Our 2024 Bike Tours   This newsletter will focus on sharing information on our winter 2024 tour season which will be based in Holguin.  We will be returning to two of our favourite tour routes both in eastern Cuba, Guantanamo Mango and Celia Sanchez - registration is now open . But first, let me share some of the photos of the Fat Mary Tour we led last winter.  This was the first tour of 2023 for us during our two glorious months in Cuba leading 2 different bike tours with 25 riders.   This bike tour began with us meeting with the Matanzas youth cycling club on the first day of our tour.  Bicycle Breeze donated custom team jerseys for the club, and our riders donated 2 large bags of bicycle equipment to keep these kids riding.  Then we cycled on to Havana which is a truly exceptional experience with so much restoration having taken place in recent years.  Next, we continued west to the Town of Soroa, in the low hills west of Havana, an...

News from Cuba: 2022-23 Tours Going Great! Our winter 2022-23 tour season is already underway. There have been two Bicycle Breeze tours to date, with lots of smiles all around. In this newsletter, we will share some photos and stories from these tours, and present two more options for joining Bicycle Breeze on a 15-day bike tour of Cuba this winter. Despite what you may have seen or heard, there is ample evidence that you can travel safely to Cuba and have a great time while you are there. We are fortunate to have a great team with Bicycle Breeze to make a cycling holiday in the warmth of Cuba this winter a reality. Beth and I will be in Cuba for most of the months of January and February 2023. Follow us on Facebook to see our progress and adventures in photos, and videos. The First Tour - Guantanamo Mango Tour of Eastern Cuba On December 7, 2022, Bicycle Breeze tour leaders Jim Michler and Sharon Silva completed the 12-day Guantanamo Mango Tour with a group of 22 riders.  ...

Travel to Cuba this Winter Cuba has been open for tourism since November 2021 and has had a very successful launch of its tourism industry which is critical to its prosperity. Our tours last winter were a blast. This year there will be several more tours running and almost all hotels on the island are now open. Canada has maintained the Cuban travel advisory at the “take normal precautions level” for a long time now. There is no reason to expect this to change. So the government’s advice against travel is long gone – something many travellers were looking for. I am often asked if Cuba is safe. It’s the safest place I travel to and the best place to cycle as drivers are particularly courteous and gently toot their horns to let you know they are about to pass. Cuba itself has maintained one of the highest numbers of vaccine doses per 100K of the population in the world and has over 90% of its population fully-vaccinated including children over 2 years old. There are no Covid testi...

  Lee’s Cuba Bike Tour Newsletter Summer 2022 Happy Summer Everyone! People often ask me what the weather is like in Cuba during the winter – it’s pretty similar to our Canadian summers. In Cuba, November to April are the dry months, with average daytime highs around 25-28 Celsius and lows around 19-20 Celsius. The ocean is warm for swimming at 25-30 Celsius. All together, perfect for cycling, swimming, and sightseeing. And yes Cuba is a safe travel destination, made better by the support of Bicycle Breeze who support you from arrival to departure with a team including your tour leader, a Cuban cultural tour guide, bike mechanic, bus driver, and a support team in Havana. Information provided before you depart and daily briefings during the tour will keep you informed of what to expect, and support you with practical advice to make your tour a success. In this newsletter first I want to remind you to check that your passport expiry date has not passed. With travel challenges, m...

  Cuba Bike Tour Newsletter - Spring 2022   Thank you to everyone who reached out to wish me well and help out as I recovered from eye surgery this winter. The result has been very good, so good in fact that we are leaving for Mallorca Spain this week to enjoy Spring cycling carrying over from our winter cycling fitness and some indoor spinning.   As promised in the Winter Newsletter, we have completed the full-length version of our Fat Mary / Maria la Gorda 2022 tour video. A link is provided below along with a summary of the planned repeat of this tour in January 2023. We hope the video leaves you excited to try a bike tour in Cuba yourself. Fat Mary Tour 2022 – The Video Get a bag of popcorn and a beverage and check out this video. We screened it on the weekend with the tour riders and they were very pumped to re-live their 15-day adventure. Here is the video -- > Fat Mary Tour 2022 Full HD   Western Cuba Tour – “Fat Mary / María la Gorda”...

Cuba Bike Tour Blog & 2023 Tour Plans - Winter 2023 Beth and I have been fortunate to get out and travel – it’s not as easy as it used to be but it sure is worth the effort. This blog shares some information on our recently concluded Fat Mary Bike T our in Cuba, and announces our three upcoming tours for 2023 . Fat Mary Tour 2022 – The Story We spent early January 2022, in Varadero Cuba getting back in shape after a few months off the bike, getting tanned, and losing some winter weight. It was all going well until I noticed that my eyesight was getting worse, I was seeing birds flying across my vision at the speed of a UFO, and one day at lunch I realized I could not see in the lower quarter of my right eye. We traveled to Havana and with support from Peter and Ana at Bicycle Breeze I went to a retinal specialist at the world-famous Instituto de Oftalmología Ramon Pando Ferrer (Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology). They confirmed my fear that I had a partial retinal tear. ...