Is coffee outside an excuse to get out on a morning ride, or the gateway drug to a local overnighter? Cass ponders how small rituals encourage us to slow down and linger, as the Oaxaca Café Afuera Crew heads out to the newly opened Café Cruz de la Peña, lured into a 6,000-foot climb by the promise of the best sunrise coffee and conversation in town…
Despite Oaxaca City’s proximity to a number of coffee-growing regions of note, the café afuera scene—aka #coffeeoutside—is, admittedly, rather modest. I’m not talking about the joyful act of sipping an Americano at one of the wonderful independent Oaxacan cafés, expertly made by a barista from locally grown and roasted beans, within a tasteful courtyard enclosed by adobe and bamboo. Trust me, Oaxaca has that covered. Rather, I’m referring to the real deal café afuera, where cyclists pedal out at the crack of dawn to earn themselves a cup of self-made coffee, savour some conversation, and soak in a view before heading off to wherever daily life takes them.
Not this kind of coffee outside—as modelled by Logan—enjoyable as it is.
Every Wednesday—more or less, because this is Mexico—our small band of coffee-obsessed, bleary-eyed riders meets at the very top of a cobbled, Paris-Roubaix-style climb, aboard all shapes and sizes of bikes. Rising from this grassy urban hillock is a disused microwave tower—Las Microondas—surrounded by discarded satellite dishes, stacked in a column like giant unwashed kitchen plates. There, we sip a brew and soak up the fabulous vista across the city, gazing across the Valles Centrales beyond. Granted, the fabulousness of these views can depend heavily on the time of year. In the rainy season, they’re crystal clear, any hint of dust sponged from the sky. In drier times, they’re lost in a hot and hazy blur, particularly when cornfields and agave hearts are being burned in the tongue-twisting trio of Tlacolula, Tlacahuhuaya, and Tlalixtac.
Café Pico is the name we’ve given it.
Café Pico specialises in stovetop espressos, though there’s talk of investing in a proper machine, if we could just find an outlet.
Often, our gathering is low-key, just a few of us standing there in the early morning light, thermoses in hand in lieu of more involved coffee-making paraphernalia. Dogs roughhouse in the background or doze in the shade of the lone tree when the sun has risen a little further. It’s not a long ride, but it’s a way of making sure we do ride. We sip our coffee as local dog walkers crest the climb and stop to chat—one elderly lady with braided hair, an apron, and a floral dress appears daily, like clockwork. She almost always takes the steepest, loosest trail up, closely followed by her collection of panting dogs.
Very occasionally, our group swells to 10 people or more, especially if there are visitors in town. If you count the strays that skulk past us, dogs at Café Pico regularly outnumber humans.
Gathering spot for coffee-imbibing cyclists and apron-wearing dog walkers alike.
Still, despite this modest attendance record, it hasn’t stopped us from expanding the Café Afuera Oaxaca Chapter to a second location. I’m not going to say it was by popular demand, but if you build it, they will come, right? This being Oaxaca, the new premises also sit atop a climb—albeit a much longer one. In fact, it’s a climb that’s so long and gains so many metres in altitude—1,800 of the blighters, to be precise—that it requires leaving the day prior, setting up camp, and peeling ourselves out of tents at 5:30 a.m. for a final 30-minute hike in time for sunrise. This last segment begins by headlamp light and is generally observed by nesting nightjars, and ends in a predawn scramble to a concrete flat spot, marked by a large cross made from scaffolding. It’s a near-360-degree panorama, into which the city’s glistening lights appear as it wakes up. Welcome to Café Cruz de la Peña.
“The spectacular views make up for somewhat basic facilities at Café Cruz de la Peña.” Our Tripadvisor review.
Although riding up to the cross is no easy task, it’s become our favourite local overnighter. It features in several routes on the site, including Hebras de Ixtepeji and, more recently, El Remolina de la Reina. It’s actually a route that’s a fun bikepacking initiation, in that despite the aforementioned climb, the distance is short, there’s access to water on the way up, the forest road is almost completely traffic-free, and there’s a great camping spot, the fee of which goes straight into the local community coffers.
All wheels welcome at Café Afuera, and there’s no dress code either.
