English · Español · Français · Deutsch · Ελληνικά

About Us

¡El Tour was started in 2000 by a group of good friends. Season after season we enjoyed bicycle touring, showing off the Mexico that we know and love, and exploring new routes every year. We enjoyed an incredible repeat rate of 38% — and as high as 71% in recent years — people just kept coming back, so we must have been doing something right! We catered to singles, couples and groups of friends, with cyclists aged 18 to 74; anyone with an adventurous, curious spirit was welcome. Our female cyclists made up 25% to 54% of a season, and our guide-to-client ratio was the best you'll ever see, at 5 to 1 maximum.

Who rode at the front changed over the years. Basil guided from the very first season and found the routes, at first riding them alone. Joel guided beside him in the early seasons — the 2002 dispatches are signed "from Joel and I" — and rode the earliest exploring trips with him, the first of them out of San Cristóbal in February 2001. The company itself grew out of rides made years before it existed, with Pat Alati — who first got Basil touring, suggested making a business of it, and helped guide the first tour in 2000. From 2004 that second place on the roster passed to Alexandra, who rode the tours with Basil and explored every new route with him from then on. Joel came back in the final seasons, guiding with Karin.

The company's first home on the web was eltour.itgo.com, a free hosting service, before it moved to bikemexico.com around 2002. That original site — and its guestbook, with the first words anyone ever wrote about these tours — survives on the Wayback Machine and is woven into the tours and reviews pages of this archive.

From 2003 ¡El Tour also partnered with Los Pingüinos, the bicycle shop and guiding operation in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas — cross-marketing their day trips and multi-day tours through Chiapas, Tabasco and Guatemala alongside the main schedule.

In February 2016 Basil and Alexandra retired from organizing and guiding — "ready for something new" — and Joel and Karin carried the tours through the final seasons, up to the last ride in February 2020.

We are recommended and mentioned in many books, including Lonely Planet: Mexico (2006 and 2008 editions), Lonely Planet: Yucatan (2006), Yucatan and Mayan Mexico (2005), Footprint Belize, Guatemala & Southern Mexico (2008), The People's Guide to Mexico (2006) and Let's Go Mexico (2007).

Your guides

Basil

Basil, a "retired" electrical engineer, has the most bike touring experience specific to Mexico. Having cycled over 100 thousand kilometres in Mexico (much of it solo), and lived, worked and travelled in various parts of the country since 1997, he is fluent in Spanish and familiar with the customs. He is certified in First Aid and CPR and is also a PADI certified dive master. He speaks a few words of Yucatec Maya language, is also fluent in Greek, and speaks a smattering of other languages too.

Alexandra

Alexandra has been cycling in Mexico since 2002. She has a degree in Latin American studies and socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Toronto where she specialized in Mexico, Brazil and Peru. The history, cultures, people and art of Mexico are her passion. Since 1993 she has lived in Brazil, Honduras and Mexico and she is fluent in Spanish and of course English. Alexandra is certified in first aid and CPR and is an experienced SCUBA diver.

Joel

Joel lives in San Cristóbal, Chiapas. He has run Los Pinguinos since 1994, renting some of the best bikes in town and leading tourists on day-tours exploring the surrounding mountains and villages by bike. Spanish is his mother tongue, and Mexican customs are also his own. He can also speak Tzotzil (a Mayan dialect), German, and of course, English. Joel actively promotes cycling in his community and has helped to develop mountain bike racing in the area.

Karin

Karin, a native of Switzerland, is now a resident of Mexico. She is fluent in English, German and Spanish. She lives in San Cristobal and works as a Thai massage therapist and nurse.