Museums Where Bikes Dare Not Go

Biks are wonderful - just now here!

The Bogotá City Archive has this nice exhibition on now about the history of transit in Bogotá - prominently featuring bicycles!

Wouldn't it be nice, then, if they actually welcomed cyclists to the building?

Appearances deceive! No outsiders' bikes allowed here! 

But unfortunately, arrive by bike and the archive has noplace to park. They used to have a small, simple rack located near the entrance, within sight of the security guards. But now the rack is gone (perhaps because it looked unsightly). And altho the parking garage appears welcoming - with a bicycle and a lane painted in its entranceway, when I enquired the attendants told me that old archive employees can park there. That left me to park beside the nearby basketball court, which does have a rack. That was fine for me and my old clunker bicycle. But the surrounding Las Cruces neighborhood has a rep for drugs and crime, and so many cyclists wouldn't dare leave their bike on the street here.

Once upon a time, there was a bike rack here. But archive 'improvements' removed it.

I parked my bike by this futbolito court. But that was only because nobody wants to steal my bike.

The nearby Claustro de San Agustin, a museum run by the bike-friendly National University, has nowhere to park bikes, either. 

The interior of the Claustro de San Agustin. No room to park a bicycle here?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A City Cycling Xmas Tree

The Bogotá City Council now features this rather metallic Christmas tree laden with bicycles, which presumably will be given to lucky kids. But if the spirit is there, the reality is not always. 

Two blocks from the council's building is one of the city's most anti-cyclist, and anti-pedestrian crossings, which often forces us to stop and wait three times, for the greater convenience of drivers. I've complaind about this to council members and cycling activists, but nothing changes.

A few blocks from the council's offices, cyclists wait at a light - perhaps the third time they've had to stop to cross the intersection.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours