I’ve seen a number of posts about the riding in Oaxaca, from Yoann Barelli videos on YouTube, to photoshoots from Heather Young and Luca Cometti riding through some epic loamy trails and capturing some inspiring photos along the way. Never in my life would I have thought that I would make the trip myself. About three weeks ago, that thought was quickly wiped from my head. A few months prior, I was going through my email and saw a newsletter from Ripton Co. that shared they were running a contest to give away a trip to Oaxaca in exchange for a video submission of their Jorts. Just to my luck, I had already put together a little video with a friend of mine that was far from complete, but with only 5 days left in the contest, I figured I’d clean it up and submit it just in case there was a little bit of luck in my favor. Fast forward a few months, just a few weeks before the trip was scheduled to take off and I get a message from Ripton on Instagram asking for my phone number. After a few minutes on a call with Elliot, the jort lord, I was on my way home to start looking into flights and logistics on how to get me and my bike to Mexico.
Now I wish I could say that it was smooth sailing to get the last minute trip set up, but I ran into almost everything you didn’t want to happen before hand. To spare some of the details, the checklist that presented itself before the trip consisted of renewing an expired passport the day my flight was scheduled to leave, replace a rear shock that I blew a week beforehand, replace a fork that I broke 2 days after I blew my shock, and finish up my old job that I had had for the past five years (pretty big life step that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time). After sorting all of those things out with just a few hours to spare before the flight, I hopped on red eye and made my way down to Mexico.
To be honest, I didn’t know many of the details going into the trip. I knew I needed to get to the hotel and that we’d be riding at some point that first day that I would arrive. When I got to the hotel, I quickly found out that I had about 10 minutes to put my bike together and we’d be off and riding. I was somewhat thankful that I had taken my bike apart 6 or 7 times in the past week trying to figure out what was wrong with my fork, otherwise I would’ve had a bit more trouble getting on the bus on time. Once we were all loaded up, we were off to ride the bus for a very steep climb. I wasn’t sure how much we had to climb, but it was slow and winding to get up to the MTB park that we’d be riding in for the day. Being hot down in the valley, the top of the mountain when we got out was surprisingly cold, but the slight chill didn’t stop anyone from being stoked to get out and ride.
The first trail was a nice little warm up and the dirt consistency reminded me a lot of riding the trails at the UCSC Campus; loose dirt, some pine needles, and some rooty single track. This trail was a perfect warm up after only getting a few hours of sleep on the red eye flight down to Mexico City. With my body feeling pretty rough I essentially had written this day off from riding and would take it slow to make it down the trails. Some how mike bike had decided differently, that first warm up gave me enough confidence to really work the bike around. The trails we rode that day were loose with a good bit of exposure on one side, but I was letting the bike rip chasing the other riders down and feeling the best I had in months on the bike. I was one with the bike all up until the second to last turn on our last trail where I lost the front wheel, ditched the bike, and slid safe into second. At first feeling, I felt totally fine, but looked down to realize I had taken a good chunk of skin of my thumb and realized I had ended up with a bit of a sprain when I went to grab the bars again. Confidence was cut down pretty quick after the fall but the stoke was still high as we enjoyed a beer on the side of the road before heading down for lunch.
The schedule for the week was pretty similar everyday and a bit different to get used to on a day to day basis. Breakfast was around 8 am which gave us time to sleep in, eat, and then get ready to hop in the van by 9:30. We’d then take an 1.5 to 2 hour drive to make it to the trail heads, shuttle a 4-7 trails dependent on the day, with the last trail descending close to 3000’ to make it down for lunch. It was pretty cool having the only real thing on the schedule being to ride and eat. Someone on the trip mentioned that they felt like a mediocre professional rider which was very accurately stated, at least from my riding ability.
Everyday after lunch, we’d make our way back with only a few hours to freshen up and relax before making our way downtown for dinner. The first night’s dinner I was blown away by the restaurant. Again not knowing much about the trip, I assumed we’d go for street food somewhere or get some tacos at a small local restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised when we went to the first spot and were escorted up to the rooftop that had a view overlooking the cathedral a few blocks over. Once we were all seated, the waiter went around the table providing Mezcal for everyone in a little tiny bowl. This was where we learned that Mezcal in restaurants was not complimentary and you’re supposed to enjoy it by sipping it slowly and finishing it off with an orange slice or worm salt. Yes, worm salt, but more on that later. That night, my lack of knowledge of the Spanish language also played a part where I mistakenly understood the word ‘pulpo’ for ‘pulled pork.’ I was mildly taken aback when a legitimate grilled octopus was delivered on the plate in front of me. Although it was a bit chewy, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the meal.
