4 ms·

Coworkers that are cyclists often tell me they are always afraid on the road because the car drivers don't keep the proper distance. I myself have experienced

Coworkers that are cyclists often tell me they are always afraid on the road because the car drivers don't keep the proper distance. I myself have experienced some close calls and I only ride a few times a year.

jacquesm 4y ago
Highly country dependent though.
- xtracto 4y ago
  Ha! I was all excited reading the comments and thinking that maybe it would be a nice little adventure in my quest to become fitter. Then i remembered that I live in Mexico and going on a bike ride/camping would be a death sentence due to reckless drivers, robbers/muggers or drug traffickers. I'll keep doing stationary bike.
  - alisonatwork 4y ago
    I decided against cycling into Mexico when I was recently cycling across North America because I was worried about the security situation. I ended up flying to Panama then traveling down to Colombia, where I started touring again. I am not sure about the security situation in Colombia versus Mexico, but the statistics do show that it still has a fairly significant amount of violent crime. Unlike my more free-spirited touring in Canada and the US, I was more careful about where I went. I kept track of the local news every day and avoided towns and areas with political rallies or paramilitary activity. I never camped anywhere, preferring to stay in hospedajes for around us$10 per night. I also bought a cheap (<us$250) bike with only 6 gears that looked similar to the kinds of bike campesinos rode around. And I spent more time on main roads with regular police/military checkpoints instead of taking any interesting back road I liked. The back roads I did take, I checked out on Google Street View beforehand, and leaned a lot on advice from local people. It was perhaps not as picturesque and peaceful as my riding in US/Canada, but it was still worth it for me. I met a few people down there who had greeted cyclists that had cycled all the way down from Canada, including through Mexico, so it's definitely possible to achieve, although different areas need different precautions. Perhaps it is wiser to do your first tour in a "safe" place so you get more comfortable with the process.
    - mrbombastic 4y ago
      Bold trip nonetheless! If you have some time to write up this experience and how you planned in more detail, I would definitely appreciate reading it and I am sure others would too. I am hoping to do some more travel like this in South and Central America and would be great to hear some first hand experience.
      - alisonatwork 4y ago
        For me the most important part of preparing for cycling in Latin America was learning conversational Spanish. I spent about 2 months studying in Panama to get a basic handle of the language, just going to school in the mornings and hanging out in local spaces in the afternoons where I could hear colloquial usage. Even though it's possible to get by traveling in other countries by miming your requests and using translation apps, it is much easier to reassure locals that you really are looking for a practical cycle route and not some kind of touristic detour if you can speak enough of the language they figure you're not going to collapse in a heap as soon as you can't find a McDonalds. In Panama I just rented bikes and did day trips. In Colombia I started doing that, then bought a bike once I realized the country was a better fit for how I wanted to travel. It seemed like there was a stronger bike culture there. By which I mean, there were relatively more utility cyclists - not sport/fitness cyclists, but people with baskets on the back hauling fish or produce from their angling spot or farm to the market. Aside from bicycles, a lot of locals also rode scooters or light motorcycles - this made me feel more confident on the roads because the ubiquitous trucks and buses were more used to sharing the road with smaller and slower vehicles. The big difference I found touring in Colombia versus the US and Canada is that towns with affordable accommodation and other services were generally much closer together. It wasn't uncommon for me in parts of Canada to have 100km between towns, without even a guarantee to find a grocery store much less a camp site or motel in the next place. Especially in the prairies it was necessary to carry a LOT of water, plus plenty of food like oats, nuts, tortillas and so on. In Colombia there are lots of small towns of under 20,000 people and they all have hospedajes (kind of like a European pension, or very low budget B&B-without-the-breakfast), bakeries and convenience stores. I barely even needed a food bag - every day I could get fresh pastries in the morning. Because the towns were close together, I took it easy and sometimes rode just 40km or 60km a day, which was well worth it because the temperature in some areas was around 36C - the kind of heat above which you really start feeling heat stroke after 2-3 hours on unshaded roads. To deal with the heat, I decided to pull over everywhere there was a roadside stall selling drinks. Usually it's fruit juice (watermelon is best), sometimes a lemonade made with panela, occasionally chicha. I figured anything with water and sugar was worth stopping for. To navigate I just used the standard combination of OsmAnd~ (OpenStreetMap) and BRouter tool for offline routing. But it's important to double-check on Google Street View when you have internet, because often the helpful bike routing tools avoid the highway, which actually in Colombia is what you don't always want to do, because the "highway" is sometimes just a reasonably quiet two-lane country road. On the other hand, some