Bogota Blogger

The guy who works on my bike is the best. His name is Mauricio, and I met him on the Ciclovia, where he sets up on the Septima where Calle 84 intersects and goes up to the Circunvalar. Here he does routine and minor maintenance for folks on the spot, and this way he meets clients to do more extensive work. He’s basically a domicilio bike maintenance guy.

His English is minimal, but he’s a super-nice guy and finds a way to communicate. He also knows bicycles inside out and is an avid rider himself. He’s told me about weeks-long trips he’s taken alone or with friends all over Colombia, which of course means up and down mountains and up and down again.

The best thing about him after his knowledge and his honesty is his price. I’m used to in the US paying through the nose for any type of work on a bicycle, and usually getting a lot of attitude along the way. When I brought my bike here from the US I had paid $100 to get a tune-up (very minor stuff) and have the bike disassembled and packed in a box for shipping. When I got it here, Mauricio came to my house and put it together for me, and asked for $6 for the job (I gave him $12).

I try to ride to work three or four days a week, and the last two miles of that trip entails cutting through a hole in a fence to cross a pasture, then riding on a dirt road for the last mile to get to my school. It rains in Bogota almost every day at this time of year, but the first rain of the day comes about an hour before I leave in the morning. So, while it’s not raining on my trip, it’s often kind of muddy on that last section.

After a couple of weeks of riding to work, I needed a thorough bike cleaning and tune-up, so I had Mauricio come over on a weeknight. He took everything apart that could be taken apart, scrubbed every bolt and screw with a toothbrush, oiled, greased, adjusted, and generally did everything that could possibly be done to get the bike in top shape.  This took almost four hours total, and in the end he wanted about $15 for the job. Amazing.  In the US in bike shops, I pay about $50 just to get about 45 minutes worth of work done, and cleaning is NOT part of the bargain.

But, he’s also got a pretty good lifestyle, from what he tells me. He gets enough clients at the Ciclovia to keep himself pretty busy, and sets his own schedule. He says most days he gets up, has breakfast, goes for a long ride himself, rests up and has early lunch, then travels to clients’ homes and works till about 8 or 9 at night. So, he has a nice little business (not getting rich, but doing okay) and gets to do what he loves all day every day.

Now, since I like to ride a lot, I should probably learn to do a little more of the basic maintenance myself. When I have Mauricio come over to disassemble the bike and pack it up for my trip to the US in summer, I’m going to try to sit with him and learn a thing or two. But in Colombia, I’ll always have him come around to do the work, because I trust him more than any of these bike-shop guys I’ve ever met in the US.

So, if anybody needs bike work, or maybe if you want to buy a bike and would like somebody who knows the ropes to help out (DEFINITELY recommended in this country, to avoid the gringo tax and worse), track this guy down on Septima with 84 on any Cicilovia day, for sure!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Bogota is Cheap, Bicycling Information, Some Colombians I Know. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.