Bogotá's Bike Cemetery

Going, going, gone forever. Bicyces wait for their owner who never comes.

When the police sieze bicycles, either because the bike is allegedly stolen of a cyclist's infraction, the police store them in huge lots, until in theory the owner appears  or pays his or her traffic fine.

However, many of bicycle owners never do appear, and the bikes lie rusting away for years. For legalistic reasons - and undoubtedly authorities' apathy - giving the bicycles away is difficult. So, the bicycles accumulate by the many hundreds and thousands, slowly becoming worthless.

The other day, while pedaling to Parque La Florida to see a bike polo match, we passed one of these bicycle cemeteries, on Ave. Mutis, near Engativa. I stopped to snap some pictures, but when the security guards saw me they ordered me to stop. God forbid, after all, that anybody should learn about this problem. Then, someone might find a good use for the abandoned bikes, such as donating them to orphanages or poor communities, and the guards would lose their jobs.

A mural by MAL crew in Bogotá's Santa Fe neighborhood,
behind the Central Cemetery, portrays the bicycle cemetery.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

What's it Take to Go To Jail?

'Judge sends home gang which stole more than 200 bicycles." (El Tiempo)

Police have arrested a criminal gang who allegedly stole hundreds of bicycles.

On their way back home?
Alleged bike thieves and their take. 

Bike theft is an epidemic here, altho a chronic one. But that's not all: Recently, cyclists have been murdered during bike thefts.

But 13 of the 15 alleged thieves won't go to jail, but instead received home detention. Home detention
is often a joke here, either because the arrestees relax comfortably at home or even remove the bracelets, put them on a housepet, and go out to party or commit more crimes.

Advocates of home detention point out, reasonably, that prisons are overcrowded and that prisoners often learn to be worse criminals, rather than be rehabilitated.

But, for a group which allegedly stole hundreds of bikes, which they might have sold for the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars, does home detention serve as any deterrent at all?

And the punishment seems out of line in a nation turning harsher and harsher against drug crimes - which many people call 'victimless crimes.'

In contrast, stealing the transport and recreation from hundreds of people seems like a crime deserving serious punishment.

By Mike Ceaser of Bogota Bike Tours

Bogotá Public Bikes Plans Rolling Forward?

Public bicycles in Monteria, where they receive government support.
(Photo: La Razon)

El Tiempo reports that Bogotá's public bicycle program is actually moving forward - and shoul be rolling forward next year.

With luck, the public bike system will actually happen this time, after pilot projects which got nowhere and even a contract issued during the Petro administration, which from the start appeared viciated by corruption and unrealistic economics.

Unfortunately, Peñalosa's plan doesn't look so realistic either. He promises not to provide any public subsidies for the bicycle system, even tho they do receive such subsidies in many other cities, including even much wealthier ones than Bogotá.

That's because the bikes are conceived of as a public service, which pays back the city in benefits in health, reduced traffic congestion and less pollution.

In those cities where public bikes do not receive subsidies they do have wealthy corporate sponsors, often banks, such as Citibank in New York and Barclays in London. And those are also much wealthier cities than Bogotá, which receive many more tourists, who provide income for the system.

Besides all of that, cities subsidize bus and train systems, as well as private cars in many ways, such as subsidized gasoline. So, what's wrong with pitching in for public bicycles?

Does the Motor Make the Bike?

Can you tell which one is the bicycle?

Colombia, the nation of magical realism may be the only place where a motorized, three-wheeled vehicle apparently qualifies as a 'bicycle'.

What's the difference? A motorized bicycle waits on
the sidewalk, while a regular motorcycle passes on the street. 

At least, that's the way it appeared the other day on Carrera Septima's bike lane, which this loud, polluting monstrosity was sharing with cyclists, as police watched apathetically.

For the record, the motorized bicitaxis, which I understand are illegal wherever they are, are, tragically, replacing the traditional pedal-powered bicitaxis. The vehicles' two-stroke engines pump out more pollution than do most cars.

However, it's no big deal. After all, the equally loud and polluting bicimotores have long been invading our bike lanes, in the face of police and other authorities' total apathy.

In the case of the bicitaxi, I chased after it, but it roared down Carrera Septima, charging thru red lights along the pedestrian-only avenue. Do you think anybody cared?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What are the Bicycle Cops Good For?

Bogotá's bicycle cops are back, after several years' absence. But one has to wonder why.

Bike cops frisking someone near Independence Park.

Bike cops have lots of advantage: they can move fast, to chase down bad guys, range over wide parts of the city, and quickly reach places like alleys and narrow streets where, driving or on foot, they might not be able to get to at all.

