The Valley Morning Star
NUEVO PROGRESO, Mexico - South Padre Island BikeFest will not be leading a guided tour across the border this year.
That is, there will be no official, sponsored BikeFest ride to Mexico. But there is nothing to prevent the hundreds of bikers from going on their own or organizing their own groups to visit this border town.
Merchants here hope that is what the bikers will do: ride to Nuevo Progreso for a day of music, dancing and food.
Businesses in this tourist town have been feeling the economic recession that they say has been exacerbated by new passport regulations.
Organizers of BikeFest, which starts on South Padre Island today, canceled the 12-year-old Mexico Fiesta Run, scheduled for Friday, citing safety concerns and those new document regulations, which went into effect June 1, according to the SPI BikeFest Web site.
Event coordinator J.G. Garcia said scores of bikers called his office asking if they need a passport to re-enter the United States.
For that reason, plus reported shootings and violence in some Mexican border towns, event organizers decided to call off the cross-border run.
"It’s up to the (bikers) to go to Mexico, but BikeFest canceled the event this year," Garcia said. "I don’t know of any bikers going across. But we are telling them that if they go, they should have a passport."
A passport is one of several documents that U.S. citizens must present when re-entering from Mexico and Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean.
The new regulations were approved as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which stemmed from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
But Eddie Perez, a spokesman with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Brownsville, said no U.S. citizen will be denied entry into the United States even if they don’t have a passport with them.
"We will need some sort of identification, though, to prove their status," he said. "That might cause a delay, but they will be allowed to come back."
Garcia said that more than 400 BikeFest participants made the trip to Mexico last year.
Businesses in Nuevo Progreso look forward to the influx of a large crowd.
For the last five years, a group of merchants and avid bikers organized their own version of BikeFest, which they call Biker Fiesta. The event~will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, roughly the same dates as BikeFest.
Despite the gloomy outlook, Nuevo Progreso merchants are optimistic.
Signs of "Welcome Back USA to Mexico Biker Fiesta in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico" are taped to utility poles and store windows. Organizers of the local event said they will hold many activities with or without their U.S counterparts.
"We hope to see several hundred bikers this weekend," Jesus Bautista Villarreal, president of the Los Tequileros, a local bike club, said. "We know the passport regulations are going to impact us, but we are hoping for the better."
Villarreal owns Las Flores Inn, the home of the bike club and the headquarters of the annual event.
Federico Gomez, the local chamber of commerce’s assistant director, said businesses should have a good turnout this weekend, even without the official sponsorship.
"Our merchant community has been operating at 20 percent of its capacity," he said. "They depend largely on the tourism industry and this Biker Fiesta could provide a much needed shot in their arms."
Among the many events scheduled for this weekend include folkloric dances, live music, motorcycle drags, a pig roast, wet T-shirt contests, an acrobatic show and a ride to the nearby town of Rio Bravo.
