It’s far far away, but you could try Chile as well if you got the $$. Carretera austral and conguillio are great bikepacking destinations, Santiago and Chillán are great cities for enduro/downhill riding because or nearby bike parks and the Andes mountains. There’s a lot of racing as well, with Andes Pacifico and Valparaíso Cerro Abajo as the best and more ‘pro’ examples of it.
My only advice would be to not leave your bike unlocked and unattended in urban places, but I guess that’s something that could happen anywhere except for, idk, Japan.
vistocycling on
Just got back from a trip in Oaxaca Mexico. Definitely recommend checking it out as a great spot to visit during the winter months. Their best season is certainly January through March in terms of weather. Like everywhere it’s definitely getting hotter earlier and I was surprised how warm it was this time. I did a day of enduro shuttle riding in an area called La Cumbre and then did part of the bikepacking route from Oaxaca city to the beach at Porto Escondido ([https://bikepacking.com/routes/oaxaca-puerto-escondido/](https://bikepacking.com/routes/oaxaca-puerto-escondido/)).
I learned some hard lessons about sleep. First off I stayed at a friend’s house and her place was a lot warmer than I’m used to coming from the bay area winter where my place is often 58 to 60° at night. I’m just not used to sleeping in 80° rooms and it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep. I also think I underestimated how much the elevation would affect me. I wasn’t sleeping very well and then I was riding really hard and my heart rate just wasn’t going below 83 or so until very late up in the night well after the time that I needed to be asleep. We were doing the kind of bike packing where you stay in hotels, but these didn’t have AC so again hot sleeping was not working for me so long story short I had to ditch and bail on my friends who continued on the beach. I’ve had some long Covid issues and I just didn’t trust my body enough to try to push and redline for multiple days and hopefully recover and be able to get back to work OK. It probably would’ve been better if we had been camping (temperature wise) but then also, we would’ve had to carry that gear and find campsites, which is not the easiest there,
But yeah, there’s a ton of great riding there. The area’s just having a massive boom in road, gravel, and mountain biking. One of the bikepacking.com cofounders now is based out of there part time and his blog is one of the best for finding good packing routes. And then Trail Forks has the great Enduro and downhill routes. The area general also has a lot of amazing cultural diversity and good food. So I definitely recommend checking it out as a biking destination for winter. Volaris is such a crappy airline but they do offer an affordable bike fee compared to Aeromexico and both fly there.
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It’s far far away, but you could try Chile as well if you got the $$. Carretera austral and conguillio are great bikepacking destinations, Santiago and Chillán are great cities for enduro/downhill riding because or nearby bike parks and the Andes mountains. There’s a lot of racing as well, with Andes Pacifico and Valparaíso Cerro Abajo as the best and more ‘pro’ examples of it.
My only advice would be to not leave your bike unlocked and unattended in urban places, but I guess that’s something that could happen anywhere except for, idk, Japan.
Just got back from a trip in Oaxaca Mexico. Definitely recommend checking it out as a great spot to visit during the winter months. Their best season is certainly January through March in terms of weather. Like everywhere it’s definitely getting hotter earlier and I was surprised how warm it was this time. I did a day of enduro shuttle riding in an area called La Cumbre and then did part of the bikepacking route from Oaxaca city to the beach at Porto Escondido ([https://bikepacking.com/routes/oaxaca-puerto-escondido/](https://bikepacking.com/routes/oaxaca-puerto-escondido/)).
I learned some hard lessons about sleep. First off I stayed at a friend’s house and her place was a lot warmer than I’m used to coming from the bay area winter where my place is often 58 to 60° at night. I’m just not used to sleeping in 80° rooms and it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep. I also think I underestimated how much the elevation would affect me. I wasn’t sleeping very well and then I was riding really hard and my heart rate just wasn’t going below 83 or so until very late up in the night well after the time that I needed to be asleep. We were doing the kind of bike packing where you stay in hotels, but these didn’t have AC so again hot sleeping was not working for me so long story short I had to ditch and bail on my friends who continued on the beach. I’ve had some long Covid issues and I just didn’t trust my body enough to try to push and redline for multiple days and hopefully recover and be able to get back to work OK. It probably would’ve been better if we had been camping (temperature wise) but then also, we would’ve had to carry that gear and find campsites, which is not the easiest there,
But yeah, there’s a ton of great riding there. The area’s just having a massive boom in road, gravel, and mountain biking. One of the bikepacking.com cofounders now is based out of there part time and his blog is one of the best for finding good packing routes. And then Trail Forks has the great Enduro and downhill routes. The area general also has a lot of amazing cultural diversity and good food. So I definitely recommend checking it out as a biking destination for winter. Volaris is such a crappy airline but they do offer an affordable bike fee compared to Aeromexico and both fly there.
First pic is from this trail – [https://www.trailforks.com/trails/el-toro-205360/](https://www.trailforks.com/trails/el-toro-205360/)
Cass’s great info on Oaxaca – [https://stilloutriding.com/2022/10/general-info-for-bikepackers-in-oaxaca/](https://stilloutriding.com/2022/10/general-info-for-bikepackers-in-oaxaca/)
I brought a transition spur there, and it was such a great bike for both the downhill as well as the bikepacking.