For this outing, the club counted five—Adam, Laurita, Emma, Dhruba, and me. But over the last few months, we’ve been joined by Jeremy from New Mexico with his lovingly brazed Monē, Carolyn on her sturdy Bridge Club—taking a “break” from riding between the US and Argentina—and Corey, who was recently featured hot tenting in Orizaba on his pink Bike Friday. We’ve even managed to get Logan away from his keyboard and onto his beloved Dirt Tracker. In case it’s not evident, all wheels are welcome, and while we’ve yet to see any attendees aboard 32ers, I expect they’d get a warm reception, too.
Thank you, mighty Bafang. You have allowed us to live car-free, helped us move house, kept me mobile when I had a broken toe, and now, have facilitated a group coffee campout.
It was also Dhruba’s first-ever bike campout, and as we couldn’t figure out a way to fit luggage to his carbon, full-suspension Specialized, Emma did some heavy hauling on her electric Jones and the Farfarer trailer combo. Not only did she carry Dhruba’s gear, but she also packed enough coffee beans, homemade treats, and sit mats to go around.
And with those first sips, all toils of the day prior dissolve into the inky blackness of our cups.
Talking of beans, Adam roasts his own, even travelling hours to the faraway Sierra Mazateca de Oaxaca to source them. And as for treats, Emma makes a mean banana bread. This particular block was a solid kilo in weight and made with bananas from the coast and locally grown and ground whole wheat flour, bought in Carrizal on a previous bikepacking trip—part of our Vuelta a los Pueblos Mancomunados route.
Come sunrise, Emma’s one-kilogram block of banana bread disappeared quickly into crumbs.
No bicycle-powered coffee campout is complete without some gear discussion. I rode my Spaceframe in full expedition mode, in preparation for an upcoming trip to Peru, and Adam was aboard his Norco Sasquatch 26er. Whilst the handlebar bag doesn’t claim to be small-pooch-specific, lady Laurita, the senior chihuahua, looked as comfortable in there as she might in a fancy handbag. Only when we stopped to chat for a bit did Laurita try to wiggle her way out and leap to the ground, which was proportionately like jumping off a high dive for her. Speaking of chihuahuas, it should be noted, as well, that she was fair to all with her love and attention, warming everyone’s laps in turn and taking an interest in us all.
As for our mechanical assistance, we discussed on the climb how the electric Jones was faring, and we waited, with increasing dread, for each bar on the battery display to disappear. Emma nursed as much from the battery as she could, but even so, we made the call to use our second battery on day two, also hauled in the trailer. Given the Mad Max vibes of this bike, complete as it is with monster tyres, wiring, and bolt-on Bafang motor, it felt like a scene from a not-too-distant future as we loaded it in. The grid’s down, and humans transport their energy sources with them, debating over how best to use them.
The botanical spoils of an 1,800-metre Oaxacan climb.
I’m not suggesting that a Café Afuera has to involve such a monstrous climb for it to be worthy of attending. Quite the opposite. But I do think the concept pairs especially well with a nearby campout, particularly if you have a spot that’s roomy enough to accommodate a group and legal enough that you don’t have to creep around at sunrise, whispering your “wooooooooows.” After all, there’s little that can beat a favourite cup of home-brewed coffee, sipped after a night under a tarp and a day in the saddle. Now that’s the way to enjoy a coffee outside!
Although this particular ride could have been extended into a more lengthy two-dayer—the aforementioned El Remolino de la Reina—our coffee posse, after a second fortifying round back at camp, dropped down from where we came and retraced our tyre tracks back to Oaxaca.
Behold, the morning elixir of life. Thank you, Yeshe, for the Oaxacan-appropriate artwork.
No matter how long I’ve lived in this region, and how many times we’ve embarked on similar journeys in and out of the Sierra Norte, I’m always astounded by how hot it is back in the valley at 1,500 metres. The air is stifling, washing over me like a hair dryer and making my ears sweat. Compared to the Sierra Norte and its botanical wonderland of bromeliads, lichens, mosses, and giant wild agaves, it really is like crash-landing in a completely different world—one of gangly cacti, skinny barking dogs, noisy moto-taxis, and dusty cornfields.
On the one hand, I miss the cool and fresh climes of the high country immediately, and I long to be back up there the moment I’ve left. But on the other, I understand only too well how much work it would take, and all I can think of is getting home. Invariably, I wrangle with these conflicting emotions.
From technicolour bromeliads to blazing sun and fade-outs.
