Travesia Montecristo

Travesia Montecristo is a three day catered mountain bike ride through Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador where these countries border each other, near the mountain Montecristo. The borders are crossed on unmarked jeep trails, not at official border crossings. We are able to do this with official permission because the event is sponsored by the tourism bureaus from each country. The event has been held in 2006 and 2007, and I am the only rider to have completed the ride both years. Also see http://www.TravesiaMontecristo.com

This is my report of the 2006 Travesia Montecristo:

As I am now living in Honduras and have been riding with the Honduran MTB club, I rode representing Honduras. We were supposed to have four riders, two being a father and son. But when our team crossed the border into El Salvador for the start, Immigration would not let the 15 year old son cross with his father, because he did not have a signed notarized letter of permission from his mother. So we lost two riders, and just my friend Hector and I represented Honduras. All together there were about eighty riders, all the others represented Guatemala or El Salvador. But not every rider rode every day. Hector and I did a great job of representing Honduras. The ride was very hard and only four riders completed every stage, Hector and I being two of the four. The other two were Hensel from Esquipulas, Guatemala and Ana from San Salvador, El Salvador. The ride was very well organized and we were treated like kings: the best hotels, lunches and dinners. Each morning the ride would start at a different city’s center, there were spectators and mayors’ speeches. The ride would end in a different city center and we would get a handcrafted necklace or trinket commemorating the day’s ride. The organizers brought our baggage from hotel to hotel in different cities for us. The first day was the hardest as we climbed for hours. Hensel was leading with Hector, myself, and two other Guatemalan riders a bit behind. After perhaps an hour and a half of climbing, I could look down into the valley and see at least a half hour’s worth of trail we had just ridden, and there was not a single rider on it, the five of us were so far ahead. After about seven hours with big climbs and some treacherous descents with loose rocks, Hensel finished first, 28 minutes ahead of Hector. Three miles from the finish, I was third, but then I got a bad leg cramp and the two other Guatemaltecos passed me, so I finished fifth but just a couple of minutes out of third. The second day was the most rideable and easiest. Hensel, Hector, and I traded places for the lead several times. First Hensel lead, then he had to fix a flat tire and we passed him. Then he passed us back but took a wrong turn and we passed him again. Hector finished first, then Hensel and then me, all within about four minutes of each other. Nobody else was close. Ana and a couple of other riders finished about 40 minutes later. The last day was an insane climb. It took me 4 hours and 50 minutes to reach the peak at 7600 feet altitude. That was all climbing (except about seven minutes total) with a lot of pushing, followed by a short fast descent. Another Guatemalteco finished first, with Hector second. Hensel was fifth about 20 minutes after Hector, having suffered four more flat tires. Another rider on his team had six flats this last day. I was slow and finished aways back but my goal was to finish so that is what I paced myself for. Loads of riders quit and support vehicles, loaded with riders who had given up, passed me all day on the jeep trails. Story by Mike Stone

Bicycling