Buenos Aires is really a bike riding paradise. The city has designed over 100 kilometers of bicisendas (bike lanes) and greenways and has 30 more planned. We decided to take the day to explore the city by bike, borrowing some two-wheelers from a family member and setting off to see what we could see. We were staying up north, in Buenos Aires province, so we took the bikes on the train to Belgrano C, a stop closer to the city.
We took a quick look around Chinatown and then headed south towards downtown. A bike lane runs the length of Monroe street and takes you to Figueroa where you breeze past parks, museums and famous monuments and sculptures like the United Nations’ plaza’s Flower and the Monumento a los Españoles.
It’s freeing to explore the city by bike. We covered so much more ground than I would have been willing to do on foot and there’s a real brotherhood alongside all the other bikes and runners, who range from school kids to grandmothers out buying groceries.
We swung down to Puerto Madero and took the scenic route by the river, had a choripán and a beer at La Costanera and then continued on to San Telmo, one of BA’s oldest neighborhoods. As cheesy as it sounds, we parked the bikes for a minute at the twice weekly organic market which is housed in an old warehouse on Perú street and I bought some incredible homemade sausages for later with a little wine.
Looping back towards home there were suddenly a mass of runners and bikers with us, all enjoying the delicious December weather.You can get more info here to know how cars care as much about you here as they do in Mexico City, the new bicisendas and greenways make the ride worth the occasional cranky driver and the sore legs in the morning. So cheers to Buenos Aires … I hope that the unspoken rivalry between Mexico City and Buenos Aires will extend to bike lanes.