"TOUR de BELIZE" - Mountain Bike Race
Tour de Belize: a new kind of Mountain Bike Challenge
Friday, 17 February 2006
The Auxillou family led by Captain Ray Auxillou this week announced the Tour de Belize Mountain Bike Race for the Auxillou Challenge Trophy.
In the planning for four years, the Tour de Belize Mountain Bike Race will be a race like no other , heading upwards and onwards into the Belizean Alps.
This is not a race for bicycling wimps, declares Auxillou with a touch of bombast. We are going to start this first year easy - on logging roads the whole way.
But in the coming years we plan to go off the roads into the more difficult terrain, over jungle tracks. Without a mountain bike you wont be able to make it.
The first leg of the Tour de Belize starts at the Falconville Back Pack Adventure Hostel in Hillview, a suburb of Santa Elena, Cayo District.
It ends at a 3,200 elevation, high above the Sibun Gorge. Riders will pass close to the Hidden Valley Falls (height 1,600 feet) and Baldy Beacon radio towers via the Cooma Cairn Road.
The second leg is from the Sibun Gorge headwaters in a downhill run from 3,200 feet to 800 ft. elevation, along the Brunton Trail to the forestry Village by the Rio Frio Caves and the Rio On Rapids.
The third leg will be from the Forestry Village campground back to Hillview.
If you dont drop out on the first day, you can make it all the way, because the first day is the toughest.This is where we separate the wimps from the survivalists declares Captain Auxillou.
The entry fee for the race will be $50.00. Half of that will be pooled for cash prizes.The other half goes for advertising and other costs associated with the race.
Businesses are invited to donate cash for prizes, sponsor special trophies or individual riders.
Each race should finish early enough that contestants and supporters will have time to set up camp, explore the area and take in the grandeur of the wonderful vistas overlooking the interior plateau jungles.
In typical tough-talk Auxillou lays out the rules of the road.
As country people and sea people, we believe strongly in self reliance and preparation. There will be no back up if you pop a tire, or run out of water, or any other fool thing.
You break down up in those mountains, you can walk out 30 miles on your own two feet! Survival of the fittest!
Each contestant is expected to have a repair kit, sufficient food and water, anticipated First Aid supplies and sleeping gear.
Adventures abound throughout the natural beauties of our Belize. Many youth have never seen the magnificent pristine beauty of the wilderness areas of our remote Belizean Alps. This is one way of getting them up there, high in the beautiful mountains.
As a footnote, Ray Auxillou adds:
The Auxillou fam-ily wants to give something back to Belizean youth of a new generation. This country has been good to us. We work hard but we also play hard.
The Auxillou extended family of Caye Caulker by the Barrier Reef and Hillview in Cayo District are donating the Annual Perpetual Trophy and some 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. The perpetual trophy will be called the Auxillou Challenge Trophy.
Tour de Belize: a new kind of Mountain Bike Challenge
Friday, 17 February 2006
The Auxillou family led by Captain Ray Auxillou this week announced the Tour de Belize Mountain Bike Race for the Auxillou Challenge Trophy.
In the planning for four years, the Tour de Belize Mountain Bike Race will be a race like no other , heading upwards and onwards into the Belizean Alps.
This is not a race for bicycling wimps, declares Auxillou with a touch of bombast. We are going to start this first year easy - on logging roads the whole way.
But in the coming years we plan to go off the roads into the more difficult terrain, over jungle tracks. Without a mountain bike you wont be able to make it.
The first leg of the Tour de Belize starts at the Falconville Back Pack Adventure Hostel in Hillview, a suburb of Santa Elena, Cayo District.
It ends at a 3,200 elevation, high above the Sibun Gorge. Riders will pass close to the Hidden Valley Falls (height 1,600 feet) and Baldy Beacon radio towers via the Cooma Cairn Road.
The second leg is from the Sibun Gorge headwaters in a downhill run from 3,200 feet to 800 ft. elevation, along the Brunton Trail to the forestry Village by the Rio Frio Caves and the Rio On Rapids.
The third leg will be from the Forestry Village campground back to Hillview.
If you dont drop out on the first day, you can make it all the way, because the first day is the toughest.This is where we separate the wimps from the survivalists declares Captain Auxillou.
The entry fee for the race will be $50.00. Half of that will be pooled for cash prizes.The other half goes for advertising and other costs associated with the race.
Businesses are invited to donate cash for prizes, sponsor special trophies or individual riders.
Each race should finish early enough that contestants and supporters will have time to set up camp, explore the area and take in the grandeur of the wonderful vistas overlooking the interior plateau jungles.
In typical tough-talk Auxillou lays out the rules of the road.
As country people and sea people, we believe strongly in self reliance and preparation. There will be no back up if you pop a tire, or run out of water, or any other fool thing.
You break down up in those mountains, you can walk out 30 miles on your own two feet! Survival of the fittest!
Each contestant is expected to have a repair kit, sufficient food and water, anticipated First Aid supplies and sleeping gear.
Adventures abound throughout the natural beauties of our Belize. Many youth have never seen the magnificent pristine beauty of the wilderness areas of our remote Belizean Alps. This is one way of getting them up there, high in the beautiful mountains.
As a footnote, Ray Auxillou adds:
The Auxillou fam-ily wants to give something back to Belizean youth of a new generation. This country has been good to us. We work hard but we also play hard.
The Auxillou extended family of Caye Caulker by the Barrier Reef and Hillview in Cayo District are donating the Annual Perpetual Trophy and some 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. The perpetual trophy will be called the Auxillou Challenge Trophy.