Slightly bike crazy
Published: 2005-09-11
Category: Life and stuff
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Language: [English]
page views: 238

Spring's here, in the southern hemisphere. And with it, comes the desire to do some outdoors activities. With my bike in a great shape (only the rear gear shifts a bit sluggish still), I couldn't wait for Sunday to have a bit of time to climb the San Cristobal hill here in Santiago. It's not really all that long a ride, but it is quite a climb, about 400 meters in 4km. In fact, from my house you can see the hill standing watch over the city like a silent chalange. I got to the top in just over 38 minutes, including a stop to get some water back into my system. I hope to improve on my time during the summer.

It's really nice to use my body once in a while. Being the server-nerd that I am, I'm never phisically stressed. So climbing that hill is really nice to get the blood flowing. Going all-out phisically makes me feel much better the days after. Better sleeping, and more energy.

While San Cristobal is nice, It still is only relatively short city ride. It would be great to be able to use some of Chile's nature as a scenery for some more long distance rides. Since Santiago is so large, you almost need a car to get out of the city, but I found a route that's part of the "sendero de chile" (http://www.senderodechile.cl/) government program here that might be both reachable by bike and longer then the San Cristobal ride. The site tells me 4.6Km is finished of a total 30.. but i hope the site is out dated... 30Km of mountain terrain certainly would make for a very nice day ride.

It really amazes me how little the Chileans use their surroundings, They have great natural posibilties and they leave it mostly to tourists to enjoy. Result is that there is little infrastructre for day trips :-/. The senderos de Chile is a good program, trying to get a trekking and bike trails in most of chile. As well in the Santiago they are now putting together bike roads in a couple of streets.

While thinking of all this, the engeneer part of me wants to get a new bike, or more acurately put, bike parts and put it all together. Not that my current bike is a bad thing, but looking at the site of http://www.rei.com . I do get the feeling of how nice it would be to put one together my self. Get a good quality frame that's made for my size (my current frame is a bit smallish for me) and then getting all the parts needed. Ofcourse, one can spend a fortune on the stuff, but with a bit of care a really NICE and custom bike is well within reach.