La Marquesa (Mexico), 29.10.06
Map Navigation: This dynamic Trackmap shows the GPS track (red line) and some geo-referenced photos (red dots) of the cycling tour. Wheel up and wheel down your mouse to zoom in or zoom out the map. Click on any point in the map to center it on that point. Or just drag the map with your mouse. To see the photos, hoover the mouse over the red dots. Click on the photo to go to the picture page.
Photoset Map
Photoset Show
GPS Track: GPX (MapSource, et al), or KMZ (Google Earth)
GPS Cycling Data:
Distance: 66 Km, Ascent: 1075 m, Time: 2:57 hr, Avg. Speed: 22.5 Km/hr, Max. Speed: 69.2 Km/hr.
Travel Report:
This cycling touring was almost avoided, because the author had to sort some messy things on Sundays morning. So, it wasn't until past 15:00 hrs when I had time to start this ride. I asked myself: where in hell could i ride at this hour ? And my private daemon answered: "Let's go to La Marquesa, after all, it is only a 2 hours ride, with an acceptable ascent, and we have still sunlight". Well ... i decided to follow his advice and started to ride to Constituyentes, the main avenue that guide us directly to the free Highway to Toluca (the other one is Reforma, but it is slower as it has a lot of turns. Constituyentes, on the other hand, gets you straight to the free highway, albeit with a little more pain).
The weather was excellent at this time, no hard sun, no rain, little wind. This route is an old friend of us, so: no big surprises. Just that as we were ascending, the air became chilly (last night was really cold in town). There was a lot of traffic on the road this time, not surprisingly for the hour. A lot of pick-ups and double trailer trucks :-( I had to manage to ride over the extreme right side white line in order to avoid any chance of being touched by these double carrier trucks. That made me promise to start to ride earlier next Sunday :-).
After 1:45 hr of riding we arrived at the summit: Tres Cruces, with an altitude of 3160 m. I took a couple of photos an started the descent to La Marquesa, 170 m down the other side of the hill. Man, it was cold the descent (but nothing compared with the cold we must deal with at our return to the city). Arrived at La Marquesa at 17:42, took another couple of pictures and start the return, with a moderate ascent of those 170 m in order to arrive again to the summit. There was still sunshine. But night was looming ... and our descent of almost 1,000 m to Mexico City had to start, so we must hurry on.
Occupied in watching carefully the road in the descent, I did not realized at what time there was no more solar light. In fact, there was a car jamming on the highway to the city, so a couple of times i had to ride on the left lane of the highway, in order to overcome to jammed cars of the slow lane. That was adrenaline ! Overcoming jammed two-carriers trucks by the left (high speed) lane in the highway ! But after those precious moments, we have to maintain us focused in order to avoid the potential holes in the middle of the lane, hardly visible at this hour. A police car even protect me in the final stages of the descent (near the Reforma-Constituyentes junction), going back of me at my speed and with its light on ! I had to thank those guys :-)
When I arrived at Constituyentes, there was no more light at all, but there was _another_ big car jam :-) so it was no difficult passing by the slow lane, between cars in order to avoid being stopped. Continuing our descent (that now seemed endless), we finally arrived at Circuito Interior, where civilization starts :-). After here, we took Alvaro Obregon (Roma), where the author had the closest contact with the Death that we have memory ! After that, we simply decided to go home :-)
Thank you for reading. Till the next journey. [Caveat: Do not try this at home]
Photoset Map
Photoset Show
GPS Track: GPX (MapSource, et al), or KMZ (Google Earth)
GPS Cycling Data:
Distance: 66 Km, Ascent: 1075 m, Time: 2:57 hr, Avg. Speed: 22.5 Km/hr, Max. Speed: 69.2 Km/hr.
Travel Report:
This cycling touring was almost avoided, because the author had to sort some messy things on Sundays morning. So, it wasn't until past 15:00 hrs when I had time to start this ride. I asked myself: where in hell could i ride at this hour ? And my private daemon answered: "Let's go to La Marquesa, after all, it is only a 2 hours ride, with an acceptable ascent, and we have still sunlight". Well ... i decided to follow his advice and started to ride to Constituyentes, the main avenue that guide us directly to the free Highway to Toluca (the other one is Reforma, but it is slower as it has a lot of turns. Constituyentes, on the other hand, gets you straight to the free highway, albeit with a little more pain).
The weather was excellent at this time, no hard sun, no rain, little wind. This route is an old friend of us, so: no big surprises. Just that as we were ascending, the air became chilly (last night was really cold in town). There was a lot of traffic on the road this time, not surprisingly for the hour. A lot of pick-ups and double trailer trucks :-( I had to manage to ride over the extreme right side white line in order to avoid any chance of being touched by these double carrier trucks. That made me promise to start to ride earlier next Sunday :-).
After 1:45 hr of riding we arrived at the summit: Tres Cruces, with an altitude of 3160 m. I took a couple of photos an started the descent to La Marquesa, 170 m down the other side of the hill. Man, it was cold the descent (but nothing compared with the cold we must deal with at our return to the city). Arrived at La Marquesa at 17:42, took another couple of pictures and start the return, with a moderate ascent of those 170 m in order to arrive again to the summit. There was still sunshine. But night was looming ... and our descent of almost 1,000 m to Mexico City had to start, so we must hurry on.
Occupied in watching carefully the road in the descent, I did not realized at what time there was no more solar light. In fact, there was a car jamming on the highway to the city, so a couple of times i had to ride on the left lane of the highway, in order to overcome to jammed cars of the slow lane. That was adrenaline ! Overcoming jammed two-carriers trucks by the left (high speed) lane in the highway ! But after those precious moments, we have to maintain us focused in order to avoid the potential holes in the middle of the lane, hardly visible at this hour. A police car even protect me in the final stages of the descent (near the Reforma-Constituyentes junction), going back of me at my speed and with its light on ! I had to thank those guys :-)
When I arrived at Constituyentes, there was no more light at all, but there was _another_ big car jam :-) so it was no difficult passing by the slow lane, between cars in order to avoid being stopped. Continuing our descent (that now seemed endless), we finally arrived at Circuito Interior, where civilization starts :-). After here, we took Alvaro Obregon (Roma), where the author had the closest contact with the Death that we have memory ! After that, we simply decided to go home :-)
Thank you for reading. Till the next journey. [Caveat: Do not try this at home]
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