of the back roads look like well-maintained gravel, but due to heavy rain they can turn into very deep mud. I got stuck in one or two spots that looked okay on Google Street View but were a real adventure on the day - not even a car could make it through, horses and dirtbikes only. But the benefit of being on a bike is you could easily head down a back way and then cross the river on a small sampan designed for foot traffic, so sometimes taking those back roads paid off for the fun aspect. They were definitely the exception rather than the rule, though - most times I figured better safe than sorry and tried to stick to main roads, especially when a back road would require more than 50km (my theoretical limit for being able to walk/hike back out in case I had to abandon my bike). One thing I didn't do in Colombia was go deep into the Andes. The climbs are just ridiculous. Like 2000m or more. Personally I don't enjoy hill climbing, and I don't like cold temperatures, so when I am touring on bike I do everything I can to stick to the lowland and plains. I think going the hills would be a very different experience and might need different preparation. Although, I think the hills are also far more popular routes both for bike tourers and for sport/fitness cyclists, so there would probably be much better support. Down in the valleys you're going to find yourself cycling with campesinos and trying to get stuff fixed at a moped shop instead of a bicycle shop, but that was fine by me. I think the best way to go if you have the time is just head over to the country you're thinking of traveling in with some panniers rolled up in a duffel, rent a bike once or twice to see if it feels good, then buy a cheap bike when you're there. That way you haven't invested too much in some kind of "dream journey" that doesn't turn out to be what you expected. But perhaps that's just my way of travel, not for everyone.
  - stevenwoo 4y ago
    I don’t know the statistics but there are people posting on Reddit’s /r/bicycletouring about going to or through Mexico with pictures of their trip, and people respond with similar fears to what you listed (which is my immediate thought as well.)
- roflyear 4y ago
  Not just that, where you are even in your local area. In the city, it is kind of surprising and kind of not, I have found that you feel safer. Cars seem to know how to navigate around bikes. In the country, that is not true. You have trucks blow by you doing 10 over the limit and they get close to you, really close. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that many do not even see you - these lifted trucks don't have much visibility.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Big semis can even suck you into their wake if you don't prepare for it when they just finish passing you.
alisonatwork 4y ago
This is so bizarre to me. I just recently cycled through Canada and the US and everywhere I went people (including sport/fitness cyclists) told me to watch out because cyclists get killed all the time... But in my thousands of miles of touring, the only time I felt a little worried about cars was in Louisiana where some of the roads are very narrow and there are railings along the side so there is nowhere to escape to if an inconsiderate driver comes too close. Took nerves of steel when cars zoomed past with just an inch or two of space. But the rest of the time I just cheerfully pedaled along the shoulder with my hi-vis vest on, only occasionally getting yelled at and coal-rolled by jackasses in pickup trucks. Most of the time drivers gave me plenty of space. What was much, much more terrifying to me than cars was dogs. In certain parts of the country, people's dogs would charge out of the yard and chase me down the road for a half mile, barking and snapping all the way. I even got bitten once or twice. I'd definitely rate pet dogs as a bigger hazard than cars, or at least a scarier one. More dangerous than bears and coyotes too, in my experience. My advice for cars is to wear hi-vis gear, ride in the shoulder whenever there is one, confidently take up a decent slice of the road when there isn't, keep an eye on your rear view mirror, pull over to let very wide trucks pass, and never ride main roads at night or in poor conditions.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  The thing is, statistics is against you on this. You only need 1 instance of careless driver, 1 aggressive dog or clueless wild animal to have a relative high speed crash. In that case, your skills and experience will not matter. Its all nice in echo chambers with heavy survivorship bias where everybody claims how they are fine (but had close calls here and there, often not even realizing them), but its far from reality. If you want some counter-balance (which most folks in these echo chambers really don't want), talk to some ER folks, or orthopedics.
  - alisonatwork 4y ago
    Clearly riding a bicycle on roads designed for much heavier, much faster vehicles isn't the safest pursuit in the world. Of course you would be much safer sitting at home. But that's a calculation you make any time you decide to step out the door. The way some people talk about cycling you'd think that merely getting on a bicycle for longer than 10km means instant death. That's obviously not the case, because there are always far more people who have successfully cycled any given stretch of road than ones who have died on it. The question people should ask themselves is if the risk is worth the benefits for them. And, if they have decided yes, then it's certainly more enjoyable to not spend every moment on that road terrified of other vehicles, whose behavior you have very little control over. If you want to do it, just do it.

