El Pelliroja en Colombia

Hola desde Colombia, Catalyst blog readers!

Today is my 17th day in Colombia, and the 1st stage TTT of Tour Colombia 2.1 was this morning. To say I have been enjoying my time here would be an understatement. Despite some time when I was very young, South America is somewhere I have explored very little in my life, and Colombia is entirely new to me.

Being greeted with a brand new culture is something difficult to describe yet tangible in the moment. The first human contact with a new country is almost always through a customs officer. My small experience in North America and Europe is composed of a very sterile and objective encounter separated by glass, slightly intimidating and never with a smile. But in Colombia, my entrance into the country was allowed only after a selfie with the border control agent and his coworkers, setting the tone perfectly for the attitude of the Colombian people!

My first days, in Colombia, were spent acclimatizing and exploring with my teammate and fellow altitude camper Carlos Verona. Him and I were to spend two weeks in Medellin at 2100 meters to adjust to a more “mild” altitude before joining the rest of the team at 2600 meters in Boyacá for the Tour Colombia 2.1.

The Colombian lifestyle starts early, and so do the stage starts at the Tour Colombia, so Carlos and I decided to get on an early bedtime/wakeup schedule and stick to it. 9pm I was in bed, and 6am I was taking my HRV in the morning after opening my eyes. I expected this to be very challenging as I am more of a night owl, yet something about this schedule felt refreshing and new. We headed out for training the first day with one of Carlos’ Colombian friends on Androni at our training time of 8am. As soon as we rolled out of the hotel gates and onto the shoulder of a big highway, we were passed by a group of about 20 cyclists flying along at 40kph. All of them gave us a whistle, the Colombian version of a wave. Riders were all over the roads of Medellin and Rionegro, in fact more than I have ever seen anywhere in my life.

The roads are a bit chaotic, like most things down here, with city busses pulling over and pulling out, motos coming from every direction and people carrying construction equipment across the road. It made me question how there are so many riders until I realized that nearly every single group had a motorcycle trailing them, slightly out in traffic, wearing neon and beeping its horn anytime it spots something. These moto guys, and the companies that provide them, are a big part of the riding culture in Colombia I came to find out. They provide a little safety bubble, whether actually effective or not, that makes riding feel much, much safer. It meant that families, kids, new riders and just about every type of cyclist could ride nearly any road.

So from the second day forward, Carlos and I always had a moto with us. Carlos asked Rigoberto Uran which company is the best and suddenly, for only 18 euros a day and no matter how many hours we trained, my man Lopéz was by our side. He had a pump, a few liters of water, a full toolkit and a sweet camera. He didn’t say much, but he always gave me a smile and seemed to love being outside all day with us and observing what was going on around us. To be honest, the first few times it felt a little bit wrong to me. I didn’t feel like we were valuing his time well. When I started to realize how far euros went in Colombia, I understood why there are so many of these moto guys. Still though, there is something about it that doesn’t feel quite right.

Anyways, this is how we ticked off the days up until the race, by riding with Lopéz in the morning and chilling by the pool for the rest. The life of a cylist! Exciting stuff.