Bike Movements in Peru

We have run into some very interesting bike cultures and movements here in Peru. Besides Puno and Juliaca, we have investigated in Puquio, Nazca, Ica, Lima, Chimbote and Trujillo. Here is a summary:

Puquio: We had the pleasure of staying with Father Rueben in Puquio. We asked for his help in the church and he said “Of course!” and hopped on his bike to guide us to a house of the church where we could stay. He´s a small stout man but beat us up the hills on his mountain bike. The next day we got a chance to interview him, and you can hear it too! (Enter our Google Group and click on: “Entrevista a Sr. misionero de sagrado Corazon Ruben”). He absolutely loves the bicycle, and wishes more folks biked. He learned thanks to German priests who came to Puquio and taught all the priests how to ride and the benefits of the bicycle. Now he bikes all the time, everyday, and the church runs a school outside of Puquio where almost every single student has a bike and they teach biking within the school as well. He thinks people don´t bike much in Puquio because they prefer to be lazy and use motorcycles instead. He is an excellent example for the rest of the town, since not only is he a priest (someone people look up to) but also an older man and can be an inspiration to others to start biking even in their older years. If you are passing through Puquio and want to meet a biker, go to the main church in the Plaza and ask for father Ruben.

Nazca: On the coast we noticed that on average the towns have more cyclists than an average mountain village. This most likely has to do with the terrain, since the coastal towns are much more flat. In Nazca we saw some trici-taxis as well. Leaving the city, near the peaje (tollbooth) we ran into a cyclists with a tube with a junk valve. We gifted him a tube so he could get home to Nazca. We interviewed him and it turns out he has dreams of doing a long bike tour as well and wondered if he could do it on his bike. We told him, of course! Si se puede! Write us if you need any ideas or advice! (Google Groups: “Entrevista a ciclista -Luis- en Nazca -Peru-”)

Ica: I needed air in my tire as we were leaving Ica, and to the rescue came 2 cyclists, Jorge Bellido Melgour and Abraham Jimenez. Jorge is part of a successful cycling club (competitive sport) in Ica (can be contacted at patanny.Jv@hotmail.com) and Abraham is a long time cyclist. Jorge gifted me a valve adaptor for my presta valves and gave us an interview (Google Groups: “Entrevista a Jorge en Ica-Peru”). He talked about the love of cycling people in Ica have and his desire to do a long tour like us. Abraham accompanied us about 12km until the outside of the city (it was impressive, as he is over 60 and bikes hard, with his machete strapped to his frame!), and told us about his desires to work with other cyclists and the city to build bike paths and other bike infrastructure in Ica. Ica has a lot of potential to have an awesome bike movement!

Lima: Arriving in Lima, we biked about 20 blocks and thought we´d die it felt so dangerous to bike there. However, by the end of our stay we felt much more comfortable biking there, especially knowing that there are various movements starting and growing to promote the bicycle there as transportation. Andrea told us about a web site called Zoom (http://www.proyectozoom.org/), and we checked it out. It led us to many contacts both in the city and in project Zoom. That same day we got an interview with Stefany and Jenny who work with the city´s Proyecto Especial de Transporte No Motorizado (special project on non-motorized transport http://www.munlima.gob.pe/programas/tnm/index.htm). They explained to us the history of their project, why it started, and what they are doing to promote biking as transportation in Lima (Google Groups: “Entrevista a Jenifer y Estefany -coordinadoras Proyecto Zoom- Lima Peru”). They invited us to observe project Zoom´s (a project of the city as well as an NGO called FONAM and funded by the World Bank) classes in schools the next day, as well as a bunch of other events they were putting on all week long. So the next day we woke up at 6am to go to school! At first we went to an all girls school where Zoom promoter (as they call the teachers) Maria Torres was teaching young girls how to ride bikes. She teaches all day long, everyday, hundreds of young girls how to bike. Once they know how to bike, they are taught how to bike in traffic safely with hand singles, more advanced bike handling, basic mechanics, and more. You can hear about Maria´s experiences as a promoter here: (Google Groups: “Entrevista a Maria Isabel _promotora proyecto Zoom en Lima Peru”). Later, Sofia (who´s one of the school coordinators for Zoom) took us to another school (mixed) where we watched 2 other promoters teach a group of boys and later a group of girls how to do a quick break and turn on their bikes. I got a chance to talk to a student about biking: Google Groups “Entrevista a Marcela -alumna proyecto zoom”. There are kids who learn how to ride in 20 minutes to 3 hours thanks to Zoom´s very practical and intelligent technique (see it at: http://www.proyectozoom.org/contenidos/multimedia.php?cod=aprendiendo). Once a school has many proficient cyclists project Zoom organizes Zoom caravans where a group of students bikes to school together with chaperones. Zoom´s projects in schools are impressive and should be replicated in other cities all over the world. They told us they are working on the teacher´s (promoter´s) manual and that once they have finished they will distribute it. We look forward to using their example of in-school bike education to our own cities!
Later in the day we went to the offices of FONAM (Fundo Nacional de Medio Ambiente Peru http://www.fonamperu.org/) to meet and interview Paulo, the director of Proyect Zoom. He gave us a powerpoint that describes project Zoom (you can hear part of it here Google Groups: “Entrevista a -Paolo- director proyecto zoom Lima Peru”, and the other part is too big to upload but if you´d like to hear it just write me an email). It turns out Project Zoom is a World Bank funded project (I´ve never seen such a positive one!) and for that reason funding will run out next year, which is a huge bummer. Project Zoom works in infrastructure (bike paths) and outreach/communication and their strength is really their communication. Their school program is very successful, they have a program in universities as well, their materials are all well designed, etc. Cities that think they just need to put in a bunch of bike paths and the cyclists will come have a lot to learn from Project Zoom in Lima where the idea is that at the same time you create the safe bike infrastructure you are creating knowledgeable and confidant urban cyclists, women as well as men, by teaching ninas y ninos in school when they are still young and can learn faster.
That evening we were invited to go to Lima´s Critical Mass (our first of the trip!), organized by Lima´s only citizen-community run bike organization, Cicloaxcion (the rest is connected to the government). The mass is young—it only started a few months ago so they are still in the stage of recruiting participants (there were only about 14 of us). But they have abundant fliers with good information and we were able to get those out to thousands of people in a few hours. I spoke to the Cicloaxion (http://www.cicloaxion.org/) activist who was kind of heading up the ride (not exactly anarchist organizing as it is in other cities) Google Groups: “Entrevista a promoter org. Cicloazion Lima Peru” and he spoke with hope about the future of Lima´s bike culture. He thinks its strength is not necessarily the government connected projects but the citizen groups and he hopes more and more groups like Cicloaxion spring up. As of now, they are the only ones, which makes Lima very distinct. Unlike other cities like Quito or Minneapolis, and especially Santiago, Lima´s primary bike as transport promoting comes from above (the World Bank, the city) whereas elsewhere it comes from the grassroots (NGOS, critical mass, community organizations). It seems that Lima desperately needs those grassroots organizations in order to have a healthy, sustainable and thriving bike culture. When it comes from the top, any project can be swept aside if the mayor doesn´t like biking for example or when the World Bank grant runs out—basically it makes the movement much more fragile and also one-dimensional when it comes from above. That´s not to say that the projects the city and FONAM are doing right now in Lima aren´t really good successful projects. They are! But for a sustainable movement diversity is needed, and what Lima lacks is grassroots organization. Perhaps Cicloaxion is just the start of many …

