Cuba

My Cuba biking trip is finished. I was away, with my 1983 Schwinn bike (bought in Hanoi on my last bike trip), from the UK for 32 days and spent 27 of them in the saddle. I covered 1463 miles (2340km) with a total vertical ascent, according to Strava of 39,231 feet (well over 7 […]

Safety Well the Canadian cyclists like coming here because it’s a lot safer than countries like Mexico for their winter training and I suspect the Americans will be in the same boat personally I never felt threatened once, you tell folks to sod of and they do! Yep Cuba offers good cycling I never got bumped […]

Saturday I decided to make myself a walking tour of Havana, Lamar went off to explore the film festival since he is in TV production and with Gaia maps running I went of to try and never walk the same street twice 🙂 At the world famous, because of Hemingway, Ambos Mundos hotel I found […]

I spent Thursday meandering around Vinales, just about every house offers accommodation so if you are told the town is full take it with a bucket of salt! The town is popular with walkers going up the hills and around the tobacco farms. In the evening I was wandering around wondering where to eat when […]

Written early Thursday 3 December On Tuesday I left Pinar del Rio and managed to bike the 82 miles to La Bajada on the western tip of the island overlooking Cancun in Mexico. So I now have biked the length of the island from the South eastern corner at Baracoa to the North Western corner. […]

After some thought I decided to get back to Havana along the Cuban motorway system it was about 6 miles further in distance but offers a much better ride. I left Matanza on a very long slow climb but at least with motorway gradients you can always bike up, the road was pretty well deserted […]

Early Sat 28th November After our breakfasts I departed leaving the Dutch couple to enjoy there free day going around the nature reserves whilst I set of to find the museum and Playa Larga. The museum door was open but alas it was closed and wouldn’t open for another 20 minutes or so (Lonely Planet […]

Very early Thursday 26th With yesterdays 100 mile epic ride from Trinidad to Playa Giron I now have over 1,000 miles on the clock 🙂 OK, the conditions were favourable with temperatures in the 20’s and a good wind most of the day, smooth empty roads, and with the nearly 3000 ft of climbing mainly […]

I’m now over halfway in time and folding my paper map (Michelin 786) into two exactly in the centre of the island 🙂 although I don’t intend doing another circular tour like along the South Coast so should be quicker to the top of the island. Although I want to stop a couple of days […]