Comment by DiggyJohnson
14 days ago
One mistake won't cause you to fall of unless you put yourself in a position where one mistake would lead to this: aka riding right next to the edge.
14 days ago
One mistake won't cause you to fall of unless you put yourself in a position where one mistake would lead to this: aka riding right next to the edge.
there are a few places where riding relatively close to the edge is inevitable, although you can probably bring yourself to slow down and concentrate for those moments. Still the cycle tour operators (who operate with considerably better than average equipment and professionalism) have non-zero death tolls, so it's not just drunk drivers trying to pass each other.
Still, I reckon Death Road is probably a fair bit safer than the mines in Potosi, or Potosi/Sucre taxi ride at the speed the locals like to drive at, Andes night buses in the less reliable bus companies or deciding to visit a mountaintype viewpoint by wandering through one of the local districts with a camera (Bolivia definitely didn't feel like the worst part of Latin America for that though...). Roads being blocked by angry protestors is a characteristically Bolivian thing too, although they're not at all interested in tourists so unless you're determined to pass the only real danger is to your schedule.
now the time I actually did ride a bike off a cliff was a nice smooth road in Ecuador (I went a little too close to a drain which wasn't particularly close to the edge, went over the handlebars, landed inelegantly on the road and was a little surprised to find no bike behind me... had fun retrieving it from the tree it was caught in a couple of feet below the edge)
Well said, I completely agree with your characterization. Glad you and the bike were okay from the incident in Ecuador.