The night two wheels ruled

Mexico has horrendous traffic. Everywhere you go it's chaos and it's not like they haven't got any spare space. I mean the country's huge. But at present cars, buses and trucks clog up nearly every last inch of road space, day and night. You can't walk one section of street without seeing or hearing a traffic queue. Oh yeah the Mexicans love to honk their horns at any given chance.

This night though, and every Wednesday at 11pm for around 2 hours local people gather at the base of city's obelisk. From here the "Paseo Ciclista Nocturno" guided bike ride is conducted. We aren't talking about just a couple of hundred, we are talking thousands. Tonights figure being 5541 to be exact. Oh yeah among this free, organised event a guy stands at the start with a counter and clocks numbers as you cycle by. The record attendance being over 7000 riders. Each week the route differs from the previous. Tonights route included some hills as tonight was a full moon. These elevated points were included by tour director Richardo Aceves as he wanted the riders to become closer to the moon to assist their connection to it. His words not ours. Spiritual types these Mexicans!

As you rode along you felt a feeling of freeness. Volunteers, dressed in lycra and donning halt signs on their forearms, ride on ahead of the group and stop any traffic as required. They have assistance from local police to hold back traffic at junctions so that the long daisy- chain of riders do not get split up. In a country that has, so say, so many problems, tonights atmosphere couldn't have be any further from the negative vibe this country seems to be surrounded by.

All ages turned out on all manner of bike. Parents and their kids, couples on tamdoms, guys on California cruisers, girls on old school vintage Raleigh shopper bikes, the youth on BMXs, doing tricks straight out of scenes from the film ET. What struck us was the smiles, laughter and ringing of bells.

Being colourful Mexico the whole event came with music. A number of guys had modified their bikes so that they could tow small but very loud stereo systems behind them. Tonights crowd pleasers seemed to be "rolling on the river" Creedence Clearwater Revival, "man I feel like a woman" Shania Twain and "beat-it" by the one and only M Jackson version, each receiving lound cheer as these songs came on the free-wheeling stereo. The cheering and jeering only just about drowning out the constant bell ringing and horn hooting and anything else come to think of it that made a noise to increase the carnival atmosphere.

This ride takes place week in week out. Tonight being the 196th ride. All arranged by unpaid volunteers along with a little bit of help from the local authorities.

Tonight the streets of Guadalara were definately owned by two wheels. Without a doubt this has been the best free thing we've done in a city throughout our entire trip.

Richardo keep up the good work