Bicycling in Brasilia! Not.

We're in Brasilia (Brazil, that is) for a week, doing music education consulting. It's summer here, biking season. My original thought was to load the Bike Friday into its suitcase and bring it along, but after reading a little about biking (and walking) in Brasilia, I decided against it. I'm glad I did.

It would have been possible to ride here (in Brasilia), but really unpleasant. The city is organized around two axes, both of which have a many-lane road connected to other roads by clover-leafs. There would be no happy way to get from our hotel (roughly at the intersection of the axes) to anywhere a person would like to bike. I suppose I could have putzed around some of the smaller side streets (or taken my chances on the busy arteries), but I prefer to walk if all I'm doing is exploring. (Walking is a bit of a challenge here, too. There are few official cross walks and pedestrian traffic signals. It involves lots of dodging cars while jay-walking across 8-lane roads.)

I have seen very few bikes in town. There were some people riding on the main highway out of town to the north, but it was basically a freeway. Not a lot of fun, and not easy to get to from here, anyway.

I don't mind the city; it's nice enough, as inland cities go. The architecture of the federal buildings is spectacular. It's just not very good for biking.