Women and Biking Conferece: September in Quito... Join us!
One rad aspect of Zoom is that there are many women working in it, both on the organizational end and on the teaching-action end (the critical mass, by the way, was only men besides Andrea and I). I invited them to come up to Quito, Ecuador where in September Todas en Bici (a project of Ciclopolis) will have a conference on gender and biking. I want to use this opportunity to invite any and all feminist bike activists (meaning you are working or want to work to get more women and other marginalized groups out biking and you want equality in the bike movement) to come to Quito in September to participate in this conference! For more information, write to Fernanda at todasenbici@gmail.com.

Chimbote: Stopping to buy some pan, a man selling flour approached us asking about our bikes and excitingly telling us about his own bike with his own home-made rack. We gifted him a Zoom leg band and asked for an interview. He told us about why he loves biking and that Chimbote is a great place to bike. A primary reason that he bikes is because it is the most economical form of transportation. After the interview he gifted us honey and a smile… how sweet! (Google Groups: “Entrevista Ipolito Arquero Chimbote Peru”)

Trujillo: Here in Trujillo we have had an amazing cycling experience, but that is due mostly to the wonderful Casa de Ciclista/Casa de Amistad run by Lucho (aka Luis Alberto Ramírez D'Angelo) and the other cyclists who have been staying here at the same time (the website is: http://www.geocities.com/casadeciclistasperutrujillo/). We have been surrounded by bikes, fixing them, talking about them, and going on rides. But the city in general doesn´t have many cyclists... less than Lima and according to folks we have talked to many less than Arequipa. Why so few? One noticable aspect of the city is that there seems to be some amount of wealth and that perhaps more people can afford automobiles here. Other than that, it just lacks a culture of cycling. There are no real ciclovias here, although Lucho is planning to hold a meeting with the Mayor along with other bike activists to encourage him to start a ciclovia project. Lucho believes that the Mayor has money for this, so why not? Indeed, we have been very happy with the pedestrian street near the Casa de Ciclista... if the mayor can close a street to autos in order for pedestrians to walk in saftey, why wouldn´t he consider giving part of a street or two to cyclists? Especially if it is presented to him that Lima is doing it already, as is Quito, Bogota, Santiago, etc... Most big cities are starting to realize the importance of cycling here in South America it seems. There is definately great potential in Trujillo because there are various cycling clubs (for recreation and sport), as well as a well-respected Priest named Eugenio Bonniqui (immigrant from Germany) who is an avid cyclist and promotes the bicycle. He was, in fact, the Priest who taught our friend Padre Ruben in Puquio how to ride a bike, and thanks to him Ruben is now an avid cyclist as well! We had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Eugenio, who knows a lot about Peru and the world and absolutely loves bikes. He learned to bike and do bike mechanics in Germany, where the bike culture is very strong (he told us you can get to France only on bike paths!) You can hear a bit of our conversation in this recording: Google Groups "Entrevista con Padre Eugenio Bonniqui Trujillo". One thing that Father Bonniqui told us that stood out is that he is grateful to the bicycle for saving his life, as his doctor had told him "If you didn´t bike, you would have been dead already." The bicycle really is a life saver for many...

Summary: All that we have talked to agree that biking is the best form of transportation: it´s cheap, it´s healthy, it´s fun, relaxing, fast, and liberating. They look for help from the authorities and grassroots organizations to be able to promote biking as transportation. The bicycle unites people from all over the world from all different backgrounds.