Trans Cuba Ride 2018

Didn't want to hijack Mariah's Mt K thread, so starting this new one about a ride I just learned about yesterday.  This year, last 17 days of March, I did a cross-Cuba bike ride, 950 km in 12 days, designed for Americans to meet our country's travel restrictions. The company that puts it on is Canadian, has been doing tours for about 15 years there. In 2011, they started a "Trans-Cuba Sportif", meaning all 1600 km from Baracoa in the East biking every mile to Cabo San Antonio in the west." Next year, they are planning to set up this cross Cuba ride for US citizens. The ride we did was a "de-tuned" version of the full monty, and left me hungry for the Full Meal Deal. The American leader (there will also be: a following 44 seat bus with expert, knowledgeable driver, a Cuban "mechanic", who is actually an ex-racer, and a gov't employed guide) will be a guy I met on this year's tour, and became friends with. He's a couple of years younger than I, and ex-racer, who's a little faster than me, but nonetheless is a really great/fun guy. And, oddly for someone who lives in the total flat lands of Central Illinois, he's an amazing climber.

Anyway, he wrote last night telling me about this upcoming tour, and wondering if I or anyone I knew, wants to go on it. I am seriously thinking of it, for a number of reasons:

• Good opportunity to meet up with Tony again
• Cuba is a great place to bike in late winter - weather just like Hawaii, but the dry season
• Roads are uncrowded, what few drivers there are make room for cyclists, who outnumber motor vehicles
• Route goes East-West, direction of prevailing winds.
• Foreign country with a hint of the rogue - they're still Communists! - but the people are uniformly friendly, unthreatening, and love life. Music, color, laughter.

The tour is not finalized, so you can't sign up for it yet, nor is there any formal web-site itinerary to look at. The dates are probably sometime in late Feb or March. Here's an article written in 2011 about that year's ride:

https://canbicuba.com/translation-ciclo-temba-old-cyclist/

This would be great for a RAAM vet looking for his next challenge (Dino?) or someone with new found time on his hands who loves pretending he's doing a stage race (Coach R?)