[RBW] A. Homer Hilsen in Cuba [Trip/Ride Report]

[A. Douglas M.]

Very cool trip! Thanks so much for taking the time to write down your thoughts 
and take some pictures. 

Do you have any better pictures of the bike and the LKLM rack? 

I found myself thinking my legs and that ferry have a lot in common. 

Best,

Aaron 

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[RBW] A. Homer Hilsen in Cuba [Trip/Ride Report]

[Cameron D.]

I thought I'd take a moment to throw up some photos and a description of a 
trip I did earlier this Spring. Myself and several friends flew to Cuba 
with our bikes and spent about a week "light touring". This post has a bit 
about the logistics of traveling in Cuba, but I'll try and focus on the 
riding! I didn't realize until I started to write this, but I didn't take 
*any* classic "nice profile of the bike and good scenery behind it" 
pictures, but there are a few with the bike at least somewhat in it.

Traveling to Havana

We left Los Angeles, flying to Panama first, with 6 people and 6 
haphazardly packed bikes (it was the first time flying with bikes for most 
of us). In Havana all six of us got off of the plane... and so did three of 
our bikes (not my Rivendell). The Havana airport is small and fairly 
disorganized, but eventually we were able to talk to some helpful employees 
in the baggage area. After a phone call to Panama they ensured us that 
someone had seen several large boxes being put on the next flight to Havana 
which would arrive in a few hours, and that those boxes were *presumably* or 
bikes.


Carefully lined with clothing and spare parts.


We were worried but we didn't have any recourse so we got a taxi to our 
AirBnb/Casa Particulares -- in Cuba the government runs a system called 
"Casa Particulares" which could be thought of as an offline AirBnb. 
Residents can register with the government that they have a room(s) 
available for travelers and then the government maintains an index & 
certain standards. It's common to just arrive in a town and find a house 
with the casa particulares symbol, but we chose to book our places through 
AirBnb to reduce how much cash we needed to carry (no American CC in Cuba & 
even converting cash can be inconvenient in the countryside) and to ensure 
we'd have rooms for all of us without splitting up (no cell phones either!).


This was the backyard of where we were staying the first night. A little 
goes a long way in Cuba.

We went back to the airport a few hours later, but still no bikes had 
arrived. We talked to people in a front office and then a back office and 
were still being assured the bikes would arrive. We gave the airline our 
"address" and they said they'd put the bikes on a taxi once they arrive. 
Addresses in Cuba are more of a description of the house name & the closest 
intersections (our taxi had stopped and asked around in order to find our 
house), so this extra step seemed to me like just another way for our bikes 
to get lost.

Luckily that evening two more bikes arrived, leaving just one MIA. And then 
sometime in the middle of the night a taxi delivered the last bike!

All bikes arrived without any damages, except for one little issue on my 
Hilsen. When I'd removed my seat post I hadn't re-tightened or removed the 
collar bolt & nut. The loose nut that should be held captive in the riv 
frame had vibrated off and disappeared (there were plenty of little 
puncture holes in the box). We'd all brought miscellaneous spare parts and 
one person had a nut which fit my bolt, but wasn't wide enough to be held 
captive by the frame. I used a flat head screwdriver to kind of hold it in 
place against the frame while tightening the bolt and it seemed to work 
(hah).

Havana to Soroa

We left the next morning and within a mile my jimmied nut had proved to be 
too loose and my seatpost dropped (I have no issue with Rivendell sizing 
philosophy, but my Hilsen is still quite a bit too small for me so I ride 
with my seatpost pretty extended). I tried just tightening it as I had the 
night before, but I think I stripped the nut some or for whatever reason 
couldn't get it to work. Of course this happened right next to a busy 
market so plenty of people were around to watch us struggle. Luckily when I 
looked back into the random bolts & nuts bag, this time I found exactly the 
right size nut and the problem was solved.


Our first Cuban breakfast. Most breakfasts served by our hosts were very 
similar, but we quickly started telling them the could omit the ham.





The only other mechanical issue of the day, and luckily really the last of 
the whole trip, was when following another bike down a long-ish/steep-ish 
descent and I failed to see a rock in the road. I tried to u