Biking in Colombia

[Madbiker]

The speed limits in Colombia are 40 km/h (25 mph) in built up areas, 60 km/h (37 mph) outside built up areas, 80 km/h (50 mph) and very occassionaly 90 km/h (56 mph)

All of the road signs for the main roads are Green with White writing. The Toll roads are indicated on these Green and White signs with the word AUTOVIA. The local road signs are Blue with White writing.

The roads in Colombia are generally very good but there are stretches where the odd large pothole appears now and again so it is best always to ride with caution as some of the potholes are deep enough to swallow the front wheel of a bike.

The Autovias are free for bikes and at each toll station there is a small lane to the nearside of the barriers that is for bikes to bypass the toll station for free.

Petrol at the time of writing was between 0.70 to 0.90 US Dollars per litre and it is sold in US Gallons.

There are occassional police checkpoints on the main road and there are plenty of signs saying that automatic speed detection systems are in use but I never saw one. I never saw a police speed trap anywhere.

There appears to be a mandatory helmet law in Colombia but no-one seems to bother about it and the police do not enforce it as lots and lots of people ride without a helemet and the police do nothing.

There also appears to be no law prohibiting the use of blue and red flashing lights on non emergency vehicles as many cars, buses and bikes used them. Because of this a vehicle using such lights may at first glance look as if it is the police but I have never seen an unmarked police vehicle in all of my time in Colombia.

Police vehicles in Colombia are white coloured with green stripes, police motorcycles are lime green coloured and all police veihicles and bikes have POLICIA marked on then and the drivers and riders are ALWAYS wearing police uniforms.

To buy a SIM card for a mobile phone you need to go to any mobile phone shop but you are not required to produce any form of identification to buy the SIM card. When I did this the cost was around 8 US Dollars for 30 days of unlimited internet.