Rodala

You find it by ear. Walk down Sarandí, the pedestrian street that runs through the heart of Ciudad Vieja, and at the corner of Pérez Castellano the music reaches you before the doorway does: a purple-and-yellow pedal trike with a speaker mounted on top — the MusiMóvil, a fixture of this city's bike culture — parked at the entrance, playing people in off the street.

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Inside is a proper industrial warehouse: steel trusses, skylights, a mezzanine, old bicycle wheels hung high on the walls. On a Saturday like this one there's a bike-polo court marked out with cones on the concrete, plywood boards leaned upright for sideboards, and a row of flea-market stalls selling used frames, second-hand jerseys and boxes of parts. Strung across the mezzanine, a hand-lettered banner delivers the house philosophy: «EN BICI YA HABRÍAS LLEGADO» — by bike, you'd already be there.

A cultural center, under construction, in use

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Rodala calls itself a skate track, bike workshop and cyclist bar. Its driving force, Pedro Brito del Pino — the man behind the MusiMóvil — introduced it at a national sustainability expo in June 2026 as a project aiming to become Montevideo's first cultural center devoted to active mobility.

What you'll actually find, for now, is a project caught mid-gesture — and that's the charm of it. The warehouse operates in an early state: the skate track is still being built, and the doors open for one or two events a month rather than on a fixed schedule. The plan, as Brito del Pino tells it, is to finish the track, open every weekend, and eventually run a weekday bike workshop. Rodala is raising its funds through socios fundadores — founding members recruited from the same community that fills it on event days — so every gathering doubles as a construction milestone.

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If you go

Rodala sits at Sarandí 263, corner of Pérez Castellano, its entrance right on the pedestrian stretch — an easy detour from any walk through Ciudad Vieja. There's bike parking inside on event days. Dates are announced on Instagram at @rodalauy, and the cycling ones also surface in our Montevideo events calendar; Rodala also takes part in Sábados en Ciudad Vieja, the program that animates the old town's streets once a month. If the doors happen to be shut, you'll at least have had the walk — and if you hear music coming up the street on three wheels, follow it.

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