flat tires on one trip....Yikes.
Riding the bikes in Mazatlan isn't as dangerous as it looks but I have to say it's pretty darn crazy. So, if I get snuffed on a bike in my 60's in Mexico please understand that I new better and went ahead and did it anyway, been that way my whole life. It took a while but we've decided the safest way to ride is just like the Mexicans do....act like it's a car and always stay to the right as far as you can. And when you hear the bus coming go steady helm amid ship. But it's great exercise and with MP's knee still about 75 % and mine about the same after a good twist in the surf this morning it's way gentler on the old bones than walking everywhere. Sunday mornings are quiet here and we just love to explore Mazatlan on the bikes.
These bikes we bought from Vallin bike shop are a little quirky ( ah,,,I hate the word cheap so I'll say affordable ) and we knew the inner tubes were weak as MP had already had a flat. So I got a pump and a repair kit and decided to go fishing the other morning out the dirt road past El Delphin to the old Betty Ford Clinic. Good rocks there and it's a place Team X has gotten many a Corvina. You've seen this view before. looking north you see nothing and looking south the skyline. The GPS told me I was 8.5 miles from home.
There's only one person around and it's a friend who is a legendary fisherman here named Bernardo so he and I catch up and talk story as Chris says. I caught a small Paleta which looks just like a super petite Robalo. Bernardo had to go so I stayed and fished into the mid morning and packed my rod into the back pack and broke camp....immediately I felt the front tire was low. I stopped at the El Delphin apartments where I know people and kinda sized up the situation and of course being a guy who doesn't ask for help I saw that the tube would hold air for about 10 minutes....So.... I'd pump really hard and then jump on and ride really hard and repeat. At one point while still on the gravel I looked down to see how it was doing and ran right off the road...my first bike wreck in years. I got a little road rash, you know the deal, all the hard points on the side of your body that you sacrifice, For me right now it;s my right hip, wrist, elbow and ankle. MP says she's see me way worse, like when I had motorcycles. But then as I get to about the 1/3 mark I notice the rear tire is low as well.....yikes....now I gotta pump twice and I cracked a genuine Fitness Place Cardio type sweat. At one point as I was pumping ( I did it 10 times ) a guy with a dog on a leash said ' man you sure are sweating ' well his dog was kinda looking for a place to do what dogs do and I told him ' if your dog pisses on this bike you're gonna be sweating to'. So now we're looking into heavy duty inner tubes and my bike mechanic abilities are improving. Bernardo said there were very few 'big fish' out there but I'll get mobilized and get out there again this week....schamoozle free I hope .
I got that snapper on Ernie's birthday and gave it to him as a present...my friend Ernesto is technology dysfunctional so I was impressed this pic turned out at all. That black bar in the lower left of course is his finger protector over the lens. Ern caught this gorgeous manta on the same trip and was kinda astonished to see that the old Pelican wrangler himself seemed to be a little scaredy chicken of it.
I reacquainted recently with an old friend from high school over Facebook. Allan recently retired and is right now touring Thailand and Viet Nam which sounds fabulous . He's a fun guy who knows the way....sent me this bit of wisdom that I know for sure....we just gotta notice. And from right here in Mazatlan I got a pic of this scaffold I pass over daily, it's over the sewer right where I like to fish....it's kinda like this....winter's in Alaska are the same. If you let it keep you indoors then you'll never do nothing. This ol life ain't a dress rehearsal.
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