Para Esas Mujeres, Una Opportunidad Fantastica

More than 120 years ago, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle has done more than anything else in the world to emancipate women.  She certainly had a point:  Cycling itself gave women freedom and mobility we hadn't previously experienced.  It also led to less-restrictive clothing than women had previously worn which, of course, freed us in all sorts of other ways. I mean, I simply can't imagine living in a whalebone corset and petticoats.

Still, the bicycle's potential for emancipating women hasn't come close to being realized.  While I still wish that women's racing would get the attention it garnered, say, 30 to 35 years ago (in the days of Rebecca Twigg and Jeanne Longo), I think the real power of cycling for women lies elsewhere.

One example is in VeloCuba in Havana.  Three years ago, Nayvis Diaz left her job in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and sold her Peugeot car to finance the opening of this rental and repair shop.  All of its seven employees are women, including Dayli Carvo, who once raced for Cuba's national team. 

One of VeloCuba's employees works on a bike.

In addition to repairs and rentals, VeloCuba also conducts bicycle tours of the Cuban capital.  "We place great emphasis on knowing historical matters," Diaz says of her guides, who conduct tours in English, French and German as well as Spanish.  "We are very keen for our visitors to discover art, architecture, new places they can go at night, and learn about Cuban society," she explains.  

VeloCuba has, in its brief history, expanded to two locations--one in the central neighborhood of Vedado and the other in Old Havana.  It has not arrived at its success, however, without running through a couple of obstacles. 

One is something that even the expertise Diaz gained in her old job couldn't resolve:  how to get bicycles.  In spite of its relatively rich history of cycling, the island has no bike industry.  So, VeloCuba has had to buy bicycles from tourists visiting the island.  

The other is that for more than half a century, Cuba, like other Communist countries, had no advertising. Even today, there are few advertising venues. The shop's clientele, therefore, has been built mainly through word of mouth. At the risk of sounding sexist, I daresay that is something we, as women, rely on in so many areas of our lives.

In addition to bicycle rentals and repairs, VeloCuba repairs and maintains wheelchairs--for free.  Diaz sees it as a way to "offer some help to society."

The goodwill she is creating may help her to realize another dream she has:  that "one or two days a week, only cycling is allowed in the city."

I think Ms. Anthony would approve.

The Tour Of The Pearl Of The Antilles

Now that the United States seems to be on the road to recognizing that Cuba does indeed exist (Was it just some black hole from which a species of aliens called "Cubans" came? So that's why we have that prison in Guantanamo!), it's hard not to wonder about the future of cycling there.  

Of course, American groups have been taking bicycle tours in Cuba for years--under the pretense of "cultural exchange" as, officially, Americans aren't/weren't allowed to visit Cuba as tourists.  Everyone, it seems, who's gone on such a tour there raves about it:  The roads are quiet, there are plenty of places to stay, the people are friendly--and it's cheap, once you get there.  Hey, I could be enticed into going there.  All I'd have to do is get myself and my Spanish in shape.  About the latter:  I recited a short poem by Federico Garcia Lorca in the original at a recent poetry reading, and all of the Spanish-speakers understood it.  A few even complimented my Spanish afterward.  So maybe I'm better in that category than I thought.  And the rides I've taken lately have felt really good.

Anyway, in cycling the word "tour" can refer to the kind I've mentioned:  riding, seeing the sights and mingling with the people.  But there is another kind of "tour", as in Le Tour de France or other multi-day races.  Unbeknownst to most norteamericanos, "The Pearl of the Antilles" had its own multi-day race that covered much of the island.

Poster of the 1969 Vuelta a Cuba, by Jose Papiol.

La Vuelta a Cuba was held for the first time in 1964 with Sergio "Pipian" Martinez winning.  He would take four of the first six editions of La Vuelta.  Not surprisingly, most editions of the race were won by Cuban riders--and, until 2002, the only non-Cuban winners came from Soviet-bloc countries.  That year, Italian Filippo Pozzato of the Mapei-Quick Step team took the honor; the following year, Todd Herriot became the first and only US rider to win.

The race was not held from 1991 until 1999.  Although no one seems to have said as much, that suspension may have been a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, which probably funded much of Cuba's cycling program (and much else in the country).  Races throughout the former Soviet bloc met similar fates during that time.  Some were discontinued; others, like the Peace Race (which ran through Poland and the former Czechoslovakia and German Democratic Republic), held on for some years but finally succumbed to the difficulties of finding funds after state sponsorship disappeared.

Somehow La Vuelta de Cuba was revived in 2000.  It was held every year until 2010.  In all, the race was held 35 times.  (There was no race in 1970, 1975 or 1982.)  Sergio Martinez's four victories were exceeded only by the six Eduardo Alonso attained, in 1984 and every year from 1986 through 1990.