Having neglected to ride a bike for the first five months of our trip, I will indulge in a second blog entry about riding this month. The reason I cannot resist is that I just completed one of the most incredible rides of my life. It actually was a two-day ride, which I took while Max was away on a school camping trip. I was going to go with my biker friend Miguel, but he went incommunicado a day before the trip so I went alone. I thought he had had a change of heart about the ride, but it turns out he was sick.
![]() |
The cabin where I stayed in La Nevería. |
I highly, highly recommend the Pueblos Mancomunados to anybody who visits Oaxaca with time to spend a couple days in the mountains.
![]() |
The road up the mountain to Benito Juarez. |
![]() |
A view from the ride. |
I learned a few important lessons about planning an overnight bike trip in the mountains, such as:
1. A topographic map (which I did not use) portrays the hills on a route more accurately than the local population does (which I did use).
2. When a local -- who lives in extremely hilly terrain above 8,000 feet and spends his or her entire life walking, running, and working on steep slopes -- says a route is “pura bajada” (“all downhill”), do not believe it. Even when it appears you are at the top of a mountain, there is always more uphill on the trail ahead.
3. Beware of any route through a town called “La Cumbre,” which means “the summit.” Over two days of riding, I spent about nine of the twelve hours on the bike going up mountains. I estimate that I climbed somewhere between nine and ten thousand feet. If you are coming to Oaxaca and you like hills, here is the route.
4. Disk brakes can wear out during a 10-mile high-speed descent. By the time I reached the city of Oaxaca, I had to use my shoe as a brake.
5. When riding into the mountains during the rainy season, use a plastic bag inside your backpack to keep extra clothes dry.
6. If you do not use a plastic bag and it pours for the last one to two hours of the ride, do not dry your clothes too close to the fire -- especially if they are made of synthetic fabrics. I melted the front of a pair of pants and I toasted a pair of underwear.
7. When passing through a town with a phone, on your way to spend the night in a town without a phone, call your loved one to say you are ok.
On that last point, I did not follow my own advice. As a result, Natalie was pretty nervous. She had all night to imagine the things that could go wrong. When I got home, she confessed to having considered staying in Oaxaca if I did not make it out alive, where she could afford a “muchacha” (i.e., a girl to help with the kids). Notwithstanding, she was glad to see me when I got back.
Changing subjects, does anything look out of place in this picture?
That is a man sticking out of the top of the tree. He is trimming it. Natalie took the picture while we were having coffee one morning. Warning to our camellia trees at home: we have grown to like the look of highly manicured trees, which is the norm here. --Harrison