Anyone gone to Cuba bike touring?

Or more importantly, anyone know if there is much if any off road riding 🙂 Fire road, access roads or MTB either would be good.

We’re heading there in November for two weeks and are going to bring bikes. Just debating, what bikes.

We went there a few years ago now in November and cycle toured. We took road bikes with fatter tyres. It’s a big country so best use the bus network to get to the best bits or get a taxi (bikes get strapped to roof). It was very hot – 30C and humid. We left our bike boxes in the CP we stayed at in Havana.

Stay and eat in casa particulares (CP) which are cheap with great home cooked food, avoid hotels where the food is truly awful, in fact avoid restaurants where possible as they never seemed to have anything on the extensive menus that they give you other than stringy chicken, beans and rice. Some Spanish helps.

This is an outline of the route we took over a two week holiday

Havana – bus to Santa Clara (bikes just go in the hold)
Cycle south to Hannabanilla in mountains (some off road routes here)
Cycle over Escambray mnts to Trinidad (lots of tracks here although hard going if it has been raining)
Then west along coast to Playa Giron nr Cienfuegos – there is a fire track that follows the coast, bit hard to find, its described in the Lonely Plant cycle Cuba guide if you can get hold of it but worth it as very remote
Paid a taxi to transfer about 2 hours us to Las Terrazas in mountains – lots of off road tracks here – we wished we had mountain bikes
Then along a beautiful remote road to San diego de los banos
Then to Vinales – absolutely stunning places – lots of tracks heading off, plus caves, rock climbing
Bus back to Havana

There is a guidebook called Bicycling in Cuba that was very good, the LP one was largely inaccurate

Excellent info!

I’ve managed to get a copy of the cycling in Cuba book, it’s next book in line to read after the general Rough Guide book.

We’re also going in November, so probably going to get similar weather, which will be nice! I think my partner will probably take her cross bike, so we can get some fatter tyres on that as well for some off road ish excursions.

What sort of distances were those days you did?

It’s also our honeymoon, so we’re taking a few days at the start in Havana, then two at the end, we have a week in the middle to do our riding. We’d thought about getting trains, are the bus service easier?

As for my Spanish – I can order beer….that’s it 🙂

Some days were about 50 miles or was it 80? Can’t remember! Anyway a few days of 6 hours in the saddle. Others were 40 ish. The trains didn’t go where we wanted – the buses were fine and when they weren’t going where we wanted, we too a taxi.

One other thing about Cuba – everyone is on the make and after your tourist dollar (for example kids get a kick back from CP owners if they bring tourists to a CP so you will be surrounded when you arrive somewhere, or someone will invite you into there home to offer you coffee and then try and extract as much money as they can from you for it) but usually in the nicest possible way, Just accept that it is part of being there. It’s a fabulous place, very laid back and great for cycle touring. Enjoy the mojitos.

cuba is a great place, especially once off the main tourist drag. i’d be very happy to go back and take my bike with me for some touring, roads are really bad so i’d suggest decent & spare tyres/tubes aplenty. lots of old bikes knocking about so you’ll find basic spares but i’d take anything specific you may need. also think about food/general supplies ahead – most shops are very sparsely stocked so don’t expect waitrose/sainsbury’s

Ace, lots more info.

Picked up a map, just waiting on it to turn up now. NEed to get an idea of how far we want to do each day as well. Thinking about 70-100km a day, so nothing massive. We want to be able to look around as well. Not just ride all day – this is a break from training as well 🙂

Definitly aiming to stay in CPs rather than hotels. We have a few nights in a hotel in Havana booked, but that is more as a treat near the start, and to recover from a week of family hell while at home for the wedding.

Suggestions for things that are not to be missed?

Definitely plan where you want to end up each day; I have a friend who did it and they were just seeing where they went. The problem was that not all towns are officially “open”, so some have no casa particulars, or any kind of place that tourists can eat or stay – and the government doesn’t like “non-licensed” places taking tourist dollars.

For things not to miss, make some time for beaches and the amazing scenery. Vinales is just beautiful, and going past an ox cart between the huge limestone(?) cliffs is amazing. Havana is obviously great fun, although make sure you have somewhere to lock your bike away; while you’re there, check out Playa Del Este. Trinidad is very nice, although very popular with old Europeans on package tours – also has some lovely beaches nearby.
Santa Clara I found to be a bit boring, tbh – not much going on. Cienfuegos is nice, but I wouldn’t change routes to go there.

I can’t help with cycling info but one bit of good advice we got from a guide book was to take lots of little gifts with you. You will get hassled as already mentioned but we found that just giving away little bars of soap, tampons or small sets of pencils/crayons to kids (or mothers) were just as welcome as money.

Did a cycling tour with a group a couple of years ago. Agree with posts above. Roads range from good to shocking, but are very quiet. Service stations on some of the main roads serve fantastic pina coladas.

Don’t try to do too much – it’s a huge island – and just enjoy the unique experience. We spent time in Havana (beware of getting things nicked or being offered the services of young ladies – the latter from the hotel porter). Vinales area is stunning and we also cycled around the Bay of Pigs and visited Cienfuegos, Santa Clara and Trinidad. I really liked Trinidad stood in a bar with the locals watching the two main baseball teams on TV whilst outside scores of people were dancing to salsa.

As above small gifts of soap and shampoo would go down well with the locals.

It’s a unique and fabulous place – enjoy it before it becomes (inevitably) more westernised.