Our final hurdle before we were home proved to be especially hot and sweaty. The mini pass dividing the settlement of Viguera from San Felipe, on the edge of the city where we were headed, is only a few kilometres long and nothing compared to the previous day’s climb. But leave it too late in the morning, and it’s never an easy one. An abandoned, pothole-riddled highway, it’s wide and empty of traffic, with nowhere to hide from the blazing sun. I pedalled haphazardly from one small thorn bush shadow to another, regretting my decision not to fill up on delicious water in the mountains, tormenting myself by picturing the spring I’d passed by in a freewheeling rush. I only had the memory of a blackberry and cream paleta—a local homemade ice cream—which we’d just stopped to enjoy in Viguera to quench my delirious mind-thirst.
Seems fine…
And then it was done. We were back on the fringes of Oaxaca City, peeling off in various directions. I was left with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and it wasn’t just the residual coffee coursing through my veins. Although this funny little coffee camping ritual does require more organisation than popping down to your local café, I can’t think of a finer way to start the day than with tents, bicycles, and friends.
The origins of #coffeeoutside
Of course, enjoying a cup of coffee outside on a bike ride is nothing new, and I wouldn’t want to suggest otherwise. Brewing coffee dates back to the mid-15th century, and bicycles were invented in the late 1880s, so we can be pretty sure that people have benefited from the intersection of the two for a long time. Just last year, Emma and I rode a chunk of the superb Torino-Nice Rally. Stopping for alpine espressos in idyllic, 19th-century refugio gardens was a highlight of the ride.
But internet searches, and my own fuzzy memory, trace the actual #coffeeoutside movement back to Ocean Air Cycles around a decade ago, a shop in Ventura with an especially inventive tagline: Bicycles and Gear for Going Places Near and Far Self Propelled With Comfort and Speed. I had the pleasure of meeting its owner, Rob Perks, when I was basketpacking through Southern California back in 2017. I fondly remember the pictures he posted to Flickr—sipping away pensively out to sea, his trusty Rambler parked to one side. Oh, the glory days of social media, back when quirky hashtags were all the rage and long before the dawn of doom-scrolling! Rob’s #coffeeoutside mantle was embraced by both Swift Industries and Russ of Path Less Pedaled fame, who helped popularise it in the US.
Logan and his Dirt Tracker, drinking coffee and testing gear.
I should mention, too, that I’m still not a coffee connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, and my own way of preparing coffee can be distinctly rustic. Cowboy coffee, GSI drip, Aeropress… whatever! Just give me a view to ride to, a brew in my hand, a morning chat, and I’m happy. Mostly, I see these meetups as exquisite excuses to catch up with friends and make new ones, using the portable ritual of making coffee as a way of slowing down and lingering. It’s also proved to be a way of tapping into different cycling communities around the world. A few years ago, I attended a Coffee Outside meetup in Mexico City, which was the inspiration for our own Oaxaca chapter.
Crack of dawn coffee in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City.
And, since spending more time again with my family in the UK, I’ve taken great delight in connecting with other coffee-camping-loving folk. When I return in the summer, I now look forward to these miniature outings as much as I do any grand trip I may plan—whether they take place in the hubbub of London or in a damp field reached by a muddy bridleway.
Coffee camping with Sam and his flamboyant Nepolitana, and Wizard Works’ monthly gathering at London’s King’s Stairs Gardens.
We’ve even extended this to wild swims along the Purbeck coast—which of course we cycle to.
Who’d have thought it? Coffee outside is also a great way to warm up after a wild swim, especially if you grind your own beans, like Tom from the Woods Cyclery.
But perhaps you’re weaning yourself off coffee. Or maybe you never enjoyed it in the first place. Fear not, for green tea offers a worthy alternative with a conversational brain kick. You might even try preparing matcha: with its vigorous, awakening whisking, it invites a similar ritual, one that demands time and care. In this age of distraction, it’s precisely this time and care that I’ve come to value most. Gently forcing me to slow down, these pauses for breath give rise to thoughts about life and discussions with friends… which have become as intrinsic to my mornings as cycling itself.
Not a coffee drinker? Jeremy ups his #matchaoutside game in Abiquiu, New Mexico.
Do you have a coffee outside story to share? Or, a similar ritual that gets you out there with friends on a campout? I’d love to hear about it in the Conversation below…
Further Reading
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