Category Archives: Jalisco

Churintzio

A bicycle ride across the Americas Posted on by

Todays endpoint is definitely small town Mexico. Just off the main square and all is quiet with exception of the church bells that peal every hour (half hour). It was a nice ride today with 50km of flat riding followed by two not too bad hills for ~700m of climb for the day.

Last night the Ocotlan square seemed quiet, though not as quiet as tonight.

Starting out my cycle computer told me 4C (40F), I think as cold as I’ve seen since Arizona – though certainly not like the deep freezes we hear about in Colorado and elsewhere. It warmed through the day and at one point my cycle computer was even over 30C (86F). I am definitely in a more continental climate and ended the day a little over 1800m (6000ft) high. Expect some more climbing these next days.

I stopped at the OXXO for breakfast before turning on the cuota. I would take the cuota for the next 80km.

I didn’t quite notice at first but when it says “Mexico” this means “Mexico City”. I’ve been seeing more of these signs as I am now within 400km of Mexico City.

It was an agricultural area including these gather together stalks.

This guy was using his horse to help herd his (dairy?) cattle. He also had a few “sheep” dogs that came over to check me out until they were called off.

Around 40km, I crossed my next state boundary, Michoacan and have now cycled six Mexican States. At 50km started a climb over a moderate hill. Down the other side and flat.

Brought me to this Papa John Pizza as well as small store. Welcome sight for a late lunch. After this a somewhat longer hill of ~300m (1000ft) brought me to see Churintzio.

The words I have seen in English more often than Spanish

Are “car wash”. In Baja I figured it was catering to the American tourists, but now that I see the same outside small town Churintzio, I am more inclined to believe this has just been adopted as part of Mexican Spanish lingo.

Here was picture of the town square. It really wasn’t any more lively than this. However, nice quiet little town.

Ocotlan

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Out of Guadalajara and on the road again.

Cycling out of the big city was easier than riding into it. I was on the road by 7:30am and just before sunrise. There were lots of cars but I’m guessing I started before peak of rush hour. Riding into a city I’ll often have a definite “center” type destination. Riding out is different in that one has to be careful to make sure you go the right direction. I had one correction where I needed to check my phone but otherwise straightforward.

Several of the streets had reserved the center lanes for buses. I also saw cyclists riding these center lanes, but it wasn’t clear if this was expected. In any case, there wasn’t enough room for both a bicycle and bus in that lane.

Photo above shows another example of bus lanes, but this time there is a bus stop in the middle where passengers wait and then board the buses. I tried the center lane once or twice, but then decided to mostly avoid them since there wasn’t a good place to ride when buses came past.

At 9km, I crossed some railroad tracks and followed a road that became smaller and smaller and eventually unpaved. Looked up my map and figured out where I needed to go.

By 12km I was at the main road heading south out of town. This road was very busy. It wasn’t quite clear if there were three or four lanes since the rightmost “shoulder” also had vehicles driving in it. I paused briefly at an OXXO, partially for a bite to eat and partially to get ready for this busy road.

Fortunately, the road kept getting better as I cycled away from the center of the city. Eventually it did sort out to become three lanes with a shoulder. The number of vehicles diminished, particularly by the airport at 20km where it went down to two lanes. Hooray! After this point, the riding was pretty easy.

There still continued to be these types of food tents along the way up until close to 30km. My route took me south 33km first and then east for 51km, this time avoiding the toll road entirely. I think it ended up being a good choice.

At 33km, the road split and I followed highway 35. It was two lanes with a good shoulder the entire rest of the way.

This was an agricultural region and here they were bagging stalks again.

I think these are agave plants one of the ingredients of tequila.

I stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. Good food, though I did need to point to things to get my order made.

I saw a few bicycles on the road, including some like this local rider going the other direction.

There was even a horse riding along the highway. Overall I did see more locals here than I had seen on the more isolated cuota toll roads.

As I got closer to Ocotlan, I was surprised to see multiple furniture showrooms.

Apparently, Ocotlan is a “furniture capital”.

As I rounded a bend at 80km, the town came into view ahead. Overall a nice ride and not too difficult day as it was fairly flat. I’m expecting some more hills tomorrow and following days.

Bike tuned and ready to go again

A bicycle ride across the Americas Posted on by

My bicycle is back from the shop from a quick maintenance.

My bike has been riding well and without issues so far. However, I ended up replacing the chain and brake pads as these items wear down over time. Mexican cities seem to have a number of bike shops, but figured Guadalajara (GDL) is a good spot to get this done and hopefully last for a while.

Otherwise mostly walked around some of the downtown. There are multiple plazas all linked together here as well as busy shopping streets.

Photo above are two of the bicycle police that patrol this area.

I’ve also been looking through trip journals from Crazy Guy on a Bike website to come up with rough plans from here to Toluca, my next intermediate destination. I expect a mixture of the cuota (toll road) but also a few other roads as well somewhat similar in route to Mike Conway’s ride in 2015 (though I’ll skip his hotel first night after GDL). Looks like some good climbing coming up. However, first will be an early morning departure to wind my way out of GDL.

Guadalajara

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Made it to Guadalajara! Photo below with bike in front of the Guadalajara Cathedral downtown.

