He biked 1,200 miles along the historic Juan Bautista de Anza Trail. Now his trip is a documentary

Luis Valle is an artist, architect and bicyclist.

And, in his new documentary "Anza 250," he rides more than 1,200 miles along the historic Juan Bautista de Anza Trail to mark its 250th anniversary this year.

The trail winds from Mexico to what would become San Francisco; de Anza carved it out in the late 1700s, paving the way for generations of settlers to come.

For Valle, it was a chance to better understand his adopted country of Mexico. He’s from Spain and moved to his wife’s home country of Mexico.

The first chapter of "ANZA250" screens at Arizona State University this weekend. It’s official release is next month.

And, he told The Show, he was looking for interesting routes to ride.

Full conversation

LUIS VALLE: I was looking for excuses for riding and learning while riding, which is the core of this project in the end.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

LUIS VALLE: So, everything was put together like, this is the perfect moment for riding, which is what I like most, and the moment to do it in a more important way.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so this is the time to do it. So you decided to do it. ... Tell us about the history of this trail. This was the Juan Bautista de Anza Trail. It’s 1,200 miles long, and it goes back, you know, 250 years. Tell us about Juan Bautista de Anza, and like how this whole thing began.

LUIS VALLE: Well, I’m not the perfect historian here, but of course, when you start studying something like this to prepare a route, and to create a cycling route from scratch — which is what is happening here — you start to investigate a bit about the personage.

So, Juan Bautista de Anza was a military man, and at the time when he decided to create a new route between what was the area of nowadays Sonora and Arizona, he went to Mexico City asking for the favor of the viceroy for doing a biggest expedition. And in the end, with more or less 200 families from Sonora, from the area of Tubac, and whoever was interesting to join, they all went together to what is now San Francisco. ... And they finally set the final place, March 28th of the year 1776.

LAUREN GILGER: 1776, all right. So, I mean, 1,200 miles of bike riding is a lot, and you started there in Sonora and made it all the way up through California, almost to the to the top of the state. Tell us about some of the standout moments in your mind, in your memories of this journey, some of them maybe the more challenging parts. I can’t imagine this was easy.

LUIS VALLE: In fact, the 1,200 length is only for the American parts. There is a tiny segment in Sonora—

LAUREN GILGER: So it’s even longer!

LUIS VALLE: Yeah, it’s a bit longer. Not that much, but more or less 1,400 miles.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow, OK.

LUIS VALLE: But, but yeah, after 1,200 miles, two more hundred, it’s not that bad. So, yeah, the Arizona segment wasn’t the worst part because it’s really flat. So, from the moment I crossed the border in Nogales, everything was perfect. It was flat, in fact, slightly going down up to Yuma. But while riding the Arizona part, which was really peaceful, very mindful, I was fearing the mountains in the California leg. So, I completed the California leg the last month, in March 2026. And I don’t know what weather there was at the time in Arizona, but we had a huge and unexpected heat wave.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow, yes!

LUIS VALLE: For all March. And, for example, riding in big cities as LA during this heat wave was terrible. Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh, man, I can imagine, yeah.

LUIS VALLE: Yeah, that was even worse than climbing several mountains in the desert, which also happened in Southern California.

LAUREN GILGER: Worse going through the big cities during a heat wave. Fair enough, fair enough. I mean, was it worth it? Did it feel like at the end of this when you rode into San Francisco and had gone through, you know, all three legs of this massive journey, did it feel like this was, you know, the kind of journey that you thought it would be?

LUIS VALLE: Of course it worth it. Yeah. I mean, the problem with these rides is once you finish it, you are planning the next one. ... So, this is what is happening right now. I have a family here. I have my wife and a son and a normal life here in the city. So, there is a challenge in planning projects like this while your family is waiting for you. ...

But my idea for the future is to motivate them to join me and do some type of family cycle trip somewhere ... with this kind of connection with history and more than only riding.

LAUREN GILGER: So you have lots planned, even with the family. I love that. I want to ask you lastly, Luis, about your drawings that you did throughout this journey as well, because you’re also an artist, you’re also an architect, so you draw buildings. And you kind of do these spontaneous kind of sketch-type drawings as you’re sitting and watching these landmarks go by. Why do you do that? What did it bring to this journey for you?

LUIS VALLE: Well, I like to travel, right? So, when I was younger, I took a lot, hundreds of photographs of one place, a tiring amount of photographs. And after every trip, I had to spend a lot of hours in front of the computer retouching those photographs to create in the end perfect photographs like the other perfect ones you could find in internet of the same place. ... So, at some point, I decided to register less images, but increase what those images represent for me.

... So, when I was studying architecture, I had several subjects about sketching, drawing, as you can imagine. But after that, for years, that part of me was almost forgotten. So, I wanted to bring back that part, and I connected it with the idea of when I’m drawing, for example, for an hour in a important spot, I’m not only seeing, but also using the rest of senses. So, when I see every sketch I’ve done, I not only remember the place visually, I also remember sometimes the flavor if I was eating something —

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

LUIS VALLE: The company if I was with more people, the smell, everything.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

LUIS VALLE: So, yeah, I believe it’s a a more concentrated way of remembering places. And as this phrase — at least in design — "less is more," I believe that phrase applies also here.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well, it’s a beautiful way to look back on it. That is Luis Valle, an architect, artist, cyclist. The documentary is "Anza 250." Luis, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on completing this. It’s amazing.

LUIS VALLE: Thank you so much for this moment to share the project, Lauren.