jacquesm 4y ago

Highly country dependent though.

xtracto 4y ago
Ha! I was all excited reading the comments and thinking that maybe it would be a nice little adventure in my quest to become fitter. Then i remembered that I live in Mexico and going on a bike ride/camping would be a death sentence due to reckless drivers, robbers/muggers or drug traffickers. I'll keep doing stationary bike.
- alisonatwork 4y ago
  I decided against cycling into Mexico when I was recently cycling across North America because I was worried about the security situation. I ended up flying to Panama then traveling down to Colombia, where I started touring again. I am not sure about the security situation in Colombia versus Mexico, but the statistics do show that it still has a fairly significant amount of violent crime. Unlike my more free-spirited touring in Canada and the US, I was more careful about where I went. I kept track of the local news every day and avoided towns and areas with political rallies or paramilitary activity. I never camped anywhere, preferring to stay in hospedajes for around us$10 per night. I also bought a cheap (<us$250) bike with only 6 gears that looked similar to the kinds of bike campesinos rode around. And I spent more time on main roads with regular police/military checkpoints instead of taking any interesting back road I liked. The back roads I did take, I checked out on Google Street View beforehand, and leaned a lot on advice from local people. It was perhaps not as picturesque and peaceful as my riding in US/Canada, but it was still worth it for me. I met a few people down there who had greeted cyclists that had cycled all the way down from Canada, including through Mexico, so it's definitely possible to achieve, although different areas need different precautions. Perhaps it is wiser to do your first tour in a "safe" place so you get more comfortable with the process.
  - mrbombastic 4y ago
    Bold trip nonetheless! If you have some time to write up this experience and how you planned in more detail, I would definitely appreciate reading it and I am sure others would too. I am hoping to do some more travel like this in South and Central America and would be great to hear some first hand experience.
    - alisonatwork 4y ago
      For me the most important part of preparing for cycling in Latin America was learning conversational Spanish. I spent about 2 months studying in Panama to get a basic handle of the language, just going to school in the mornings and hanging out in local spaces in the afternoons where I could hear colloquial usage. Even though it's possible to get by traveling in other countries by miming your requests and using translation apps, it is much easier to reassure locals that you really are looking for a practical cycle route and not some kind of touristic detour if you can speak enough of the language they figure you're not going to collapse in a heap as soon as you can't find a McDonalds. In Panama I just rented bikes and did day trips. In Colombia I started doing that, then bought a bike once I realized the country was a better fit for how I wanted to travel. It seemed like there was a stronger bike culture there. By which I mean, there were relatively more utility cyclists - not sport/fitness cyclists, but people with baskets on the back hauling fish or produce from their angling spot or farm to the market. Aside from bicycles, a lot of locals also rode scooters or light motorcycles - this made me feel more confident on the roads because the ubiquitous trucks and buses were more used to sharing the road with smaller and slower vehicles. The big difference I found touring in Colombia versus the US and Canada is that towns with affordable accommodation and other services were generally much closer together. It wasn't uncommon for me in parts of Canada to have 100km between towns, without even a guarantee to find a grocery store much less a camp site or motel in the next place. Especially in the prairies it was necessary to carry a LOT of water, plus plenty of food like oats, nuts, tortillas and so on. In Colombia there are lots of small towns of under 20,000 people and they all have hospedajes (kind of like a European pension, or very low budget B&B-without-the-breakfast), bakeries and convenience stores. I barely even needed a food bag - every day I could get fresh pastries in the morning. Because the towns were close together, I took it easy and sometimes rode just 40km or 60km a day, which was well worth it because the temperature in some areas was around 36C - the kind of heat above which you really start feeling heat stroke after 2-3 hours on unshaded roads. To deal with the heat, I decided to pull over everywhere there was a roadside stall selling drinks. Usually it's fruit juice (watermelon is best), sometimes a lemonade made with panela, occasionally chicha. I figured anything with water and sugar was worth stopping for. To navigate I just used the standard combination of OsmAnd~ (OpenStreetMap) and BRouter tool for offline routing. But it's important to double-check on Google Street View when you have internet, because often the helpful bike routing tools avoid the highway, which actually in Colombia is what you don't always want to do, because the "highway" is sometimes just a reasonably quiet two-lane country road. On the other hand, some of the back roads look like well-maintained gravel, but due to heavy rain they can turn into very deep mud. I got stuck in one or two spots that looked okay on Google Street View but were a real adventure on the day - not even a car could make it through, horses and dirtbikes only. But the benefit of being on a bike is you could easily head down a back way and then cross the river on a small sampan designed for foot traffic, so sometimes taking those back roads paid off for the fun aspect. They were definitely the exception rather than the rule, though - most times I figured better safe than sorry and tried to stick to main roads, especially when a back road would require more than 50km (my theoretical limit for being able to walk/hike back out in case I had to abandon my bike). One thing I didn't do in Colombia was go deep into the Andes. The climbs are just ridiculous. Like 2000m or more. Personally I don't enjoy hill climbing, and I don't like cold temperatures, so when I am touring on bike I do everything I can to stick to the lowland and plains. I think going the hills would be a very different experience and might need different preparation. Although, I think the hills are also far more popular routes both for bike tourers and for sport/fitness cyclists, so there would probably be much better support. Down in the valleys you're going to find yourself cycling with campesinos and trying to get stuff fixed at a moped shop instead of a bicycle shop, but that was fine by me. I think the best way to go if you have the time is just head over to the country you're thinking of traveling in with some panniers rolled up in a duffel, rent a bike once or twice to see if it feels good, then buy a cheap bike when you're there. That way you haven't invested too much in some kind of "dream journey" that doesn't turn out to be what you expected. But perhaps that's just my way of travel, not for everyone.
- stevenwoo 4y ago
  I don’t know the statistics but there are people posting on Reddit’s /r/bicycletouring about going to or through Mexico with pictures of their trip, and people respond with similar fears to what you listed (which is my immediate thought as well.)
roflyear 4y ago
Not just that, where you are even in your local area. In the city, it is kind of surprising and kind of not, I have found that you feel safer. Cars seem to know how to navigate around bikes. In the country, that is not true. You have trucks blow by you doing 10 over the limit and they get close to you, really close. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that many do not even see you - these lifted trucks don't have much visibility.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Big semis can even suck you into their wake if you don't prepare for it when they just finish passing you.

