Going travelling to bolivia...

However as a general rule, if a company is opting to run tours on cheap Chinese or Chilean made bicycles, then they are also unlikely to be bothering to use experienced and knowledgeable guides. Good giveaways are: Front and/or rear suspension make by JST, Block-shocks, or, even more revealling, without a brand-name on them, or bikes with no front suspension at all. Reliable and safe suspension forks are made by: Rock-shoxs, RST, Manitou, and Marzocchi ... note that the other companies are trying to imitate these brand names, but these cheap imitation forks are designed for children riding around cities; they are not designed for serious riding down serious roads or trails. Failures of these kinds of forks are common, and potentially disastrous!

Chinese- and Chilean-made bicycle brands such as Santosa, or Bianchi, are generally of lower quality, and again designed for children riding around cities, not serious riding. Come companies try and hide the fact that they are using these cheap, potentially dangerous bikes by painting over the brand name, or replacing it with another name that sounds better (as a hint, Shimano is not the name of a bicycle brand -- it is the name of a brand of bicycle parts!). Reliable brands currently available in Bolivia include Trek, Cannondale, Kona, Raleigh and Specialized. If you aren't being offered one of these brands be warned that the quality standards on construction and parts selection are likely to be questionable at best. Cheap, low-end parts will often also confirm whether a bike is of poor quality, or if the bike was once of good quality, short-cuts have been used in maintaining it. Shimano Alivio and Acera-X level derailleurs (the mechanism that moves the chain from gear to gear on the cogs) are low level, cheap components that do not cope well under harsh conditions. More reliable models are Shimano STX-RC, Deore, LX or XT.