Posts Tagged ‘racing’
We’ve told you about a half-marathon versus a volcano, an eco-challenge versus another volcano, a kayak race out at sea, an impossible trail race, grueling cycling contests, and a triathlon pitting athletes against a beast! Indeed, the Caribbean offers a great many opportunities for active travelers to test their mettle competing in some very uncommon sporting events. La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge is certainly no exception.
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Every so often you hear about these crazy thrill-seeking adventurers who, for reasons known only to them, attempt to trans-navigate the Atlantic Ocean alone. I’m not talking about people with good sense enough to make the attempt by sailboat either. I mean looney brave souls bent on making the journey by kayak or canoe.
This Friday at 6:00 am, one of the world’s great participatory active travel experiences, La Vuelta, will begin anew. The start and finish lines are in Old San Juan. In-between, riders enjoy, or endure as the case may be, a 375-mile cycling trek around the entire circumference of Puerto Rico. Longtime readers of Uncommon Caribbean may remember the Saturday Video post we published on the event back in October, but with the race kicking off this week, let’s take a look at three lesser-known Caribbean cycling adventures…
John T. Memorial Cycling Race, Anguilla
With its posh resorts, tiny size (35 square miles) and amazing sun-kissed beaches, Anguilla is one of the last places you might expect to find a cycling race in the Caribbean.
Boat races are a dime a dozen in the Caribbean with virtually every destination hosting a regatta at some point each year. Many of these races have their own special local charms and traditions that make them well worthwhile for culturally curious travelers. As for the others, well, let’s just say that if you want to rock a silly Capt. Stubing hat, you’ll fit right in.
So, where should you go for a uniquely Caribbean boat race experience? For me, the French Caribbean island of Martinique, home to the annual Tour des Yoles Rondes (Yole Boat Race), is the best choice.
The photo above gives you some idea of why.
Recently, I wrote here about my surprise at learning of a professional rally race in Jamaica and my desire to head back to JA to check it out. Well, now it seems I’ll have to expand my travel plans as I just heard there’s another Caribbean destination where I can get my auto racing fix – Trinidad & Tobago.
The Trinidad & Tobago Rally Club actually puts on a Championship Series each year, with 7 races contested between February and October. Their biggest race, Rally Trinidad, is held in March and attracts an international field of drivers from Barbados, St.
As Patrick alluded to earlier this week while waxing poetic about his favorite Ting, I love traveling to Jamaica. Lucky for me, my day job takes me there a few times a year. Still, I’m always on the look-out for new excuses to head back more often. The latest - Rally Jamaica.
Growing up in St. Croix, I had always been aware of the Caribbean’s unique “car culture” and its extension into drag racing (we’ll get to that another day). However, I never knew that organized rally racing existed in the region ’til my last visit to Montego Bay earlier this year.
It would be quite easy upon visiting Tobago to surmise that little here is taken very seriously. The entire place seems geared around having a good time, which was all well and good for me when last I visited in March.
That summation, however, would be fasle, and the photo above is proof.
You’re looking at the new state-of-the-art racing facility located in the small town of Buccoo, on Tobago’s Leeward Coast. That racing would be taken seriously to the tune of $100 million (the facility’s cost of construction) somewhere in the Caribbean is not altogether unusual. Horse racing, sailing regattas, triathlons and other tests of speed and endurance are contested throughout the region each year.
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