# Oman Tandem Cycling Vacation



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

My wife had a conference to attend at the Shangri-La resort just south of Muscat, Oman. Fortunately her conference was just prior to her school’s Spring Break, so a two day conference dovetailed into an eight day cycling holiday.
This first series of photos (one borrowed) starts with pic’s of the Shangri-la Resort in Barr Al Jissah that is located just South of Muscat. There are three separate hotels in this resort; the Al Waha, Al Bandar, and Al Husn that are 3, 5, and 6 star hotels. The resort was located in a good place for cycling, as it was outside the city with great cycling routes from the hotel. The staff was super accommodating with regards to providing storage for my bike. My wife and I stayed at the Al Bandar hotel; second pic shows the entrance to the hotel, followed by photos of the lobby and luggage storage room. I spent a few hours in the luggage storage room during my stay. The hotel let me build my bike, store my bike, and disassemble my bike in the luggage room.
In the past I’ve posted a few tandem ride reports, but I’ve never gone into any detail about travelling with my tandem bike. During the Oman trip I took a few photos while putting the bike together, and packing the bike into the travel cases. This was the second trip that my wife and I travelled separate routes, and I had to bring the tandem as my only luggage. Business class travel, and frequent flier status luggage allowance, allowed for 45 kg of checked luggage. I managed to sneak by with 50 kg of checked baggage. My tandem is pretty heavy, but it was all the cycling clothes, helmets, shoes, and other accessories that really add the weight. The last series of photos shows my tandem in various stages of assembly.


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

My stoker and I had several days of cycling, so I thought I would just segregate our photos into separate categories; cycling the Cornish of old Muscat, cycling new wide roads, cycling old narrow roads, scenic photos, and tandem team photos.
This series of photos I snapped while cycling along the Cornish in old Muscat or Mutrah. My first two days of cycling were done solo, as my stoker was attending a conference. The local people were pretty surprised to see a tandem bicycle, and with only one rider. I had some contact with the Muscat Cycling club prior to my visit, and was informed there was one tandem team that cycled with their club. One day while out driving I saw a touring tandem team cycling from Nezwa to Muscat; this team must have had some real fun climbing the mountains with a loaded tandem.


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

This series of photos shows the new wide roads that can be found between Muscat, Al Bustan, and Barr Al Jissah. Some of these roads are so new they are not yet visible on Google Earth maps. My stoker took a lot of the photos while we were cycling, so please excuse the pilot helmet infringements. I guess when my stoker said “duck”, I should have leaned down further instead of making quacking noises!


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

This series of photos shows the narrow roads between Barr Al Jissah and Al Seifa. The majority of our rides were in this area, and we never cycled more than 80 kms during a single ride. This was my stoker’s first week of cycling this year, and the temperature was over 100F by late morning. We also wanted to spend the afternoons enjoying other activities; SCUBA diving, desert driving, and exploring Muscat. On most days we were lucky if we set off by 08:00, as the buffet breakfast was just too good to rush.


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

The following photos show various scenery that we passed while cycling. The geology was really interesting in this part of Oman.


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

Of course you need the bike photos to complete any ride report. I thought the last photo was required, as it explains why a sock was rapped around the shifting cable in the fourth photo. Yes, we had a mechanical failure during ride three; the front DR cable broke just below the DR. My wife had the brilliant idea to route the DR cable straight back to the back bottom bracket; as the broken cable was too short to reach the DR if routed under the pilot’s BB. This routing worked really well; only had to remove the front water bottle and cadence sensor. The cadence sensor pad and sock stopped the shifter cable from rubbing the frame. Good enough to get 40 km back to the hotel, where I had a new shifter cable in my travel spares.
I hope you enjoyed the photos! I would highly recommend Oman for cycling, or a non cycling vacation. The Omani are quite friendly, the food was good, and Oman has a lot to offer for vacation adventure.


----------



## MB1 (Jan 27, 2004)

Oh, man!

(Someone had to say it and that someone might as well be me!).


----------



## jupiterrn (Sep 22, 2006)

Wow, very nice trip. What cases are you using for travel? I like them a lot.


----------



## GeoCyclist (Oct 31, 2002)

*S&S Travel Cases*



jupiterrn said:


> Wow, very nice trip. What cases are you using for travel? I like them a lot.


My apologies for the slow reply; I haven’t been on this forum for a while due to distractions from work. 

The cases are made by S&S machine; the same company that makes the bike frame couplers. I bought my cases from Precision Tandems. The cases are fairly light, and have proven to be quite robust. I wouldn’t try to use these cases without a pair of stiffeners in each case.


----------

