The Coyote's Bicycle TR by Kimball Taylor

Product Details

• Publisher: Tin House (2017-01-10)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 408 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781941040621
• Item Weight: 476.28 grams
• Dimensions: 20.96 x 13.34 x 2.69 cm

For readers of Jon Krakauer and Susan Orlean, The Coyote's Bicycle brings to life a never-before-told phenomenon at our southern border, and the human drama of those that would cross.

It wasn’t surprising when the first abandoned bicycles were found along the dirt roads and farmland just across the border from Tijuana, but before long they were arriving in droves. The bikes went from curiosity, to nuisance, to phenomenon. But until they caught the eye of journalist Kimball Taylor, only a small cadre of human smugglers—coyotes—and migrants could say how or why they’d gotten there. This is the story of 7,000 bikes that made an incredible journey and one young man from Oaxaca who arrived at the border with nothing, built a small empire, and then vanished.

Taylor follows the trail of the border bikes through some of society’s most powerful institutions, and, with the help of an unlikely source, he reconstructs the rise of one of Tijuana’s most innovative coyotes. Touching on immigration and globalization, as well as the history of the US/Mexico border, The Coyote’s Bicycle is at once an immersive investigation of an outrageous occurrence and a true-crime, rags-to-riches story.

About the Author

Kimball Taylor is the author of Return by Water: Surf Stories and Adventures, as well as, Drive Fast and Take Chances: Fair Warning from Surfers. He’s a long-time contributor to Surfer Magazine. Taylor has co-authored history books on Pipeline and Jeffreys Bay. Taylor holds a BA in Journalism and a MFA in Creative Writing. He has taught writing courses at San Diego State University and is an alumnus of The Squaw Valley Community of Writers.