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 Travel & Outdoors | April 2006 
Mexico by Mountain Bike: A Cultural Experience
 Jim Scripps - Tahoe Daily Tribune
| | Rogelio Salazar, owner of EcoRide Mexico and chief guide, leads the way through Vallejo, a small town above Puerta Vallarta. (Jim Scripps/Tahoe Daily Tribune) |
Puerto Vallarta - Rogelio Salazar may have the ultimate job, though he only makes $80 on a good day. Eighty dollars goes a long way in Mexico, even in an expensive tourist town like Puerta Vallarta.
Salazar is chief executive officer, head chef and tour guide for EcoRide Mexico, a mountain bike tour company boasting two employees, and probably the most laid back approach to bicycle touring in Puerta Vallarta. He offers rides in the Sierra Madre mountains, a short hop from downtown "P.V.", as the gringo tourists call it.
"I love this place," Salazar says, punctuating his thick Mexican accent with hand gestures. "Look at it!"
What's not to love? Like the many gringos who flock to P.V. each winter for the sunny weather and friendly community feel, Salazar happily makes the seaside town in Mexico's Banderas Bay his home. During our cold months, especially this year's gray Lake Tahoe winter, Puerta Vallarta stays consistently in the 80s during the day and 60s at night. The only thing to break up the blue skies from about November to May is the hovering parasailors who dot the white sand beaches. But despite the allure of the ocean, it is the green hills that draw Salazar's cycling customers.
"This is where you get to see the real Puerta Vallarta," Salazar said. He oiled my chain and we headed out of the downtown. From his small bike shop behind the Church of Guadalupe, I pedaled an old GT hardtail about 2 inches too small (the largest bike in his rental fleet); he sat on a somewhat modern Trek.
From the end of the road and the modern buildings and cars of a newer town, we proceeded on a dirt road, like stepping into a black-and-white movie.
Our 20-kilometer ride took us past Vallejo and Gallero, past lean-to homes and small town centers - the types of places that boast a single shop covered with tacky advertisements, school children playing soccer in the middle of the road, and farm animals roaming freely.
There were also malnourished dogs. Dogs at every turn, scattering away from us and our bikes, perhaps wary of getting kicked again. Laundry hung on lines outside decrepit concrete houses, and the work of everyday life - everything from growing and preparing food, to construction - seems to be done the old-fashioned way. It's a refreshing glimpse into a simpler life.
After a stop at Las Pilitas, a relatively unimpressive waterfall that serves as a turnaround point, we headed back down for a good descent. I let my cranky bike unwind, aware that the brakes needed extra space and pressure from my hand. "I lost somebody there," said Salazar, pointing to an embankment hugging a gravelly turn.
Overestimating Mexican bicycle maintenance, I almost made the same mistake.
Puerta Vallarta may not be the mountain biking Mecca that Lake Tahoe is, but there is plenty for the tourist - and from what Salazar says, more singletrack becomes available every day. Even the most advanced mountain biker will find a trail to his or her liking.
And if you don't like the ride, there's always the tacos. At the end of our descent we stopped at a stand that served up the best tacos I've ever had. The total cost for a meal for two: $4.50. Come to think of it, $80 a day doesn't sound so bad after all. |
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