Cycle Cuba

The CfA's November eBriefing

Our lovely friends at the CfA published their latest eBriefing while we were away in Cuba...

It was published on 14th November 2008 and here's what they had to say...

Day 4 - Cienfuegos – Trinidad

We had the usual mad morning rush... getting packed;  taking our luggage to the coaches;  heading down for breakfast;  having breakfast and... locating our nice clean bikes (the crew very kindly cleaned them for us after yesterday's very muddy adventures)...

We waved goodbye to Professor Winston and headed off for our 2nd day of cycling.

We set off along an undulating coastal road followed by hills, hills and some more hills.  Ha ha ha - as Janet said, "There can't go up anymore, we're already in the sky"!!!

We had a great lunch (hee hee hee - it didn't look it but it tasted great) at a local restaurant... Val and I were perched precariously at the top of some steep steps.

Just after lunch we saw a really nasty accident.  Sue was riding just ahead of Val and I when she hit a pothole (Cuba has a LOT of potholes!!!) which sent her (and her bike) flying and poor ol' Sue literally bounced on the road - it was horrible. 

She was clearly in a lot of pain and didn't want to move in any direction so we supported her weight, while Fern supported her head.  She passed out for a little while just as Doctor Sophie arrived on the scene...  They called for an ambulance and put her in a neckbrace - then poor Sue had to wait for ages for the ambulance to arrive. 

It was pretty scary - worse I'm sure for Val who had flashbacks to her own horrible accident not all that long ago.

We carried on along the shimmering Caribbean coastline all the way to Trinidad and...

...our next hotel (this time Cabin-style accommodation set in groves of fruit trees).

Today was pretty tough - there were a lot of hills but what an amazing ride, 100 times better than yesterday and we really enjoyed yesterday... and we cycled just under 100km today, yippppeeeeeeeee!!!

Day 3 - The cycling begins... Bay of Pigs to Cienfuegos

There was great excitement this morning as we all got ready for our first day of cycling...

We dressed in all our cycling gear, got our day bags ready, took our luggage to the bus, parked our bikes and headed in for a hearty breakfast...

Then it was time to get our water; find our bikes;  say hello to Professor Winston (poor man had only had 2 hours sleep but was up and raring to go with us at the crack of dawn); listen to Claude's last minute briefing and...

... then we were off...

Ha ha ha - today was VERY hot.  Someone said it was 42 degrees today so you can imagine how hot we were on our bikes!!!

The first part wasn't too bad as we were going along the coast and there were quite a few trees and large shrubs to take the edge of of the sun.  However, when we hit 11:00am all the shade vanished and it was just us and that big ol' ball of fire in the sky.

The scenery was breathtaking today - really stunning.  The terrain was not as good.  We were off road for most of today's ride and there were alot of loose stones and coral that not only made it a very bumpy ride it also tended to knock out the back wheels a bit.  Not fun at the best of times and probably worse for Val whose accident is still very fresh in her mind.

All that bumping about coupled with our lowered handlebars meant that many of us had numb fingers. hands and feet but it was great fun!

The first part of the ride seemed to take ages and we soon learned that we'd actually missed our first water stop and it was time for water and snacks (not sure what happened there but it was good as we'd already pretty much completed half of the day's ride without realising it)...

Several times along the way we were passed by trucks full of young children all waving and calling out "hola".  It turned out they were on their way to perform in a mini carnival so we had some unscheduled entertainment over lunch...

 

After lunch, we headed off on the next part of our ride.  It wasn't what we were expecting at all!!!  I've already mentioned the incredible heat so to have a long stretch of road almost impassable due to loads of HUGE muddy puddles was a bit of a surprise...

On second thoughts, it's not that strange - we were just entering the swamps... and, the country had been pummelled by some serious hurricanes (the last of which hit a week ago) so a few puddles were not really a problem.

Claude (our leader) told us to be careful and not to cycle through them as there was no way of telling how deep they were. We were good to begin with but somewhere along the line, someone (Fern, I think) took a chance and cycled through one of the puddles and then we all got braver and we had varying degrees of success in our attempts.

I think most people ended up with very muddy and wet feet - I know I did!!!

