Bikes in Mexico

I was in Cabo all week (thus no posts) and I didn't really see much worth blogging about. First of all it's a terrible place for road biking as the only paved road is the transpeninsular highway (highway 19) a dangerous two-lane highway with almost no shoulder. Despite the fact that the area is criss-crossed with barely used dirt roads and ATV trails, there is little in the way of Mountain Biking going on. Some places online mention mountain biking, but once there I didn't see a single ad about it and I was never propositioned about it (and you have people soliciting business from you at all times). I saw a few kids riding mountain bikes and away from Cabo San Lucas and San Jose de Cabo in the surfer/retirement communities around Todos Santos, I did see more people (mostly the gringos) using mountain bikes to get around on the bad roads, but I really saw it all as a missed opportunity. If I were a small entrepreneur, I'd see it as a business opportunity.

The other use of bikes in Cabo was the bicycle rickshaws. I think these are great little devices in the right places. They work great in Dewey Beach (where the terrain in flat, the weather good - at least when people are there - and the distances short) and well in Austin and other southern cities, but DC may be too cold and too hilly. Even in Cabo, there was no place safe for the rickshaws to operate, they really needed to close streets in the entertainment area at night and allow walking and rickshaws to handle the traffic.