Thread Drift

[ny biker]

Facebook.

At least for me, I'm not riding very much here in Mexico so don't have a lot cycling-related to say, and I can't answer a lot of the questions posted here since I am so behind the times on bikes. I don't have super new bikes and don't know most of what's "out there" these days since I'm not currently in a buying mode. I'm posting beachy, dog-related, foody, and other photos on Facebook and sharing interesting things I find online. And reading a lot more novels than I used to.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Akumal, a bit south of us, and enjoyed some great fish tacos, amazing homemade ice cream, and walking on the beautiful beach.

Here are a few of the photos I posted on Facebook:

Attachment 17825 Attachment 17826 Attachment 17827 Attachment 17828

That's about all I got! ;-)

Nice!!

I ride my bike regularly but don't know anything about the latest stuff on the market other than what I see on Bikesnob's blog. And he's usually making fun of it.

I'm curious about how you decide where to go and how long you'll stay there. I cant imagine living anyplace where I couldn't ride my bike. I'd go insane, even with such beautiful scenery.

[Crankin]

I do look at Facebook a lot, but I rarely post. I respond to others, sometimes. My life is not that exciting, so it seems I end up mostly posting pictures of places I ride or x country ski. Stuff people here would appreciate. In fact, I tend to write about that stuff here, because I know you guys will at least understand why I do this stuff. Mostly I get "Don't you ever sit still?" from others. I also get extremely annoyed with the constant "I love my daughter" week, and supposedly cute animal videos. I have a lot of local restaurants or other places I frequent on my newsfeed, so that's what I like to read. Except for my one close friend I ride with, I really feel like I have more in common with the people here, than some of my friends in real life. I have a lot of acquaintances who have similar lifestyles, but they are not the people I am hanging out with all of the time. And, I have actually met a lot of TE members, including a couple I did ride with for quite a while, but now that also seems to have slowed down. Maybe I am too social?

[emily_in_nc]

I'm curious about how you decide where to go and how long you'll stay there. I cant imagine living anyplace where I couldn't ride my bike. I'd go insane, even with such beautiful scenery.

Heheh, some of our decisions are quite random, actually! Trial and error as we're trying different things to see what we like and what "sticks". We can ride bikes here; in fact, we brought our Bike Fridays with us this time, but the traffic really bothers me and takes a lot of the fun out of it. We were hoping we'd find some places farther west (farther from the town center, where we live) that we could ride with less traffic, but after checking them out, I found that the number of taxis, motorbikes, etc. along with the way people drive here (not well, for the most part, and speed limits are only a suggestion!) made riding even far from the center of town stressful and far from pleasant. So I prefer the couple of bike paths we can access because the rest of it is just more urban than I like. DH still rides 4x a week, but he doesn't enjoy it nearly as much as our rides in the US either. He's been disappointed as he was hopeful that it would be better. Last winter we only had beach cruisers and didn't really check out any of the western routes, so we just didn't have all the facts.

I am lucky that I also enjoy yoga and running and have been doing each of those 3x a week, so I can get by without as much cycling while still maintaining fitness and staying active. But DH can't run (knees) and has zero interest in yoga, so he's more limited. We walk a lot too, of course, since we don't have a car. We do love living car-free.

The big thing for us in choosing a destination is weather. We don't care for cold weather, and DH especially hates it. Unfortunately, there are few places in the US other than Florida that have warm enough weather for us year-round (and Florida is not very cyclist-friendly and also has lots of traffic). Even Tucson has some chilly weather in the winter, and that's probably about the best place we've found state-side. We spent February and March in southern Arizona two winters ago and really enjoyed it, but Dec-Jan. would probably be a bit cold for us.

Another reason for choosing Mexico is that we can live here for at least 1/3 less cost than most places in the US. Electricity is more expensive but pretty much everything else, including food (a biggie!) is less. My yoga practices come out to around $3-4 US each with a monthly pass. And we love the colorful culture, the kind people, and the fact that people walk much more here, just generally live more outside lives instead of holed up inside their homes in the suburbs. We also like being away from all the US politics!

We tried one winter traveling around to several different US destinations for a month each in the winter (that's when we spent two months in Arizona), and we did enjoy that a lot and may do it again. We're currently considering an RV as I've mentioned before. As much as we enjoy this part of Mexico, certain things about it do get old, like the noise, tourists, traffic and humidity. And not being able to ride the way we like to, of course!

As for how long we stay certain places, we found that with VRBO, Airbnb, etc. it really pays to spend at least a month in one place as weekly rates are really geared towards vacationers and generally put us above budget. So on our winter in the US, we spent one month in each of five different rental units/houses. But last winter we decided to spend six months here to see how we liked it without having to move around (pack/unpack, etc.) so much since we would have no car and our dog, making it harder to change locales. We liked it a lot and planned to do another six months this winter, but we found we could get a much better deal with a year's lease. So we decided to try that and leave early if we were tired of it and/or didn't want to go through summer's heat next year.

Right now, it is definitely looking like we'll leave early. We arrived here at the end of July, and through September, it was pretty brutally hot and humid. It's a bit more tolerable now; we've had some cooler nights and a couple cool fronts blow through. It's super hot today, but overall it will be gradually getting cooler as "winter" approaches. Still not too cool for short sleeves and shorts during the day, but nights and mornings might require a light sweater. But it will start heating up again in March/April, and I am sure we'll be ready to get farther north sometime in there. And we'll be wanting to enjoy some excellent riding weather stateside by then as well!

Sorry for the long, rambling answer, but that's because there really is no set answer. We're pretty much winging it. I am sure we would do some things differently if we weren't traveling with our dog -- go to some different countries, for example -- but it's just simpler for us now to stay in this part of the world. It's pretty easy to get back to visit our families as well, and a cheap flight from Cancun.