From Mocha to Riobamba by bike

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I decided I needed a change from all the hiking. So I signed up with a local mountain bike club, www.bicicleteros.com, and went on a trip with them from Mocha to Riobamba. Most of the ride was along old railway tracks.

We met at 5am in Parque Carolina in Quito, and left at 5.30am (that's perfectly fine for the Ecuadorian understanding of time). The bus dropped us along the Panamericana near Mocha, at the foot of Chimborazo, with 6310m Ecuador´s highest mountain, a few hours later. Obviously we were only at 3200m. People started with fixing their bikes for a while, then we did some warming up exercises and not much later we were ready to start. We even had a team with us who were filming us for a documentary.

We started by riding down the Panamericana, the main highway through South America. Soon, though, we turned off into the railway track. It was beautiful landscape, we even saw parts of Chimborazo in the beginning.

Unfortunately I soon realized that I hadn´t been on a bike for three months: my bum was hurting...and hurting...and hurting for 50 km. Incredible how the bum looses all it muscles within a few months. I have to go bike riding more again!

Just before the end we had an accident: it was along a tricky part of the track, very small and bad path, and to the left going down very steep about 50m. I was overtaking one of the other women, who was pushing her bike on that part. She said to me ´horrible camino´ and I agreed. When I turned around a little while later she was not on the tracks anymore, but 20m down the abyss. One of the other guys was already with her and I hurried down as well. When she had seen me overtake her she had gone on her bike again, too, then stumbled, fell down and down and down and could not stop it any more. She did not seem to be really hurt, but she vomited for about an hour and her system was really down. Luckily the road was not far and our bus picked her up a little while later.

When we went into Riobamba the 'Paso of the niño' was in full blow, a huge procession with people in local costumes dancing and making music. It was very beautiful, but unfortunately we did not have time to watch or take pictures, as the rest of the group was already waiting for us.

All in all a great day, and I really enjoyed the change from the hiking.

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