Berkeley Weekend

We had a very Berkeley-esque weekend: biking, farmer's market, protest, brewery.

Visiting the goats at Tilden Little Farm

Post-ride beers at Fieldwork

#FamiliesBelongTogether

My city is my gym: Public recreation in Buenos Aires

One of the things I like the most about Buenos Aires is the way the city uses its public space for recreation. There are bike lanes (bicisendas) along several major roads, and they're building more. (Borges St. near us in Palermo just got one.) There are dozens of beautiful parks with grass, little lakes, and trails.

At our favorite of these parks, there's a ring of fitness stations. They appear to be co-sponsored by Gatorade and the city. Here's one with all kinds of bars for sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, etc:

Map of our favorite park

This one has strength-building machines that use your own body as a counter-weight. It's sponsored, interestingly, by the Israeli JNF (which is better known for planting trees in Israel):

Several parks in the city also have public wi-fi. This is an ad in a subway station for the wifi at Parque Los Andes:

This is a skate park near Plaza Italia, where kids do jumps and stunts on BMX bikes and skateboards. (I imagine in the U.S. - where even wood playgrounds are disappearing because of liability concerns - a  cement half-pipe next to a major thoroughfare wouldn't even be considered.)

It's really nice not to have to pay for a gym. When the weather's nice, the city is my gym. It raises the quality of living in a way that's hard to quantify but is very real.

- Ben

Remote-control sailboat race

The other day, riding at one of our favorite parks nearby, we watched a remote-controlled sailboat race. They were all the same model, maybe 80cm tall with another 60cm of keel, with big remotes controlling (I assume) the mainsheet, jibsheet, and rudder. The course circled a set of mini-buoys thrown into the water. It made me miss real sailing even more...

- Ben

Steph got a bike, too!

Steph bought a bicycle today. We went back to New Bikes where I bought my bike, and got a similar mountain bike with a woman's frame.

On the topic of riding, I took these a few days ago:

The Rio Plata at dusk

Firefighters around a burnt-out car (behind them) and truck (on the left)

- Ben

Bicycling in Buenos Aires, week 1

I bought a bicycle last Monday and rode for over an hour for 4 of the next 5 days. This is the ground I covered last week (shown relative to the whole city).

Number of rides: 5
Total time: 4.5 hours
Total distance: 70 km (44 mi)

 

Friday I took a break, Saturday I did the purple route. Yesterday (Sunday) I tied a cardboard box to the rear rack and went on a groceries run, to a larger store than we usually shop at, past walking distance. (I need to buy a plastic crate and secure it much more firmly to do that again.)

Today it was raining all day. Hopefully it'll be sunny again tomorrow.

Also, Steph's thinking of buying a bicycle now, too! (She was initially concerned about the traffic, but it's really no worse than Boston, and there are beautiful parks everywhere and partitioned bike lanes along many of the major roads.)

- Ben

Photos from my ride today

Rio Plata

Not sure what this was, maybe a university, but the architecture was beautiful.

- Ben

I got a bicycle!

I've been wanting to get a bike here for the last few months - for exercise (I need to get in shape for Patagonia), for transportation, and for exploring/fun - and decided before the holidays that I would get one in January.

There are hundreds of bike stores in Buenos Aires - someone very helpfully made a map of most of them - and I compared the selection at nine stores around Palermo.

I wanted a mountain bike, because the roads and sidewalks can be very bumpy. I didn't want to spend too much money. I wanted either steel or aluminum - steel being generally more comfortable and aluminum being lighter - but discovered that the government's protection of the national steel industry prevents reasonably-priced steel bikes from being sold. Since Argentina does not manufacture bicycles (it only assembles them), that means the bikes are made of aluminum or (on the very cheap end) iron, not an ideal material for a bicycle.

All the mountain bikes here come with front suspension, which I was weary of - on a cheap bike I assumed it was just a gimmick, possibly worse than no suspension at all - but there was nothing available without it.

The two best stores were Canaglia (part of a chain) on Cordoba - the salesman there explained the options better than anyone else - and New Bikes on Scalabrini Ortiz, which had the best prices. I ended up getting a bike at New Bikes - their prices for the same models were ~300 pesos cheaper than Canaglia, and they had better low-end models. It came down to a model by Vairo (cheapest) or Raleigh, but the suspension on the Raleigh was much better, and it wasn't much more expensive, so I got the Raleigh.

I added a rear rack, which I'll add a milk crate to for grocery runs. Last night I decked the bike out with the gear I salvaged from my storage unit last month - bottle holder, lights, mirror, lock mount, pump, seat pouch with multi-tool and patch kit, cleated pedals (though I'll be taking most of that off to ride around town, to avoid theft).

This morning I went on my first ride, an hour along the bike paths that adjoin several major roads, and in loops around a park. There won't be a shortage of good rides in this city.

Nantucket getaway

We spent Sunday on Nantucket, once the whaling capital of the world, now a summer playground for the rich. With cobblestoned streets, winding bike paths and a plenty of sailboats to ogle, it made for a fun day trip.

On the ferry ride over. Ready for a day of riding.

An umbrella just for the dog.