Buenos Aires by bicycle

October 29, 10:00 AMBoston Bicycle Transportation ExaminerDaniel Hoagland

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Avenida 9 de Julio - twelve lanes of terror

I´ve just returned from my first South American bicycling experience and I´ve come away more convinced than ever that the bike is the ultimate urban vehicle. Whether you´re sightseeing, commuting or picking up groceries, two wheels beat four, hands down (depending on how many groceries you´re hauling, of course). And believe me, if that´s true here in Buenos Aires, it´s true anywhere.

Before I get into the details of the tour, you need to know a little something about Buenos Aires.

Imagine, if you will, a Manhattan-esque city grid that stretches as far as you can see. Now, take all the north-south streets and narrow them down to about a lane and a half, plus parking on one side of the street. Then, take the east-west streets, narrow about two thirds of them the same way, and widen the others into six-lane avenues going in one direction. Scatter around some huge plazas, rotaries, and the widest street in the world (9 de Julio, above).

All set? Good. Now fill your streetscape with twelve and a half million pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, bus drivers, motorcyclists, scooter drivers, moped drivers and truck drivers. We´re almost done. Lastly, throw in a set of routinely ignored traffic laws, cell phones, lax police, completely uncontrolled intersectons and no bike infrastructure.

Quite a picture, huh?

Needless to say, my traveling companion and I were more than a little intimidated by the thought of getting on bikes in the middle of all that. Of course, having our hosts repeatedly tell us that we were crazy for even considering it didn´t help. I´ve been riding my bike in the midst of Boston traffic for years, in all kinds of conditions. I know what I´m doing and what to watch out for, but before I got on the bike this morning, I felt like it was my first time.

Incredibly though, all of our fears turned out to be groundless and the experience was incredible. Now, I´m not going to pretend that biking in Buenos Aires is easy or sane or that anybody should just hop on a bike and do it. But we found a great bike tour agency, Buenos Aires Urban Biking, who really made the tour fun, interesting and safe. They provided bikes, helmets (which made us the greatly-outnumbered exception in the city), water bottles and a mate-and-alfajor snack. And they provided a guide who was equal parts history teacher, cycling guru and cultural commentator.

And as for the cycling, there are two things about the streets of Buenos Aires that I didn´t realize before biking them.

First, the people who spend all day, every day navigating in conditions like these pay attention to everything. I´m as big a supporter of infrastructure improvements and law enforcement as any bike advocate out there, but there´s something to be said for the way that lawlessness promotes focus and attentiveness, two things that are sorely lacking from every type of street user in the United States.

And second, with all that is happening on a given block in Buenos Aires--people crossing streets at any old place, stray dogs wandering around, cyclists going the wrong way, political protests--the average speed of vehicles on the narrower streets is pretty slow. In about three hours of biking on the city streets, not once did I have a car, truck or bus overtake me at a speed even close to the usual speed of cars on Mass Ave in Cambridge.

I stayed off of 9 de Julio, however. Maybe next time.