alisonatwork 4y ago

This is so bizarre to me. I just recently cycled through Canada and the US and everywhere I went people (including sport/fitness cyclists) told me to watch out because cyclists get killed all the time... But in my thousands of miles of touring, the only time I felt a little worried about cars was in Louisiana where some of the roads are very narrow and there are railings along the side so there is nowhere to escape to if an inconsiderate driver comes too close. Took nerves of steel when cars zoomed past with just an inch or two of space. But the rest of the time I just cheerfully pedaled along the shoulder with my hi-vis vest on, only occasionally getting yelled at and coal-rolled by jackasses in pickup trucks. Most of the time drivers gave me plenty of space. What was much, much more terrifying to me than cars was dogs. In certain parts of the country, people's dogs would charge out of the yard and chase me down the road for a half mile, barking and snapping all the way. I even got bitten once or twice. I'd definitely rate pet dogs as a bigger hazard than cars, or at least a scarier one. More dangerous than bears and coyotes too, in my experience. My advice for cars is to wear hi-vis gear, ride in the shoulder whenever there is one, confidently take up a decent slice of the road when there isn't, keep an eye on your rear view mirror, pull over to let very wide trucks pass, and never ride main roads at night or in poor conditions.

saiya-jin 4y ago
The thing is, statistics is against you on this. You only need 1 instance of careless driver, 1 aggressive dog or clueless wild animal to have a relative high speed crash. In that case, your skills and experience will not matter. Its all nice in echo chambers with heavy survivorship bias where everybody claims how they are fine (but had close calls here and there, often not even realizing them), but its far from reality. If you want some counter-balance (which most folks in these echo chambers really don't want), talk to some ER folks, or orthopedics.
- alisonatwork 4y ago
  Clearly riding a bicycle on roads designed for much heavier, much faster vehicles isn't the safest pursuit in the world. Of course you would be much safer sitting at home. But that's a calculation you make any time you decide to step out the door. The way some people talk about cycling you'd think that merely getting on a bicycle for longer than 10km means instant death. That's obviously not the case, because there are always far more people who have successfully cycled any given stretch of road than ones who have died on it. The question people should ask themselves is if the risk is worth the benefits for them. And, if they have decided yes, then it's certainly more enjoyable to not spend every moment on that road terrified of other vehicles, whose behavior you have very little control over. If you want to do it, just do it.