The scenery today was just beautiful - the pics just can't do it justice, it was breathtaking!

Finally, we got to a decent stretch of road and Val was on a roll, bombing along but I was struggling as I was seriously overheating and there was no shade anywhere!!!

After a while, we saw some coaches up ahead and I got really excited thinking it was a stop but it wasn't - the coaches were for a local school but, thankfully a group of our fellow cyclists had thought the same as we did and had decided to stop under a large tree anyway.

The break was just what the doctor ordered - I felt much better having poured some water on my head and on the back of my knees (thanks Briony) and we were off again...

The end of the ride was most welcome - we were all muddy and VERY sweaty but it was great!!!

   

We left our bikes behind and boarded our coaches for the transfer to our next rather colourful hotel stopping briefly en route, to take some pics in Cienfugos.

We were greeted by more happy dancing girls and mojitos at our new hotel.  Val couldn't resist the urge to join them in a bit of salsa (she may have been mucky and sweaty but she had plenty of rhythm)...

This evening's briefing was a little different as Professor Winston took to the floor, thanking us for our contribution and telling us how the funds would be used.  He was really engaing and we felt really prouder than ever to be part of the whole event.

Apparently tomorrow is going to be our longest cycling day - hope it's not as hot!!!

Day 2 - Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs)

We woke up early, headed down for breakfast and then loaded up the coaches with all our luggage and transfered to our next hotel and the place we'd start cycling from, Playa Giron (the famous Bay of Pigs - so named because of the numerous wild boar that roam about in the area).

Heading along the motorway from Havana was a very strange experience as it was pretty rare to see any other vehicles on the road so soon we were getting quite animated if we spotted a truck in the distance.  We stopped off about half way at a little motorway services place where you could buy drinks and a few soveniors...

We all got pur camera's out as we got closer to Playa Giron as it was our first glimpse of the sea so we were all spapping away through the windows... 

As we pulled into the hotel, we had our very first glimpse of the bikes we would be riding - they looked pretty impressive from a distance.

When we arrived at our hotel we were greated with mojitos and some dancing girls - very nice too!  We had a bit of time to check in, find our cabin (here we stayed in individual lil houses dotted about the place - they were basic but fine, no wildlife in our new home although the same couldn't be said for others - some had frogs and cockroaches, we were lucky) and drop off our bags before we had to be back for our bike fitting!!!

The bike fitting was pretty frustrating as it took soooooo long but to be fair to the organisers, there were a lot of us and they tried their best to accomadate everyone's preferences.  We'd brought along our own saddles and handlebar grips complete with bar-ends and this caused some confusion with the mechanics assigned to sorting out our bikes for us as they'd never seen them before and somehow managed to take them to bits and put them on in a really weird way!  Luckily for us, Val had her little bike allenkey tool (mine was confiscated as a deadly weapon en route to Paris) and we were able to put them back together and refit them.  Once we'd done this we had to get our helmets before we were allowed to test out our bikes (Health and Safety rules).  Val's seemed to work okay despite the handlebars being lower than she was used to but mine seemed to have problems with the gears so I had to see the mechanics again while she headed back to have a dip.  Sorting my gears took forever but finally they were sorted and I too headed for a dip!  Sadly all the faffing about with the bikes meant that we weren't able to visit the Bay of Pigs Museum...

The first injury of the trip occured seconds before this next pic was taken - the beautiful view distracted me and I sliced my toe on a piece of coral.  There was a bit of blood but the heat soon dried it up ;)

At this evening's briefing we heard that that Professor Robert Winston will be jetting in later tonight and that he'll be joining us for our first day of cycling.  Can't wait!!!

Day 1 - en route... Heathrow to Paris to Havana

We had an early start - up at the crack of dawn so that we could catch the Hoppa bus to Heathrow so that we could meet up with the gang...

We were there for hours (and then we were delayed :)) - everyone was in good spirits despite the wait and there was a great deal of excited chatter as we met up with some of the people we'd met on our Cotswolds training weekend as well as a whole lot of new faces including Fern who is lovely!

Finally we boarded the plane and within no time at all we had arrived in Paris where we had a good 3 hour wait... 