Two thoughts after cycling into middle of Mexico’s second largest city: (1) Mexican drivers are more patient and polite to touring cyclists than American or Canadian drivers and (2) despite that, I will be happy to bypass Mexico’s largest city (Mexico City) as it still takes a lot of concentration to carefully make your way into these big cities.

More details below, but to give an example of the politeness: today I recall several instances of drivers passing with thumbs up or asking the “where are you from” type questions when stopped at light and then being encouraging. As a different example, at one point the road ducked down into a tunnel (oops). While it was lit, my slow laden bicycle still felt out of place. As best I can tell, the car behind turned on emergency flashers and carefully followed to escort me until safely out of the tunnel. Thanks!

Now about those last two days from Ixtlan del Rio.
Day One to Magdalena
Up, down, up and across. That is the simplified description of the first day. Lots of climbing and descent in the first 40km and then flat going into Magdalena. Not a long ride, but still more than 900m of climbing.

Ixtlan del Rio came alive more after the sun went down. Overall it was cooler here, 12C overnight (53F) and even saw locals wearing light coats. In the morning, I walked over the nearby OXXO for a yogurt and then set out on the road. Within 2km, I was back on the cuota again. This road has kept getting busier so after Guadalajara will likely try some more local roads again.

I saw a few more of these smushed peppers today. Somewhere behind me are the fields they load trucks up with peppers and somewhere ahead is where they get sold, but in between a few fall off the trucks and end up on the highway shoulder.

There was a steady climb coming up to 14km where elevation was briefly 4400ft. After this the zone with large curves had the highway slowly wind itself downhill to around 3300ft. It was a pretty descent into a valley. Just a little past the bottom was a toll booth at 30km. You can also see some of the shredded tire debris found on the shoulder.

I started seeing a few cactus again, so definitely getting into drier regions than Mazatlan.

Here was little shop at the toll booth. Definitely busy this morning. In addition to the local booth, some local vendors had also set up sales of gorditas and other foods. I rested here for a while.

After this, the next 10km steadily climbed until 4700ft of elevation. Grade never got much over 5-6% but it was a slow steady climb. At the top, suddenly the next valley opened up with wide views and much flatter terrain.

As I came past Magdalena on the left, decided to stop here for today. I had changed to Central Time Zone when I crossed into Jalisco (my 5th Mexican state), but still somewhat early. In any case, I pay at least as much attention to sun and likely sunrise/sunset as specific times. Not far from toll road exit was small hotel as well as restaurant. Seemed like nice place to stop.
Day One to Guadalajara
7C (55F) overnight yeah). Day two started with more smushed pepper and riding the cuota but ended differently entering the big city.

Several climbs today, though overall 800m of climbing was less than the last two days. After 25km the road turned to a concrete highway. It wasn’t marked at first.

These folks below were shredding some of the corn stalks and putting them in bags.

At 37km, I came to a toll plaza and following this was an OXXO.

What I thought was fun was this guy selling tacos and burritos in front of the OXXO. I had an early lunch here including some of his burritos.

It was another 11km before the cuota ended and merged with the libre. I was anticipating a difficult ride the next 10km since several cycling journals had complained about lack of shoulders combined with heavy traffic. Perhaps my expectations were set low, but it was easier than I expected. At times the shoulders did go away and in one construction zone of 2km, there pretty much was no shoulder. However, as much as possible, traffic gave me room. I had my mirror and concentrated on carefully riding the white line (sometimes to the right there was drop off into a ditch) and all went well.

Here was entrance sign welcoming to Guadalajara metro area though I still had more than 15km to go. This spot had a shoulder but areas without were just like this except for the shoulder. Traffic also wasn’t driving real fast.

At 61km I crossed the ring road and it took some more care. There often was the main road in middle that merged with frontage roads on both sides. The trick was that you weren’t always sure if frontage roads would continue. So I’d pull over, stop and get out Google Maps on cell phone and figure out best I could – since it wouldn’t make sense to get onto that middle section unnecessarily.

At this point the frontage road did run out. However, I walked my bicycle over this pedestrian overpass crossing several large highways. It was slow but without too much trouble, I found my way into middle of Guadalajara and to a hotel I had reserved online for two nights.

Hooray, nice to get here!

I’ve only done a short walk around, but few things I see so far in my touristy location:

Lots of tourists, these ones riding in a tequila bottle shaped vehicle.

For a fee, you can get your photo taken with these characters. I think the bored looking guy is there to hustle the business.

Statues of revolutionary patriots, though perhaps not quite as fierce looking when they wield pigeons in their hands.

More photo opportunities.

Church itself is large, elaborate and beautiful.

I’ve also noticed in my short time that Guadalajara seems to be a bit bike friendly. I’ve seen bike lanes (though not on roads I picked) and cops on bicycles.

Here is bike parking.

Buses with bike racks on front.

A bike share program.

Sirloin Stockade restaurant had a “tell us your bike story” contest going on. Also a good buffet.

While bike is riding well, tomorrow might see if I can find a shop for quick check/service on brake pads and chain. I’m guessing I’ve gone ~1/3 of distance from San Diego to Panama City and this will be one of the better opportunities to have everything checked. Also a good chance to review maps and journals to figure out best routes. Thinking of Toluca, Oaxaca, Tapachula to finish Mexico, but want to see what other bike tourists have done. For now, nice to find myself here in Guadalajara.