Hermes

It was a really fun race that we would do again. We were 6th out of 77 in the open tandem category all ages, genders and racing levels. And they start everyone racing together based upon race distance versus race category. So all the racers doing 55 Km started together including the tandems.

We did the race at the end of the cruise since we did six week vacation beginning with a cycling trip to Mallorca Spain and then spent a week in Newport Beach training at the Velodrome. We then went to Tahiti a couple days before the race.

At the start of the race, the tandems lined up next to the road but going the wrong way with all the single bike riders lined up in a conventional manner behind the start line. When the gun went off, we had to go the wrong way until we could file onto the course and go to the start line. This took about 45 seconds. We should have been at the very front of the tandem line but there were continuous changes to instructions where to line up.

For us, we time trialed the 55 Km and passed a lot of racers on single bikes and tandems. The main peloton broke into two groups, We saw them with motos after they made the turnaround coming the other direction.

The course is out and back, very scenic with good roads and fast. There are no real terrain differentiators except for one power climb that is steeper on the way back that I am sure the fast guys will kill on the return leg. So it may make a difference if one cannot hang on or chase back on during the descent. And as I remember, on the return after the climb, the descent flattens out into a round about.

I have ridden in Europe many times but I had not raced a course with round abouts. The guys on TV make going fast through a round about look easy. And it is easy but at 25 mph or more, it is a fast left and immediate right or other combination depending on where the course goes. The tandem is more beastly so I slowed down a bit but it was still fast. The course is not technical exempt for the round about intersections that are police controlled for the race.

We pre-road the race course the day before the race so we had an idea of what to expect.

The cycling cruise was a lot of fun and there is excellent riding on all the islands. It was much better than we expected. It is probably better to cruise before the race than after since one has time to recover from jet lag and can use the days before to get used to the heat and humidity. Of course, our weather right now is mimicking that of Tahiti.

Pre ride the course.



Pre-race





Getting the bikes from the ship to land



Bora Bora: Dinner on remote island



After dinner return to ship