BY TED CAMPBELL
Special to The News
For the second straight year, a group of 70 bicyclists are slated to ride from Toluca to Acapulco in a grueling, one-day, 390-kilometer trek on Friday, Oct. 11.
The group, known as the Escarabajos Toluca (Toluca Beetles) Cycling Club, will depart from downtown Toluca at about 5 a.m. Friday and arrive in Acapulco between 10 p.m. and midnight later that night.
The Acapulco Bike (Aca Bike) trek constitutes the biggest challenge of the year for the Escarabajos, according to the event’s organizer, Luis “El Gallo” Hernández.
“Aca Bike isn’t a competition, but a personal challenge, with each one of the participants striving to complete the most kilometers and stay on their bicycles as long as possible,” Hernández told The News last month.
Hernández went on to explain that six support vehicles with two staff members each will follow the riders, carrying water, fruit and bicycle repair tools.
Equiped with bike racks and caution signs, a caravan of trucks and passenger vans will also provide transportation for exhausted cyclists and broken bicycles.
Last year, 67 participants from Toluca, Mexico City and elsewhere in central Mexico participated in Aca Bike.
Many of those riders – male and female, athletes and enthusiasts, teenagers and retirees – are set to return this year.
Javier Suárez, a student and bicycle mechanic, started mountain biking two years ago at Sierra Morelos Park near his home in Toluca.
He said that Aca Bike 2012 was “the greatest challenge I’ve ever done, as well as the most fun.”
“I’d love to do it every year,” he added.
“Bicycles are my passion, and in this ride I can test my stamina to the maximum.”
While most riders agree that the hardest part of the trek is the long uphill highway to Taxco in the mountains of Guerrero state, Suárez said that crossing from Iguala to Chilpancingo (100 kilometers from Acapulco), presented his biggest challenge, “not because of the terrain, but the heat.”
“The whole ride was fun, but especially when we got to the tunnel in Acapulco,” he said.
“Everyone was cheering and going crazy. Then there was another downhill and we arrived at the statue of Diana in downtown Acapulco.”
For Victor Sosa, an agronomist from Metepec, last year’s ride was both a physical and mental trial.
“You have to be physically and mentally prepared,” he said.
Sosa had knee-replacement surgery seven years ago, so the Aca Bike trek was particularly demanding for him.
“I can’t run or participate in long-distance races like marathons,” he said. “So I started mountain biking five years ago. This ride is a great challenge against myself. It’s also a great life lesson for my two children. They are younger and in better physical condition than me, but they don’t exercise.”
Like Suárez and Sosa, many participants are mountains bikers who have since picked up road riding.
In fact, Escarabajos Toluca, founded by Hernández, began as a mountain-biking club, exploring trails in the wilderness around Toluca, such as the massive, extinct Xinantecatl volcano.
“I began mountain biking in 2000, and from then on it has been total discipline,” said Hernández, who in addition to his day job at Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) also owns a bike shop and offers spinning classes twice a week.
“It was a way to test my will and fighting spirit.”
In 2010, Hernández and his friends attached reflectors and flashing lights to their mountain bikes and met on Thursday nights in the center square of Toluca to take night rides through the city, passing through nearby mountains and small towns.
Now Jueves de Bici (Bicycle Thursdays) attracts between 10 and 30 participants each week and has police escorts on motorcycles and ATVs.
ACA Bike is one of many regular road rides organized by Hernández and friendly groups like Ciclismo Para Todos (Cycling for All) from Mexico City, including twice-yearly rides from Mexico City to Toluca across the Marquesa mountain range and 100- to 150-kilometer trips to places like Villa Victoria, Cuernavaca and Taxco.
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