But Bogotá's bike cops don't actually seem to exploit these advantages. I see them roaming just a few central Bogotá streets, usually eating, chatting amongst themselves, or tirelessly pursuing bad guys in their smartphones. About the only arguably useful law enforcement I've seen them do is clearing poor street vendors off of the sidewalks - a task done equally well on foot.

But why pick on the cycling cops? Whether on foot, in cars or in helicopters, they don't seem motivated to do much except search young people for drugs, in the hopes of squeezing out a bribe.

Bike cops pedaling down
Ave. Septima.

I wish I weren't so cynical. But a few months ago, foreigner who lives here and has a nearby business was walking along in the evening when a drunk kid stabbed him several times in the back. He almost dies from the blood loss, spent mmore than a month in the hospital, lost a part of a kidney and is still slowly recovering. Do you think the police care? More than two months later, they still haven't interviewed the witness and told the victim's son to track down the relevant videos.

A few weeks before that attack, a Colombian acquaintance got stabbed in the hand during a mugging attempt. Since he filed the initial report, the police have done no follow-up to try to, say, identify the assailant.

How many more people have these guys since stabbed and robbed, because the cops just don't care?

This afternoon, with this on my mind, I passed a group of a half-dozen bike cops doing their usual thing, enjoying coffee on a side street. When I stopped to take photos, they detained and frisked me and made me erase the pictures 'because they were a security threat.' Or, perhaps they were embarrased?

'Move on', 'move on.' Bike cops clearing out street vendors.

In front of the San Francisco Church, in La Candelaria.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

The Bike Messenger Boom

Rappi bike messengers in a bike lane near the Zona Rosa in north Bogotá.

Years ago, back in Seattle, Washington, I worked as a bicycle messenger. It was one of the best and most memorable jobs I ever held: pumping up those hills, skidding around curvers, zipping down hills, slipping between trucks and buses with only inches to spare: We competed to see who could make the most deliveries in a day, and it was the closest I'll ever come to being a professional athlete.

Rappi messengers waiting for a job outside a
north Bogotá supermarket.

Not the least pleasure I got from it was marching, sweaty and mud-splattered, into the offices of the most high-powered and uptight executive offices in town.

Not long after my time there, bike messenger started dying, the victim of faxes, and then e-mail. Today, I suspect, the only things still messengered are food, medical supplies and, maybe, art pieces.

My old company, Elliot Bay Messengers, is gone now.

But Bogotá, it seems, is still behind the curve in information technology, and bike messengering is booming. A number of small companies pioneered the industry, but it took the smartphone boom and deep pockets such as Rappy and Uber Eats to make it the ubiquitous industry it is today.

Don't drop those bags! Dangling lunches off of handlebars.

Unfortunately, the big boys, like Rappi and Uber Eats, employ bicycles out of economics and speed, not any principles of sustainable transport. They also have motorcyclists and, undoubtedly, cars. But bicycles are cheap and slip past traffic jams, particularly thanks to Bogotá's expanding bike lane network. 

Other companies, such as CONTRARRELOJ and A Pedal appear to use exclusively bicycles.

Winding thru traffic.

A local food delivery guy on the pedal.

Frutapp waiting to go.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Peñalosa's Experimental Bike Lanes

This broad new bike lane on Carrera 7 connects the city center
 to the Centro Internacional.

Mayor Peñalosa has created a number of new bike lanes - some better than others,

The pedestrianized secion of Carrrer 7 has finally been connected to the Centro Internacional and the

Until recently, the lane looked like this:
protected by temporary barriers.

Carrera 13 bike lane with a full-scale lane on Carrera Septima, complete even with tiny and annoying speed bumps.

Other lanes are being phased in, with heavy plastic barriers marking their paths until something concrete is installed.

While bike lanes mean more riders, they also generate complaints from drivers, who feel deprived of road space they believe belongs to them. Yet, from what I've seen, these proposed lanes are on quieter streets where the space won't be missed. And grumbling drivers ought to imagine how much worse congestion would be if each of those cyclists were instead driving a car.

This letter writer complains about bike lanes taking away space from cars, but forgets that bicyclists also open up room in cities.

And Bogotá's bike lanes get little respect:

Even Bogotá's best bike lanes get little respect.

These drivers thought this bike lane offered convenient parking.

And the provisional lanes even less respect:

A glance at Bogotá's traffic congestion shows that it's not the fault of bicycles or bike lanes:

A daily travail in Bogotá. Not the fault of bicycles.

A Real Bike Café: The Fuga Café + Bikes

The Fuga Café + Bikes, which actually repairs bikes.

Bogotá has had a mini-boom recently in bicycle-themed eateries. But for some of them, the bicycle is merely decoration.

A high-end racing frame, set among bicycling books,
mostly in English.

That's not true, however, for the awkwardly named Fuga Café + Bikes, tucked behind a building just off of 81st St. and around the corner from the 11th-St. Cicloruta, on the edge of La Zona Rosa (Calle 81 #11-55). Fuga means 'escape', as in a group of racers who escape from the pack.

Yuppies at work.

Besides the bicycle racing theme: glossy photo books (strangely, mostly in English), high-end bikes on display and constant bike races on the tele, the café also has a working bike repair shop, altho I suspect that the charges are a bit steeper than the repair outfits which set up on the sidewalk along the nearby bike lane. But the repairman appears to keep busy, and the café really is frequented by cyclists, judging by the bikes in the rack outside its window.

But if you go, get your wallet ready. A tea cost me 5,000 pesos - steep by central Bogotá standards, if
not necessarily by Zona Rosa standards, or for the yuppies inside pecking away at their laptops.

A working repair shop.

Energy foods, to keep those yuppies typing.

A TV streams bike races.

The Fuga café is out of the price range for most of the working class cyclists who abound on the nearby bike lane.

Cyclists wait to cross a street in the rain on the Carrera 11 cicloruta.

Around the corner, 14 Ochomiles and El Toma Corriente make this something of a cycling district.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Petro for President? A Cycle Policy Perspective.

For years, Plaza San Victorino has hosted this bike rack, which sometimes contains one or two bikes.

Gustavo Petro, a one-time M-19 guerrilla leader, was Bogotá mayor from 2012 to '15, and now wants to be elected president.

From a cyclists perspective, his record is mixed.

Take a look at Plaza San Victorino, which for years had a small bike rack which sometimes held one or two bicycles.

What was wrong with that? A lot, according to someone connected to the Petro administration, who decided that the plaza needed dozens and dozens more bike parking spots.

These Petro bike racks on Plaza San Victorino actually found users.

But this one didn't.

Finally, a bike in this rack.

Another rack, around the corner, provides seating for tired street vendors. 

I guess you get the point. Petro's government issued a contract to install bike racks, but didn't care or didn't bother to check where they actually installed them. So, naturally, the contractor installed them where it was easiest and cheapest, not where they were useful.

Along the same lines, Petro's administration also issued a contract to create a public bicycle system - to a man who had no experience with bicycles and did have a history of corruption accusations, in a consortium with a Chinese company with not apparent experience with bicycles.

The contract was annulled by Mayor Peñalosa, and Bogotá still has no public bikes.

On the other hand, under Petro the city did build some useful bike lanes, called ciclorutas.

A Petro-era cicloruta along El Parkway in Teusaquillo.

Petro also created a limited bike lending program, called Bicicorredores, which lent bikes in six locations in Bogotá. Unfortunately, bikes borrowed in one location could not be returned in another, limiting the program's usefulness for transport. Mayor Peñalosa ended the program, calling it too expensive. 

Public bikes lent out during the Petro administration, now parked for the long-term.

Overall, Petro did some things for cyclists, but many of his initiatives were poorly thought-out or apparently full of corruption. All of which makes one question his sincerity and dedication.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

ARTBO By Bike

Come Ride With Us. (Why do they put these things in English?)
Outside the Espacio Odeon gallery on Jimenez Ave.

ARTBO, Bogotá's annual art festival, has added bicycle transport this year - and they're actually doing it right, albeit on a small scale. (See a few of ARTBO's works here.)

Pedaling up Jimenez Ave.

The festival, using city-owned bikes and employees of the Spinning Center gyms, has set up six lending sites, each initially with eight bikes. The idea is for art fans to pedal from one exhibition to the next, altho once you pedal out of sight they have no way to know whether you're off to more art or to your lunch date. The service is free, but you must show I.D. and have signed up on ARTBO's website.

The blue bicycles were
borrowed from the city.

By allowing riders to pick up bikes at one spot and drop them off at another, this private initiative already puts itself ahead of the city's very limited, but still missed, bicicorredor lending program. The city required you to drop the bike off near where you'd picked it up, which wasn't very practical for transportation, and the program was ended last year.

The city's much-promised full-scale bike lending program has not gotten off of the drawing board.

Preparing a bike for lending. 

On the Jimenez Ave. lending site outside the Espacio Odeon gallery this afternoon, the employees said they'd lent about six bikes. Not so many, but that's still six more rides than without the program. (On Saturday they appeared to be much busier.)

However, absurdly, you also need to have signed up on the website in order to park a bike. One of the employees agreed this was counterproductive. "A lot of people have asked to park their bikes, and would have visited the gallery," he said.

So much for making rules for the sake of making rules.

Free bicycle parking, too.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours