist taking a quick shot of 2 of the girls walking along the road. They were just so freaking cute. I don’t think they saw the camera anyway. There were about 20 kids in total that just got dropped off from school. The boys all stopped and stared but about 8 girls saw me and ran off the road and hid. It was kind of funny.

GPX Track

02/15 I’m definitely getting a t-shirt that says, “I rode my bike in Mexico City and survived!” For some crazy reason I wanted to subject myself to more abuse so I rode right into the center of the city to visit Centro Histórico.

After checking out many of the crowded, narrow streets, almost all of which were filled with vendors, I headed over to the cathedral and the National Palace. Wow. Both buildings were quite a sight. The Metropolitan Cathedral, the largest and oldest cathedral in the Americas, was just immense. It’s hard to imagine how a building dating back to 1573 could have been designed so perfectly. Recent history is putting the design of many of the older buildings to the test however. Neglect and damage resulting from the magnitude 8.1 earthquake that hit in 1985 resulted in damage to many of the buildings. According to some people, some of the older buildings are even in danger of collapse. The government has been dumping a lot of money into restoring the area so hopefully the changes will help.

A quick plate of tacos and I was off to my next destination–Teotihuacan, home of the 3rd largest pyramid in the world, the Pyramid of the Sun. I just found out tonight that the 2nd largest in the world, the Great Pyramid of Cholula, is close to my route so I’ll have to stop and visit that one too.

The 30 mile ride to get here was nuts. Mex-85 is an absolutely chaotic road. The problem are the buses, taxis and vans that compete for passengers standing at the side of the road. There are 4 travel lanes and no breakdown lane so the side of the road turns into a circus. In some spots there’ll be a dozen passenger vehicles jockeying for position. Riding in and out of this mess is a good test of ones riding ability. At one point I did get to ride on a toll road and fortunately the operator that literally came running toward me as I approached the toll booth just wanted to show me where to walk my bike past it.

The town closest to the ruins, Teotihuacan will be my home for 2 nights. I’ll take a taxi over in the morning and check it out.

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02/14 I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day (or any other commercialized holiday) but now I like it a lot less. Little background first… in Mexico it’s taboo to hook up with your significant other before marriage. Since that’s completely unrealistic there are all these motels that cater to guys and girls looking for a place to get it on. So here I am riding my bike in the dark on the disaster that is the Mexico City road system trying to find a place and the few normal hotels I could find were full. I’ve been avoiding the sex motels but everything was full tonight so I got stuck in one.

I guess it’s not too bad. The motel room is like a normal room except for the mirrored headboard and full length mirror on the wall. There’s even room service available. Since it took me until 8pm to find a place I needed a beer (or 3). I opted to pay for a full night instead of the four, eight or twelve hour options they have available. There’s even a curtained off garage to park your car for some additional privacy. There’s no check-in desk either. You just pull up to a glass window that you can’t see into and conduct everything through (very loud) speakers and a slide out drawer like at a bank drive through. That made communication even harder for me because being able to see the person makes it a lot easier. There’s no hot water either which was the one thing I was hoping for more than anythig.

Mexico City sits smack dab in the middle of the 3rd largest metropolitan area in the world so you can imagine the traffic. I rode around for about 4 hours and it was like rush hour on every road. My GPS track tells the story I’m sure. And let me tell you about road conditions. The highway I rode into the city on (Mex-85) and virtually every other road was in the worst shape of anything I’ve seen in all of Mexico. There are massive potholes on every road, broken glass is very common, there are unmarked speedbumps everywhere, people park on the sidewalks or double-park, the sidewalks are in horrible shape and people drive like freaking maniacs.

The fact that I’m even alive is a miracle. I was used to people cruising through stop signs after a cursory slowdown but here they burn right through red lights. Lanes are almost meaningless. There’s also garbage all over the place which is also something I usually only see on the outskirts of towns.

I didn’t get to see the ruins at Teotihuacan and now the cab ride there is going to cost a fair bit since I had to ride so far. I’ll have to find a new motel (with intenet) and then try to go see it tomorrow or maybe Tuesday. What a pain. I can’t wait to get out of this city.

Update: I think I found part of my problem. For some reason I’d manually entered wrong coordinates for the ruins into my GPS. Oops. First time for everything I guess. I’m still about 35 miles away. I’ll head over tomorrow. I feel a little better at least now that I know where I’m going.

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02/07 Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I lucked out and found a motel with a TV before the end of the 2nd quarter. Not sure what station I was watching but did I see a freaking SUV advertisement superimposed on the playing field? Is that new? How annoying. I changed the channel to another one that wasn’t doing that. It’s my first Super Bowl in Spanish. The commercials don’t seem like anything special. I guess that makes sense though.

The highway numbers were messing with me today. My map said I’d be on a toll road all day so I was all psyched up to sneak around toll booths. I ended up on a free highway (Mex-43) that was just fantastic. The road was in great condition and there was a huge shoulder. Couple little hils but nothing like a few days ago. I also had a strong tailwind from the SE all day. The wind is supposed to be even stronger over the next couple days so I’m glad I’m going north. All this made up for having to fix my front tire that I noticed was flat right when I was getting ready to leave. It gave me time to chat with one of the guys that works in the motel while I was fixing it so it worked out OK.

I think its time I started looking to replace my poor old front tire. Its not worn through enough to see the tube or anything but it has to be getting pretty thin. The Mr. Tuffy liner I have inside is probably the only thing keeping me from getting flats all day. Maybe I’ll hold out until Mexico City.

When I made it into Morelia I was surprised how big it was. Traffic was crazy. Riding wasn’t bad but I had to wait forever for cars to pass so I could take pictures of things. In the central plaza there were all these crazy looking people in costume tap dancing so I stopped and watched that for a while. After stopping for a beer I cruised around the historic area a bit but decided not to stay. Leaving was a little challenging. Someone had plastered stickers over the highway signs so I wasn’t sure what road I should be on. I ended up just heading north like my GPS said and it worked out.

The town I’m staying in is different from any other town I’ve been in. All the buildings along the main street are exactly the same and the name of the store is written in black letters on the building but there are no signs or anything. I rode right by the hotel. Had to stop and ask a cop for directions. When I was walking back that way to get some food I smelled pot for the first time in Mexico. A scruffy looking guy had lit one up in the plaza not 100 feet from the police officer who was directing traffic. Seemed very strange considering what I’d heard about drug enforcement down here.

When I came back to the hotel the door to my room was open a little. I would have locked it but the lady said they only had one key for it so she didn’t give me one. The main door is locked all the time so I wasn’t worried about it when I left. I’m the only one staying here too. There’s a little kid running around inside. Maybe she opened it. Nothing was missing.

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