Brazil is almost an undiscovered country for the international bicycle-travel community. Long-haul South American routes go down the west side of the continent. Historically this was blamed on Brazil's roads being regarded as unusually narrow and dangerous. However, in the bikepacking era when lots of people want to ride rough tracks, not roads with many vehicles, it's odd that no such rough routes across Brazil have become popular among cyclists coming to the region from elsewhere.
I've driven along the coastline of Uruguay. Always wanted to return for a bikepacking trip. Beautiful landscape.
The western routes offer favourable climate conditions for cycling. Brazil's savannah is alright but the idea of pedalling 1000s of kilometres through the heat, humidity and mosquitoes of the amazon sounds atrocious to me.
I feel there are good reasons for it. First, it's dangerous in terms of traffic and crime. Second, it's immense and not really interesting between points of interest. I follow a couple of motorcycle bloggers and it feels underwhelming compared to the neighboring countries
Would that also apply to the U.S and if not, why ?
There are thousands of miles of bikepacking routes around the US where one will hardly see any cars, so traffic is not a big concern, nor the kind of (mostly dense urban) environments where violent crime is likely, so crime is not a big concern.
I'm interested in building a business around bikepacking. Internationally or domestic. Gear, guides, lodging, ...
Cycling through the Andes mountains is far more appealing to most people than cycling through the Brazilian savanna is, for various practical reasons. Steep and windy vs flat and tedious. Sweeping varying scenery vs close-range monotonous scenery. Sometimes cool vs always hot. Dry dirt (in dry season at least) vs muddy dirt. Less bugs vs more bugs. Less (although still quite a few) infectious diseases vs full-on tropical infectious diseases.