Mexico switched from daylight savings to standard time overnight, so although our group ride started at the same time by the clock, the day was an hour older. That gave people more time to get going and the sun longer to burn off the morning chill. Seven fellows showed up at the rendezvous point for a pleasant ride into the Zimatlan valley to the south of Oaxaca city. Our original destination was the village of Santa Ana Zegache, where flowers are grown for the Day of the Dead festivities. We thought we would find lots of color in the farm fields thereabouts. It was a gorgeous day to be out on a bike. However, we did not find as many fields of flowers as we expected and we did not quite make it all the way to Zegache. Instead, we were content to turn around at the gigantic figure of a danzante which stands atop a hill overlooking Zimatlan, 4.5 miles short of Zegache. The group stopped for lunch and cold drinks at a convenient curb-side comedor coming back into the city. Here are the stats for the day’s outing: Round trip distance – 33.3 miles / 53.6 kms Elevation gain and loss enroute – 840 feet / 256 meters Elapsed time – just under five hours.
