Pedaling to Mexico on Trash Bicycles

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.