A Transport Engineer’s World: Jim’s Trolleybus Inspired Bombardiers Cycles Trolebici – Daniel Zaid | The Radavist | A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors.

Daniel Diaz linked up with Jim Mayerstein in Mexico City to document his Trolleybus-inspired Bombardiers Cycles. Read on for an interview with Jim and some photos of his stunning bike, inspired by the public transport system in Mexico City!

A few years ago, I was in Mexico City and joined a group for a ride up a mountain south of town. Not wanting to be left alone on roads strange to me, I tried my best to stay together with someone and took turns pulling up the hill while trying to hide the choke the elevation had on me. This was the first of what would become many rides together in different places with my now-friend Jim Mayerstein, the most recent one being in my hometown of Hermosillo, Sonora, México, this last November. My wife Karla and I finally put together something we’ve thought about for a while: an open invitation for people local and from out of town to ride a 130 km/80 mile gravel route we call “La Vuelta a Hermosillo”, which connects several dirt roads that surround the city.

For the occasion, Jim brought his Bombardiers Cycles bike which he got in May 2024. When I saw pictures of it, it made me wanna take a trip to Mexico City’s trolleybus central for a photoshoot (you’ll understand why later on), but I made do with Hermosillo’s most iconic park, and I asked Jim about the bike and his relationship with public transport:

Hola Jim! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your approach to bikes?

My name is Jim Mayerstein, I was born in the mighty Mexico City towards the end of the ’80s and I’m a Transport Engineer (yes, that’s an actual degree). I use bikes mainly as a means of transport, because moving around Mexico City by car is very complicated and slow, so my mini-cargo commuter and the EcoBici, the city’s public bicycle system, are my best friends for the daily coming and going.

I also do a little bit of bikepacking and on the weekends I try to go on a long gravel ride. A couple of years ago I started racing in this category and I’ve been enjoying it a lot; sometimes I play XC and enduro but I can’t say I’m good at either of those disciplines. My history with bikes began around 2009 when I started working as an independent bike messenger, then a couple years later I joined some friends who put together the first bike messenger cooperative in Mexico City named Bicienvía – a story I can tell you later. I think some of them are still active.

How did you get involved in public transport?

Trains and buses have called my attention ever since I remember. I grew up in northern Mexico City near the Vallejo Industrial Zone and I remember I always wished we would get held up by a train so I could see it go by with its different cars – they seemed eternal! And I was the happiest if the train happened to stop and block the whole avenue, because then I could see every detail, every hose, every letter on the cars which I couldn’t read but fed my curiosity.

I also liked buses, especially trolleybuses and articulated buses (I lived the last years of the famous and now extinct Ruta 100), so much that on the weekends I would ask my mom to go somewhere where I knew we would have to take one of those. The destination was the same to me, the only thing I cared about was to travel in the “worm bus”, like I used to call it. Then I grew up and I ended up getting a trolleybus tattooed on my arm from which I have absolutely no regrets.

When it was time to choose what to study, I found out that the Instituto Politécnico Nacional offered Transport Engineering and I didn’t think it twice to apply for a spot, which I got, and since then I’ve dedicated my professional life (and a little bit of the personal) to work on areas related to bikes, cycling infrastructure, and public transport.

Who are Bombardiers Cycles and how did you approach them?

Bombardiers Cycles is a project of my friend Pancho Marmolejo. I met Pancho over ten years ago when I started in “the mess” of bike messengering, and there was a community bike workshop, Casa Biciteka, where we would get together for projects, events, and partying. Pancho and other friends were very active in the heyday of fixed gear bikes and they would ride with the Terremoto Crew, who were the antithesis of the more formal, well behaved cycling groups. In 2015, Pancho started his bike shop project with a focus on building bikes to the customer’s taste and needs, which was a first in its kind back in the day, when big brand stores like Specialized, Trek, and Giant were the ones with the most presence in the market in the first boom of urban cycling.

Fast forward to nine years later, after I got robbed of my bikepacking and gravel bike, I had been struggling to find a bike that met my three basic requirements: capabilities for bikepacking, room for wide tires, and the hardest and more important, those two characteristics together in a small frame for my 1.58 meters (5 foot 2). I had found options in the gravel or mtb market but nothing satisfied me a hundred percent. After talking to Pancho about this wish, he proposed to help me get a bike now that Bombardiers has its own line of road, gravel, and track bikes.

The goal was to build a bike that could do all I do: bikepacking, gravel, and a little mountain biking. In March 2024 Bombardiers Cycles presented their new titanium frame and I talked to Pancho because I was interested in one, but unfortunately the smallest one didn’t fit me so he offered to have a steel frame made in my size, which doesn’t really exist in the Bombardiers catalog, but was possible to request.

The next challenge was to have it ready in time since I wanted to bring this new bike to the 2024 Unbound and we only had two and a half months to make it happen, but Pancho was up to the challenge; the maker delivered just in time and then he tackled the paint job. I could still smell the paint when I was packing it in my bike bag to attend Unbound.

Tell us about that paint job!

One of Pancho’s greatest talents and Bombardiers Cycles’ distinctive seal is the spectacular paint jobs on each one of their bikes. With the design of my bike we also considered the paint and one day I thought that the color of the new Mexico City’s trolleybuses was very pretty and I asked Pancho: “Can we make my bike trolleybus colored?”. His mind went beyond just that and he proposed the idea of not doing just the color, but the entire trolleybus and Mexico City’s Integrated Mobility Network (red MI) concept, for which we exchanged photos, ideas, and went over the red MI’s graphic identity manuals, and with that, the Trolebici was born.

The resulting bike, besides the incredible visuals, is one that’s able to do everything I need it to. It’s very stiff and responsive on any terrain and the geometry allows for it to be built with a flat or drop bar and take it on any adventure that shows up. And of course, it’s perfect for my height and I had no issues with the fit even though I quite literally rode it for the first time on Unbound last year. I completed the maiden voyage with a third place in my category.

What upcoming plans do you have?

This year starts very active since I have the great opportunity of riding the Mid South Gravel in Oklahoma with my friends from Swift Industries, who invited me to tag along on their goal to do the 100 mile route. And after getting a first taste of it in November last year, I’m just waiting for the announcement of dates for La Vuelta a Hermosillo 2025 and return to a city that has taken me as one of theirs and provided me with love in the shape of rough gravel and delicious food. I’d also like to ride some gravel races here in Mexico although I still haven’t defined which, but in the meantime, my goal is to continue riding to stay in shape and keep the stoke alive.