Mexican Motorcycle Manoeuvres: Threading the needle

Witnessing the traffice while in Mazatlan, the prospect of riding in Mexico was somewhat daunting to me. And, to be truthful, I had not spent much time thinking about where our planned routes would be taking us but when we arrived and were handed our itinerary and intended routes, I did notice that one day would take us to downtown Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city with a population of five million people.

By design, that was Sunday and I suspect that the tour is in part arranged such that the Guadalajara day would be on a Sunday so that we would encounter the least amount of traffic. In fact, later, John had said that when he was planning out the routes, he had asked for the opinions of some riding friends and they all told him it was crazy to try to take gringos through Guadalajara.

For the Guadalajara day, we were instructed to be at Casa Sierra at 7:30 a.m. rather than usual 9:00 a.m. Since that is before breakfast is served at the hotel, John's wife Lynn prepares a continental breakfast so that we can get an early start and beat the traffic.

The ride into the city is fine, though it seemed to me a lot of traffic for early on a Sunday morning. We met Chuy en route because he lives not far from Guadalaja and to our pleasant surprise, he has brought his wife Marie along on the back of his bike. Our objective is to get to the centre of the city so that we can see the central square, opera house, government buildings and some of the architecture there. Once we have had a look around, we are going to take a popular motorcycle road out to Los Burritos de Moyahua where dozens if not hundreds of bikers ride every Sunday. The road out is a gnarly, twisty snake of a road with 180 degree turns and switchbacks to put your heart in your mouth.

But, back to Guadalajara. One of the nuances of riding in Mexico (or driving for that matter), is knowing when to GO THROUGH RED LIGHTS and when to stop for red lights. Sounds simple enough but it is not like we know in Canada. It is a matter of prudence to always look around at every intersection and I always treat intersections at home like I DON'T have the right of way; someone else may have the stop sign but I always expect there will be a car going through the intersection. This is how I have stayed alive so far and friends of mine who have been riding for decades, for whom it is second nature, never seem to have to think about it but as a relatively new rider, I think about it almost every time. In Mexico, I am a freak.

I have already seen that posted signs or traffic signals have "interpretations" but riding into Guadalajara was time for me to put those rules into action. I was riding five position (out of seven bikes) right ahead of Eric and of course, Chuy and we approached an intersection where the light changed to yellow. I was slowing down in anticipation of the change to red and I heard Eric yelling at me. I wasn't sure what he was saying, though it sounded like "keep going" but I have been conditioned to stop in such circumstances. We were stopped for the red light and when it appeared that the coast was clear, Chuy inched ahead and then went through the RED light with Eric close on his heels, the obvious message being "keep up" because if I didn't, we would be left behind and lost in the centre of the big city. . Since I had already seen this to a degree, it was obvious what i needed to do.

The next intersection where the lights started changing, it was obvious what I needed to do. I was all prepared to zoom through the intesection on the red light but Chuy yelled "don't go" because in fact, it was not traffic interesection but a pedestrian intersection. There were no cars coming from either direction but walkers, joggers, bicyclers and all manner of people out for a Sunday stroll. Then I proceeded to get a lecture about the seriousness of breaking a red light.

I pretty much learned from that point on when to go through a red light and when to wait.

That is not the only kind of Mexican driving nuance to know. Riding through Guadalajara was a study of fitting five lanes of traffic into four. In the afternoon, we were riding the perimiter (ring) road which basically took us around the outside of the city. This was good because riding through the city might have been too tall an order. Traffic is busy. Really busy. Even though it is a Sunday, there are so many cars, trucks and motorcycles on the road, it is scary. HOWEVER, amazingly, traffic moves along. There was one point where several lanes of traffic on the left merged with some number of lanes of traffic on the right with no lights or controls (that I saw). From a distance, it would seem like a mess but it actually moved along o.k. I was on super high alert, my eyes fixated on the road, the rider ahead of me, keeping up with the group, keeping an eye out for the rider behind me, following or changing lanes as required, keeping our speed up and the distance between us and the bike ahead of us, without letting any traffic in between. I am even getting heart palpitations thinking about it right now but it is strangely exhilirating. Mexican drivers are used to motorcycles on the road and generally to making room for other vehicles. I can't believe the nunber of times that we have been on the road and vehicles ahead of us haver pulled over to make room for us. Another one is that sometimes, when there is NOT room for the driver to pull over to the right, they will turn on their LEFT signal to indicate that it is SAFE to pass. This all sounds so counter-intuitive to driving in Canada but the reality is that I actually think driving a motorcycle in Mexican traffic is safer than in Canadian traffic.

Take the "threading the needle" routine. (Mom, I'm sorry you have to hear about this while reading this blog.) Sometimes there are only two lanes of traffic, one each way. Everybody here drives at the rate at which they are most comfortable or safe, or to not damage their vehicle going over a speed bump. This means that it is much easier for a motorcycle to go faster than the other traffic, particularly over the topes. So, as a group of 7 mototcycles going faster than all the other traffic, we were often going around cars or trucks that were moving slower than us so that meant that we would be driving down the centre line passing cars on our right and at the same time, avoiding oncoming traffic on the left. Sometimes, there would be only a foot or two on either side. It sounds frightfully dangerous but it is common place down here so we made it commonplace for ourselves. It would not be fair to say that it is disorganized, haphazard or reckless but it is different that what we are used to doing at home. I have only to think about driving home on Anthony Henday each afernoon, having to spend 20 minutes in traffic that is crawling along only because traffic cannot merge together - not because of disruption or accident. I am resistant to riding in the city in Edmonton because I generally don't trust the drivers; Mexico really is safer.

So, the twisties out to Los Burritos de Moyahua are legendary. Since we are mere posers, by the time we are leaving Guadalajara and carving the turns, riders are already coming back, having spent their Sunday morning riding hard, having lunch, then riding hard home again. We see lots of people on sport bikes and a few on sport tourers or adventure tourers. People come out to ride the twisties as hard and fast as they can; the road is in generally good shape - not too many pot holes or bad spots so the only barrier is really the riders' own skill and experience. Our friends Windy and Len from Vancouver area are relatively new riders but there are crushing the curves. Chuy and his wife, riding behind us, hangs back; Nan and I are watching for them in our mirrors but we get ahead several curves so we pull over and wait for them to catch up, only a moment or two; it seems that Marie wanted an adrenaline rush so they were hanging back a little to allow them to speed through the curves to catch up.