This last sunday I rode with some friend to Chiluca: Rene (the Lord of the Ejido), Oscar, Carlos, Bladimir and myself. It has beed about two weeks without rain, but saturday Tlaloc decided to go to work and so.. i rained saturday night. It made it... intresting, lot's of slippery rocks all over the trails, or most of them, anyway.
Everybody got there before time, so we started on time. We headed to Colosio, and then turned right to 'Tierra Roja', who was featured in the video from Warp's about a week ago. It was fun going there. We met another rider there, but he decided he got bored with us an left... aww well, his loss
After Tierra Roja we went through the trail by the river. There, Bladimir had a crash with a pickup. Well, I would have been mad at the pickup driver, but the pickup was parked right where it was supposed to be, on a side of a fireroad, with plenty of space to pass. It was pretty funny I think. I really didn't see it, but I just hear a sound and when I turned around, I don't know how the passenger door was opened! It was closed when I went through, and no passenger.... must been the case of the trail ghost.
The woods were nice, but still some swampy going over there. But luckily, most was rideable. Some dirtbikes on the trail. Vroom vrooom vrooom. I would be scared the day someone invented a stealthy motor for a dirtbike.
We got to Espiritu Santo, which is a nice resting shop where we stop to chat, refresh and rest and joke around.
Unfortunately for me, my bike was programed to go to pumpkin mode at 12:30, so I had to head back, and had to head through the Wide Road, which is how we call the fireroad to the trailhead.
I hope the rest of the band could have stayed for some R&R and head back thorough the woods (it's funner on the downhill).
What is that cement road? I've never seen anything like it.
(I was in Mexico City and Oaxaca in 1974. Mountain bikes didn't exist yet. )
Yup... cement. In very steep places with high rain downpours, the rain can damage the trail to the point where it renders it useless and a town incommunicated.
Asphalt is not as durable and requires lots of maintenance... or simply be too expensive if done to last. So many municipalities in Mexico and even some cities, use concrete for some roads.
It's scary to go down those... you pick up lots of speed and a fall could hurt very easily. Rocky Rene (another of our guys) had a terrifying soil sample when his RM's ESTX front wheel washed out on ons of those cement roads.... fortunately he got only some scratches but I was riding some feets behind him and when I saw him laying on the floor I thought the worst... fortunately it wasn't that bad.