Highway 200's renowned curves and coastline
The urge for what motorcyclists call "throttle therapy" had been building for months, but the scorching Mexican summer kept pushing it aside. Sitting atop a hot engine while wearing full riding gear, with the sun beating down relentlessly, held little appeal during the peak heat season.
For several months, the motorcycle — affectionately named Dora — waited patiently in the garage. No complaints, no guilt trips, just quiet anticipation of the next ride along Mexico's coastal highways.
The excuses piled up easily enough. Some legitimate, like temperatures that can exceed 95°F and make riding genuinely hazardous. But others revealed a mistaken assumption: that if a ride couldn't span several hours and cover serious distance, it wasn't worth the effort of gearing up at all.
Somewhere along the way, the therapy got confused with the mileage.
Then came the realization that waiting for perfect conditions meant missing out entirely. What was needed wasn't an epic adventure or a new destination — just the simple act of getting on the motorcycle.
Highway 200's renowned curves and coastline
Yesterday brought a short ride along Highway 200 between Mismaloya and Boca de Tomatlán, a stretch of road approximately 18 kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta that motorcyclists know well. The route hugs the coastline with challenging curves that demand attention, but rewards riders with dramatic Pacific views.
For those unfamiliar with this part of Mexico, the road showcases exactly why people fall in love with the region. Bougainvillea cascades over walls. Palm trees rise between buildings painted in colors that seem amplified by the Mexican sunshine. Small shops, concrete houses, weathered signs and occasional roadside shrines decorated with flowers line the route.
The road pulses with life: a man relaxing in shade, someone washing dishes outside their home, children playing, dogs claiming ownership of their particular patches of pavement. Then the jungle opens up and reveals the Pacific, stretching blue to the horizon and crashing against rocks below.
The route passes Los Arcos National Marine Park, where distinctive rock formations jut from Banderas Bay. Where the Horcones River flows down from the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains to meet the ocean, Boca de Tomatlán sits at a convergence point of river, jungle and sea — creating the varied ecosystem that makes the scenery so compelling.
Beach, shrimp and perspective
After riding for a while, a beach stop seemed natural. Music drifted from somewhere nearby. Families gathered under umbrellas. Young couples ran in and out of the water. Boats bobbed offshore. And because this is Mexico, a vendor was selling grilled shrimp on sticks.
The purchase was inevitable. Whether food genuinely tastes better when slathered in salt and hot sauce and consumed on a Mexican beach requires further research, but early findings are promising.
Sitting there with shrimp and lime, feet in sand, Pacific waves rolling in, brought clarity. The whole excursion took less than two hours. A few months earlier, that might have seemed insufficient — not far enough, not long enough, not enough miles to justify pulling Dora from the garage.
But in that moment, with the ocean ahead and the heat of the day still manageable, the truth became obvious: it was never about distance. It was about getting out of an overactive mind.
That's what riding has always provided. On a motorcycle, there isn't room for dwelling on unanswered emails, unfinished articles, laundry sitting in baskets, or whatever else rattles around inside a restless head. Attention must focus on the road, the traffic, the approaching curve, the oncoming truck, the scent of trees, the heat, the sudden glimpse of ocean.
For a while, that becomes everything.
The trap of waiting for perfect conditions
Too much time gets spent waiting for ideal conditions. Rides get postponed until work settles down, until weather improves, until a full weekend opens up, until there's enough time to "do it properly."
How much of life passes by while waiting for "properly" to arrive?
Mexico's motorcycle culture has been growing steadily, with the market surpassing 2 million units in 2025 — making it the sixth-largest globally and the country's leading automotive segment. The appeal is understandable in a nation where short rides can deliver such outsized rewards.
That brief ride served as a reminder: sometimes two hours suffices. Not every journey requires a destination. Sometimes the point is simply to go.
Perhaps that's what had been missed most — not the long rides themselves, though those certainly have their place. Rather, it's the way a motorcycle can transform an ordinary day into something that feels like you've actually gone somewhere. Leave home without particular plans, follow Highway 200 for a stretch, stop at a beach, eat shrimp from a stick, watch the Pacific. Then ride back home.
Nothing monumental transpires. Yet somehow everything feels slightly better.
That quality represents one of the great pleasures of life in Mexico. It isn't always the big postcard moments. It's that those moments can materialize in the middle of an otherwise completely ordinary day.
The long rides will return when cooler weather arrives. Roads remain untraveled, places wait to be discovered, and knowing the pattern, a few wrong turns probably lurk ahead. But the waiting for perfect days and perfect amounts of time is over.
Because it turns out throttle therapy doesn't require a full tank, six hours and a destination. Sometimes it just requires getting on the bike. And occasionally, if luck holds, it comes with a side of shrimp.
