About : RASAM

That's this Ride Across South AMerica from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Lima, Peru. It is 5,410 kilometers or 3,360 miles, which I will ride in two segments. Part I goes from September 26 to October 17, 2004 and is from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Salta, Argentina: 2,595 kilometers / 1,612 miles. Part II dates are November 7 to December 5 and is from Salta to Lima: 2,816 kilometers or 1,749 miles. Many people ride the coast of South America, especially along the Pan American highway. Few, if any, ride across the continent. There is a dearth of support--hundreds of miles without accommodations or good supplies. The only reason I can do it is that I will go 'safari-style'. A support and gear (SAG) wagon will carry my supplies.

Sao Paulo Prep 0k/0m*

This is the start of the story of a bike ride across South America, from Sao Paulo Brazil to Lima, Peru. These trips always begin with a preparation day, and this Monday was a typical one. Dalton Cox and I landed at 8:55am in Sao Paulo, made it through immigration, got our luggage, made it through customs and found Eduardo Erler, our support person.. This first picture: putting the bikes into the Fiat Diablo Adventure.

The Fiat Diablo is funky cool, and Nelson and Eduardo have it well prepared. It will serve our purpose well. Both Dalton and I want to take it home.

Then it was off to the best bike shop in Sao Paulo – Pedal Pwer. We dropped of the bikes, and I did a little SRAMbassadoring with the staff using David Z’s X0 vs. XTR derailleur video.

We then checked into the Regent Park hotel, and I took the obligatory out the window photo from my 9th floor window.

Sao Paulo is a sea of buildings and a traffic nightmare. If you can afford it, you commute by helicopter, as this guy was doing just as I took the other photo.

I needed a brief nap. Dalton, Eduardo and Nelson needed food. So we split up. Our plan was to meet with Marcos and Claudia for dinner. Circumstances as they were, Claudia and Nelson couldn’t make it. (Greetings Claudia – we missed you.) Marcos brought his cousin – the guy who looks like an attorney. Here’s the dinner team.

The highlights of this pre-ride day were meeting our Brazilian friends and then this restaurant. It’s built around a tree hundreds of years old that has a branch span hundreds of feet wide. I’ll get the name of the tree and restaurant in here later.

Not that exciting of a day, so it gets only one star. Things should get more interesting. I’ll close with some Sao Paul trivia.

São Paulo was founded by the Jesuits in 1554, on a plateau 2,493 feet (760 meters) above sea level, 45 miles (72 km) from the South Atlantic coast. With about 20 million people, Sao Paulo is the world’s second largest city. It generates 30% of Brazil’s GNP and contains the largest community of Japanese outside of Japan.

Subscribe to email updates from Bob