Trans Cuba “Ciclo Temba Version”

Ciclo Temba (Middle-Aged/Old Cyclist) is a great way to do a fully supported end-to-end Cuba bike ride in the company of like-minded riders. This tour takes its own sweet time and deliberately skips the longer stretches of the “Full Monty” Trans Cuba Sportive event to allow time to savour the varied and often spectacular Cuban countryside. With daily rides ranging from 40km to a maximum of 100km, the availability of the support bus means that riders have the option of riding all or part of the distance planned for any given day.

Given the length of the ride and the relatively good quality of the roads, a road bike is required. Skipping some of the longer stretches of the Trans Cuba Sportive will leave time for a visit to Santiago, the lively and beautiful port city known as the Cradle of the Cuban Revolution as well as to nearby Cobre, the home of Cuba’s patron saint, La Virgen de la Caridad. This ride will allow for dallying a little more in these and other Cuban cities and towns and to experience Cuba in way that escapes most visitors. The youth cycling club in Las Tunas, for example, will host us for a traditional Cuban Barbecue and we will be able to meet ordinary Cubans in smaller towns all along the way to the far west of this fascinating and largely unspoiled island.

See it all: Holguín, the city of leafy parks and plazas; Baracoa, where Columbus first made landfall in 1492; Guantánamo and Caimanera, overlooking the United States Guantánamo Bay Naval Base; Santiago, Cuba’s most Caribbean city; Bayamo, where Cuba’s first war of independence from Spain was launched; Las Tunas, a city of artists and public sculptures; Camagüey, whose confusing city streets were deliberately laid out to foil invading pirates; Trinidad, a living museum of colonial architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site; Cienfuegos, a stunning seaside city known as the “Pearl of the South”; Pinar Del Rio, a centre of tobacco growing and cigar production; María La Gorda, a diver’s paradise in a secluded location on a great beach near impressive mangroves; and, Havana, Cuba’s imposing capital city and the home of the spectacular Malecon, a broad seaside esplanade running for 8 kilometres from Old Havana past some of Havana’s most iconic buildings and monuments.

This ride is a photographer’s dream. It begins in the very east, ends in the far west and, in between, provides an un-paralleled opportunity to ride through an incredible variety of landscapes, micro-climates, protected biospheres and large and small urban environments and to meet everyday Cubans where they live.

There are hills and rolling countryside on this tour so a reasonable basic level of fitness is recommended.