The (Pot)Hole Story -- Panama is a tough place to ride

 

First Week in Panama--The Daily Downpour

I bought a bike the first full day I was in Panama.  The bike is great. I wrote about it here.    

I quickly got good at dodging the rain. The weather app in my phone that is so reliable in America, is rubbish here. It says it will rain when the sun is shining and it will be cloudy when rain is falling in sheets.   

Rain I could handle.  But the farther I ride, the more I have to contend with potholes.  On a descent a few miles from the city, I hit a hole so deep it flatted the tire and tore a hole in it.  I wrote about that here.  

And the holes deep enough to flatten a tire are everywhere.  It's not so bad riding uphill, but downhill, I have to scan for holes the whole way! I'm riding the brakes and very focused--not having fun feeling the wind.  It's surely safer to roll down hills on high alert hands on the brake hoods, but it's not fun. 

On the way up the hills, the holes are no problem, but even riding the white stripe at the edge of the tarmac, buses and trucks have to move around me.  One the main roads in and out of the city, there are no shoulders.  

When there are shoulders, another hazard appears at random--sewers without covers.  Some of these uncovered drains are big enough to swallow a whole wheel, not just flat a tire.  I told a local guy about this. He shrugged and said people steal the covers and sell them for the metal.  When there is a shoulder, I ride just off the roadway and scan for the uncovered drain.  

I've been riding every day here, but my rides are getting shorter and are on roads where I have memorized the holes and know the hazards.  On Labor Day I will return to the US until mid November.  

When I return, I will have Gatorskin tires and be looking for weekend groups to ride with.  Right now, I'm feeling like the cocodrillo in the photo below is waiting in holes on every road here.

 

First Flat Fixed: Pinched in a Panama Pothole

Today I had my first flat in Panama.  The pothole was not quite as bad as the one above, but for those who kvetch about potholes in Pennsylvania, Panama has a lot more.  

Today I was rolling back toward the canal from the Gamboa road junction. I stayed away from the edge of the state highway running along the canal to avoid the gaps in the pavement, but saw a pothole too late to swerve.  The front tire flatted immediately, the back was fine.  

I was near a bus stop at the village of Paraiso a five miles from where I live.

Buses in Panama do not allow bicycles on board.  I waved at  a couple of taxis, then ordered and Uber.  It was $5.83 to take me home.  The driver didn't have a bungee cord to put the bike in the trunk, so I took the wheels of and held it in the back seat.  

I fixed the flat at home and rode to a local bike  shop to buy another tube. When I got there I saw a small bulge in the sidewall.  The tube was coming out. I had cut through the sidewall. The shop owner wasn't busy so I bought a new tire and he put it on for me.  $50 with an extra tube. All the tires he sold were Goodyear Eagles--which is what was on the bike already.

With all the potholes here, I will bring back more tubes and cartridges and a pair of Continental Gatorskin tires.        

I Love Panama; It's Like Florida without Rednecks!

 

The Panama Canal near Panama City

So far, I have traveled to 59 countries on all six inhabited continents. In some countries, I feel very much at home. In some, I feel like I am on another planet.  

Panama is among the most familiar and easiest to be in.  The plugs are just as in the US.  No adapters. There is local currency, but US dollars work everywhere. The countryside is tropical. It seems very much like the Everglades and other tropical parts of Florida, but without rednecks and their ridiculous Trump and Rebel flags.

Also, there is a Mormon Temple near the canal:

And a cemetery that has many US military graves:

On my second day here in Panama, I bought a bike and rode up to the first lock of the Panama Canal. 

Traffic laws seem much like the US. And the cars are left drive like the US. Of course, the official language of Panama is Spanish, but I can speak a little Spanish and understand a lot from so much Spanish culture in the US.  

The Contrast

When I first went to China in the 1990s, I really knew I was in a foreign country and culture.  I took a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. It had a uniformed Chinese Communist crew.  Two hours later I was in the smoggiest place I had ever seen. Brown haze everywhere.  

A van took us from the train station to the hotel.  The driver hit a bicyclist and kept going. The bicyclist was supposed to get out of the way of the van. There is no tradition of chivalry I would later learn riding in Beijing, Shanghai and near the Great Wall.  

So Panama is just like home--if it rained every day.

 

Buy or Rent? I Bought a Bike in Panama

 

My second day in Panama, I bought a Giant SCR 16-speed aluminum road bike.  I bought the bike for $500 at a used bike shop in a residential neighborhood near the canal called ReCyclingPTY. They had road and mountain bikes of many vintages.  They also rent bikes for $50 per day  or $200 per week so $500 to buy for 6 to 9 months is a much better deal for me.

Andre, the owner, will also sell the bike on consignment when I leave. 

Right after I bought the bike I rode to the first lock on the Panama Canal.  Soon I hope to ride the length of the canal continuing on the same road.   

Moving to Panama--For a Year

 

The Panama Canal

For the third time in my life, I will live in another country beginning on August 15.  My wife got a Fulbright grant to study abroad for a year, so I will join her in Panama City on the Pacific Coast of a very narrow country. She is going to study math and to teach in a community outreach math program (She is fluent in Spanish). 

While she works, I will make dinner and ride coast to coast! I have never ridden coast to coast before on the six continents I have visited, but Panama will be the place I make my first transcontinental ride from Pacific.  The distance is 75km or 45 miles ocean to ocean. A lot less distance than New York to San Francisco.

The last two times I lived overseas, I was a soldier. I carried a gun.  This time, no gun.  

In Iraq I had the gun all the time. 

In West Germany during the Cold War, I rode inside my gun. I also carried a sidearm. 

I have never been to anyplace between Tijuana, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, so there are many places to explore.  Panama is a beautiful place from all I have read and heard, and the canal is a marvel of engineering.  So it should be an amazing year.