The rest of the trip went about the same way, wake, eat, ride, drink mezcal, and repeat. This was the Oaxaca Bike Expeditions slogan and they for sure did stick to the itinerary.
I had decided to leave my camera behind every other day to find a balance between trying to push myself on the trails and getting photos of everyone on the trip. Anywhere I go, I can’t help but shoot photos of others and try to document the trip as best I can. It really is a part of the enjoyment for me to go back through the photos and remember the special moments from the places I go. This trip was a bit different where I primarily shot the riders in a few spots along the trails, but nonetheless, I had a great time doing it.
Four of the six days of the trip we got to ride in the same area. Essentially a “bike park” where the trails were forested and seemed very much like the trails at UCSC. One of the things that really caught me off guard was the fact that we were riding up at around 10,000’ feet of elevation. Every time we pedaled up a short hill, and we didn’t pedal very much, I completely lost my breath. I couldn’t believe it until the end of each day where we would descend almost 3000’ feet to make it down to the bottom where the van was. The further and further you went down, the more the tree cover disappeared and the trails became more and more chunky. The group would tend to get a bit spread out and you’d end up riding with one or two other people for a solid 15 minutes hoping you were still going the right way and didn’t miss a turn.
One of the most difficult trails we rode was the last trail on the fifth day, El Toro. I had seen videos of the trail on YouTube and had asked our tour guide, Javier, about it and he was not a fan of this trail. The trail was wild. The Trail Forks route claimed that it descended 3,200’ in 2.5 miles and it sure did feel that way. The top started off pretty mild and similar to many of the other trails we descended throughout the trip. As we started to descend further down the mountain, the one bit of single track started to turn into multiple providing different lines of varying difficulty, but without any scoping or having someone in front of you who knew the lines, it was difficult, for me at least, to ride the trail very fast at all. Again the trail followed a similar layout like the rest of the trails where most of the upper section was covered in pine needles and leaves, and the lower was all large baby heads and chunky rocks. I did happen to spill a few times, leaving both myself and the bike a bit scratched up, but in the end made it to the bottom and enjoyed a well earned beer with the rest of the crew. From what I remember, we ended up having lunch at a small little restaurant/grocery store on the side of the road that served us up a nice plate of beef, mole, and a tall glass of juice. Not what I’d ever expect to eat post big descent, but it was certainly delicious.
Over the course of the week, I got to have more mezcal than I had probably had in my entire life. One of the spots on the tour was a trip to a Mezcaleria where we got to learn all about how mezcal is made and do a whole tasting of over 12 different kinds of mezcal. The process to make mezcal was relatively quick, with the longest part being waiting for the agave to grow and optionally aging the mezcal in American back barrels to produce different tastes and “smoothness” when it comes to drinking. We first got to try four different ages of mezcal. Three were aged in American oak barrels, one for 6 years, the other for 1 year, one for 6 months. The 1 year old bottle had a very unique characteristic in a worm floating at the bottom of the bottle. The worm is not only included in only this bottle, but it is also dried up and combined with salt to be used in the same way that salt would be used with tequila. The other option is to directly eat the worm, which of course we all decided to try. It didn’t taste like much, but definitely had a good burst of liquid come out of it when you bit into it. I think I’m going to stick to the salt and oranges with the bottle that I brought home.
On our last few nights we cruised around downtown exploring the streets and enjoying some beers, a wedding celebration, karaoke, and a luchador match which to my surprise had a lot more excitement than I could go into detail on this post. There was a midget, a lot of very fake fighting, and a good amount of blood to end the show for us. To put it simply, it was an experience.
On that note, the whole trip was an experience! Never did I think that I would be riding my bike on the trails in Mexico. I can’t thank the entire crew enough for being an awesome and inclusive group of guys, the tour guides at Oaxaca Bike Expeditions, and of course Elliot and Ripton for the unforgettable trip to Mexico. Now it’s time to start the next adventure of a new job and a spending lots of time in the states.
