Bogotá's 2018 Bike Products Fair

Shiny bikes galore at the Feria de la Bicicleta in the Plaza de los Artesanos.

Check out this year's bike products fair, going on this weekend, Sept. 29 and 30th, in the Plaza de los Artesanos near Simon Bolivar Park. Admision is free. 

You'll find a big variety of cool, colorful bikes, packs, accesories, and other products, many of them hand-made here in Bogota, as well as these products.

For urban cyclists, carrying packs on the bike is a chronic problem: Backpacks can be

Kanguroos.

unconfortable and leave a sweaty patch on your back; rear saddlebags are popular, but in a big city like Bogotá you risk having someone steal your belongings behind your back each time you wait for a light to change; I like low-rider front racks, which are stable and allow you to watch your packs, but these are almost unknown in Colombia; and almost every saddlepack creates the awkward necessity of lugging a bulky bag around at your destination.

So, I was instantly impressed by MeVoyenBici's light, simple, elegant hangers, which enable you to hang your backpack securely from your handlebars, keeping it in sight, at hand and relatively protected from road splatter. They now have hooks for folding bikes and are working on designs for other bikes, including mountain bikes.

Hanging a pack onto bike handlebars
with a Kangaroo.

 A very different solution to the pack problem also caught my eye. Bike Kontrol, whose tiny workshop is at Carrera 25 No. 24B-45 in the Samper Mendoza neighborhood, was offering these 'packs' manufactured from plastic water or gasoline containers. They are definitely waterproof!

Demonstrating a Bike Kontrol rigid pack.

 And if you want to stay warm and dry while pedaling your load, check out Coverrain's rain tarps. But how will they perform in a strong sidewind?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

2018 Bike Week Kicks off With a Family Feud

Learning to ride.

Bogotá's 2018 Bike Week kicked off today with activities near the Virgilio Barco Library - and an unusual fissure in the bicycle advocacy community.

Cargo bikes, by EnCargo.

A friend and cycling advocate explained to me that historically Bicycle Week has been financed and organized by grassroots cycling organizations themselves. However, this year the city government stepped in to organize and partially finance the events. That generated resentment among some cycling groups, who saw it as an attempt to co-opt the cycling agenda by Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who is deeply unpopular among leftists. As a result, my friend said, this year some half of the those who participated last year are boycotting the activities, and some cycling organizatioins from south Bogotá are even actively protesting Bicycle Week.


Go figger. While Peñalosa's policies leave lots to be desired, in this term and his previous one his governments have built many kilometers of bike lanes, and recently the city's Turism Institute has done a good job promoting mountain bike routes outside of Bogotá.

The full schedule of events is available at. https://www.planbici.gov.co/

Bogotá, 'World bicycle capital'? Very debatable.

A stationary bike spinning race.

Cyclist self-defense exercises: Necessary in the face  of bike thefts, and even murders of cyclists.

The Batmobikebile!

A tall bike.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Car Crash....in a Bike Lane

Crashed cars in a bike lane.

 On my way home this evening I encountered these two cars crashed into each other in Carrera Septima's bike lane, across from Independence Park and almost beside the CAI police station.

These cars have seen better days.

My first thought was to wonder what the cars were doing in the bike lane when they crashed, or whether they smashed together somewhere else and the skidded into the lane, hopefully not taking any cyclists with them. (I'm not sure how long previously the accident had happened, but I saw no ambulances, so hopefully nobody was seriously injured.)

The second thing which struck me about the crash scene was the lack of measures to prevent cyclists from crashing into the smashed cars. On the other hand, someone had very thoughtfully placed reflectors in the street to warn drivers against hitting the cars in the bike lane.

Reflectors thoughtfully placed to prevent other cars from hitting the smashed cars in the bike lane.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Riding up El Verjon

Luis Carlos and two guys from Newfoundland on their way up El Verjón.

El Verjón is a popular climb which, after 20 minutes huffing and puffing from the city center, will have you feeling like you've entered a different reality.

A view of Bogotá from above.

On a nice weekend or holiday morning hundreds of cyclists make the climb, many on expensive racing bikes, some shadowed by police escorts.

The road twists and turns through the forest of pines and eucalyptus, offering spectacular views of Bogotá and its surrounding savannah - and a great excuse to stop and catch one's breath in the thin area at 3,000 meters above sea level.

According to the Altimetrias Colombia blog, the full climb is
18.1 kms and climbs 647 meters to an altitude of of 3367 meters above sea level, at an average grade of 4.12% and a maximum of 12%.

At the top, take a break in the little snack shack with a sweet, warm agua panela, Colombian cyclists' official drink.

Luis Carlso and Darren, from the UK, pedaling up El Verjón.

A selfie above Bogotá.

From Altimetrias Colombia.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours, which offers montain bike tours.

Rallying Against Cyclist Killings

Diego Garcia, left, calls for an end to murders like the one which cost him his son, who shared his name.

A crowd of protesting cyclists
on Plaza Bolivar.

Last October, Diego Alexander García, 33, was riding his bike home in the early morning in Bosa, when a group of men attacked and robbed him. Garcia resisted and was fatally stabbed in the neck, and two passersby who tried to defend him were stabbed as well.

The thieves escaped with the bicycle and Garcia became one of dozens of Bogotá bicyclists killed each year, either thru accidents or by criminals.

Hundreds of angry cyclists rallied on Plaza Bolivar Sunday morning to draw attention to the deaths and to call for stiffer penalties for theft, since suspects are often released almost immediately, as well as special police units for battling bicycle theft and a national bicycle registry.

'No more robberies.'

Those are good ideas, as a start. However, the registry idea has been tried before, and to be effective requires the participation of a large percentage of owners of high-end bikes, at least, as well as the authorities' taking it seriously. And knowing the corruption and ineffectiveness of Colombian authorities (after our neighbor, a New Zealander, was stabbed almost to death not long ago, the police didn't even bother to interview the crime's witness or review the street's videos) I don't have much faith in law enforcement.

'I join the change.'

More effective might be taking away the incentive to steal bikes by cracking down on the stolen bike market, although this will be difficult to do without complicating the sale of legitimate used bikes. One method would be with sting operations: Have a guy show up at a shady shop offering a used bike lacking proper papers, and maybe with a locked chain wrapped around its seat tube. If the shop buys the bike, they get shut for two weeks, fined and their bicycle inventory gets confisticated. Or, set up a shady bike shop and see who shows up trying to hawk bikes of dubious origin. Yet another method would be to equip nice bikes with GPS tracers, let them get stolen, and then follow them to where the thieves store their merchandise.

A colorful character.

But will Colombian police use innovative methods to protect cyclists, most of whom are low-income people? I'm not holding my breath. At today's demonstration I didn't see a single police representative, except for those standing around with shields to ensure that cyclist protesters didn't storm Congress or the Supreme Court.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours