Riding to Mexico on a Bicycle Made of Trash

January 14, 2009 — Day 11, 373.6 miles — Derechos Humanos, Mexico

After a quick breakfast, the group discusses where and how to open a bicycle repair shop for the neighborhood. We’ve brought bicycle tools, tire-patch kits, tubes and pumps and are hoping to teach them how to work on bicycles themselves. We hang a tarp from a soccer goal in the middle of a playing field to serve as a workshop space and began spreading the word through the neighborhood. Within an hour, the soccer field is a mob scene of children with caliche-caked bicycles. There are broken and have bent spokes, missing pedals, frayed cables, chains rusted stiff, and inner tubes with half-inch gashes that just can’t be patched.

It quickly becomes apparent that language is going to be a problem, but with a little effort and some miming, we get by. Soon enough, however, a new problem emerges: our tools are disappearing. “Please! We will give you the tools when we’re done,” a member of the group announces in Spanish, “but for now we need them to fix your bikes.” Suddenly tire pumps and wrenches begin appearing again around the edges of the workshop.

Even so, our shortage of planning and forethought starts to become apparent. We didn’t bring enough parts, enough patches, enough anything. We are having to turn people away with flat tires and rusted brake cables. And many of the adults with jobs, our group’s primary target, are away at work. Trying to salvage the effort, Ugg and I hop on our bicycles and head into town to find more parts. We buy some cables, a few wheels and a handful of patch kits and head back hoping to save the day. Instead, we find the field empty.

At least half of our group is standing around with their belongings strapped to their backs. They’ve decided to donate their bikes and head to the beach before catching a bus back to Austin the next day. The other half ride to the beach to meet up with us before continuing south to Ciudad Victoria and, for some, beyond.

It’s an abrupt end to months of preparation and weeks of riding. Continuing on isn’t an option for me, so I quickly gather my stuff and give my bike to Manuel Garcia, a member of the family we’ve stayed with. He told me that he worked about four miles away and had no way to get there. His last bike, he said, had broken down. Like the others, I hope it will make a difference.

We take a couple of cabs to Playa Bagdad and have dinner on the boardwalk. Aside from the man who lives in his van and the people working the restaurants, we are the only customers. After a few hours, we begin to worry. Where’s the rest of the group? There are no telephones on the beach and no cell phone reception. We stay the night on a tarp on the sand, wondering what has happened.

January 15, 2009 — Day 12, Brownsville, Texas — The Short Road Home

The next morning at the Puente Internacional, we see a few saddlebag-laden bicycles and several members of our group across the way. We run over, eager to find out what has happened. They tell us they got robbed. Chava, the man with the big smile who had so happily greeted us, made an about-face after a bottle of tequila got passed around. Credit cards, a suitcase, other miscellaneous items – and Chava – all went missing halfway throughout the night. The bike we gave him was gone too.

It is a bittersweet ending. We say our farewells to the rest of the group and cross back into the U.S. wondering what we’ve actually accomplished. After 12 long days of riding through South Texas and into Mexico, we will be back in Austin after a 12-hour, air-conditioned bus ride. It feels unnatural to be sitting in a cushioned seat and covering days of riding in just a few short hours.

I feel slightly bad for our passengers-in-kind, because we must stink like none other. Aside from wiping ourselves down with wet towels in gas station bathrooms and one quick dip in a lake outside Mathis, Texas, we haven’t bathed since we left. What happens with the bicycles next, as we lay exhausted on the bus, is beyond our control. We hope for the best.