April 8, 2016
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Zimapan, Hidalgo, Mexico
Destination: Wild Camp near Nicolas Flores, Hidalgo, Mexico
44.5 km trip, 4:42 time, 54.3 km/h maximum speed, 9.4 km/h average speed
Route Description:
Immediately when you leave Zimapan you climb. There are rolling hills on a paved highway with no shoulder. Traffic is not heavy and courteous. You take the turn toward Nicolas Flores and the road changes. It is still paved but different. It becomes steeper grades and then the road changes to gravel with very little traffic. You then have a constant climb up to 2500 meters. Just past the peak there is a small town with a store to buy some snacks and you can camp here. We road down the other side in hopes of finding a flat spot to camp. We had to ride down to 1300 meters to find one and it wasn’t great. I would recommend sleeping at the peak. There were more stores at the start of the day. The ride beautiful and includes abrupt mountains.
Accommodations:
Once you leave Nicolas Flores there are no hotels. Finding a flat camping spot is difficult and I suggest camping at the peak in the little town.
What happened…
Andrew writes: We really tested ourselves today, and it felt amazing. There was a bunch of traffic getting out of Zimapan but it eventually petered off after we turned off of the main highway onto a smaller one. As we cycled along the top of this valley the Sierra Gordo Mountain range) rose all around us. Where we were was all brown, but up ahead and above it was luscious green. We started a 1000m climb, and Jean and Gareth ended up falling back a little bit since Jean wasn’t doing well in the heat. Amanda and I soldiered on though; the ride seemed really similar to 9-Mile Hill in Squamish. It was basically a gravel fire-road that just switchbacked its’ way up the mountain. We stopped for lunch for about 45 minutes, and Jean and Gareth caught up to us…then they sat down for a rest and Amanda and I motored up the hill some more. We finally ended up in Jaguey at the top of the hill (about 2500m above sea-level), and everywhere we looked was a picture worthy of a post-card.
When Gareth and Jean caught up to us again, we talked about camping out in Jaguey somewhere, or trying to find a campsite between here and Nicolas Flores, the next big town, about 14km away. There were several other smaller “towns” which are really just a collection of houses, maybe a school, and of course a grocery store. Anyhow, after a couple of wobbly pops, and some popcorn, we decided that since we had earned it, we would take on the descent! It was one of those downhills that ends up being about as fast as the uphill. I’m carrying four eggs that I bought in Zimapan, and I’m riding down this rocky, gravelly, bumpy, rutted road, somewhere between 5 and 25km/h. Eventually Amanda pulls up alongside me and says, “I guess we’re having scrambled eggs for dinner tonight eh?”, and I just decided to quit thinking about the eggs and enjoy the ride.
Two hours later, our hands cramping and brakes squealing from overuse, we reach the first flat, uninhabited spot and decide to setup a wild camp. It’s after 1800hrs, the sun is going to go down soon, it’s threatening to rain, and we don’t know how long it will take us to ride to Nicolas Flores, about 6km away, which we can see across the valley floor stuck onto the side of the mountain.
The camp itself had a small spring off a ways, which the Days of High Adventure crew used for a bath. There wasn’t a lot of room for the tents, and the ground was lumpy and uneven, but we made it work. A line of ants wound it’s way between the two tents, and Amanda was worried about them getting inside, or eating their way through to the inside, or just plain worried, but that’s what I pay her to do, so that I don’t have to worry about anything. It was kind of annoying to be in such close proximity to our friends again, after being packed like sardines in a can in the hotel last night, and then our two tents wedged up alongside each other again tonight, I think that the novelty of living 3 feet away from one another is a little grating. Hopefully I can outsnore Gareth tonight at least.
Amanda writes: I’m pleasantly surprised at how compatible we are with Jean and Gareth. It’s always a risk traveling with others, and this one is worth it.
The ride up the hill was hard and it was hot but the grades again were something we could handle. Jean and Gareth often times push up the steep gravel hills and it works for them. I think Jean is about 6 feet tall, 5 feet of which I think are legs; so pushing really works well for her. Gareth has a lot of upper body strength and I also think that pushing might be easier for him and he likely wants to travel with his lady. While pushing sometimes seems like it might be easier on these hills, Andrew and I simply don’t have the strength to do it and therefore end up riding everything. The beauty of it is that we always seem to catch each other by the end of a day.
The wild camp spot we found wasn’t ideal but it was safe. As Andrew said the two tents were too close but we made it work. In the mornings Gareth likes to set up his stove and boil his water just outside the tent so he can still relax for a bit while the water boils. This is actually a pretty good idea and Andrew and I have started doing this too. What I didn’t like however is how close it was to our tent. No harm done so no problem but it certainly had me a bit worried. Overall it was a great day climbing and descending big hills with our friends and I’m so grateful to be hanging with them and Andrew.