We made good use of the time and did a bit of shopping...  neither of us had packed a scarf (a must on our packing list) so decided to see about buying one at the airport.  Well we searched and searched and the only shops with any half decent scarves were Hermes and another designer one.  Caught up in the moment and not really thinking about the current £ euro exchange rate - we bought some very nice scarves from Hermes and Christian Lacouix!!!  (I'm considering framing mine as a work of art ;))

In Paris, I started to feel pretty ill (damn Thai meal) and continued to feel pretty peeky for the rest of the day and the entire LONG flight to Cuba and was really worried that I had the start of some dreadful bug and that I wouldn't be able to cycle...

(Photo - Julz Goldsmith) 

I wasn't very good company but luckily Val felt fine and could chat to the others on the plane.

We finally arrived in Havana that evening (it was dark already) and boy, was it hot!  Actually it was the humidity more than the heat that got us - there seemed to be no air at all and we were all sweating buckets pretty much immediately.

We collected our luggage and were met by the "crew" and then transfered to our hotel via two great big coaches. 

We had a chance to freshen up before our very first evening briefing and dinner. 

This is a nice hotel and the best thing about it is the airconditioning in our room - it's fabulous!!!!

Our adventure begins...

Our Cuban adventure has started...

We travelled down to The Holiday Inn M4 Juntion 1 and stayed overnight so that we'd be close by to the airport for our early rendevous the next morning.

On the way down, we stopped off to see Val's daughter who was in hospital under observation as it was feared that she may give birth prematurely once again (Val's grandaughter Nicole was born 7 weeks premature).

When we got to our hotel, we headed off for the most awful Thai meal ever before trying to catch some sleep (we've not got long...) 

Cuba here we come!!!!

Hurricane Paloma hits Cuba!

With just days before we're due to fly, the latest Hurricane (the 3rd of the season after Gustav and IKe) has hit Cuba...

Two short lil' 10 mile rides...

Hello all

By this time next week we'll be nearly half way through our cycling challenge... it's coming around quickly now and we can't wait...

Just to let you know... since our whopping 50-odd mile cycle on Monday we've not been resting on our laurels - we've been out seeing our students, doing some last minute collecting (we're only £479 short of our target now) and we've also done 2 short 10 mile rides....

Yesterday we went out and about around Rushden and today we opted for an old favourite, Stanwick Lakes...

I didn't take the camera with me either day so no new pics I'm afraid.  Here's on of the Lakes that I took some time ago (they definitely didn't look as calm as this today)...

We got back just as the weather turned really nasty earlier today - it was windy but the rain waited until we were safely back in the car before it put in an appearance...

We're getting ready for our trip now, doing lots of last minute stuff but we still hope to get in one last ride before we head off... so watch this space...

50.06 miles - YIPPPEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yipppppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - we did it!!!!  More wind and grotty weather but we did it!!!!

We cycled from Irchester to Rushden to Yelden and Melchbourne onto Shelton, through the Deans (Lower, Middle and Upper) to Kimbolton and back via Wymington, Poddington and Wollaston.  Despite the grotty weather it took us just under 5 hours and we both felt as if we could have done more...

Here's a pic of us after the first 30 miles - freezing outside Melchbourne church...

Great stuff - finally we can mark off the 50 mile cycle and the back to back cycles and now all we have to do is take it easy until we go in 10 days time :)

We liked it so much we decided to do it twice :)

We went back to The Brampton Valley Way today - planning to start at a different spot and do that elusive 50 miles but as ever, time was against us...

Well, to be fair it wasn't just time...  last night there was A LOT of rain and our great plan of starting off at Pitsford Water and then cycling back to Northampton before heading off to Market Harborough was doomed before we started...  We managed to go a few miles down the muddy tracks but when we saw this we knew we weren't going to make it...

Undetered, we headed back towards Market Harborough wearing our new very warm balaclavas and yellow Bloc googles - we looked a treat!!!!

In the end we did about 41 miles - and were as muddy as can be...  here's a little shot of our feet and splattered legs when we got back (the windstoppers worked a treat against the wind but were not as good against the rain - once again we had soggy feet)...

Maybe we'll finally do our 50 tomorrow...