Pointe Venus is a low finger of black volcanic sand poking into the Pacific just north of Papeete, and it is the gentlest start you could ask for on a lap of Tahiti. The coast road, the RDO as locals call it, runs straight through Mahina, and a short side lane leads out past the casuarina trees to a car park by the beach. Arue and Pirae, the suburbs of the capital, are a few minutes behind you, so you arrive here still half in town traffic and with the whole island ahead.
The name is not a tourist invention. James Cook came ashore on this point in 1769 to watch Venus cross the face of the sun, a measurement that was supposed to help work out the distance between the earth and the sun. Nearby stands a memorial to that expedition, and the lighthouse on the point has been a navigation mark for ships feeling their way toward the reef passes for well over a century. A little further along, a monument recalls the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries in 1797, which shaped a great deal of island life afterwards, including the hymn singing you may hear drifting out of village churches on a Sunday.
For a rider the interest is mostly in what surrounds the stop. The sand is dark and hot underfoot, so boots are better than flip-flops if you want to walk to the lighthouse, and the water is shallow and calm enough on the sheltered side for a proper dip. Morning is best, before the trade wind picks up and before the day-trippers from the capital arrive. Light from the east lifts Moorea on the horizon in a way you will not see after lunch.
Practicalities are simple. Mahina is a real town with several thousand residents, so fuel, a bakery and a cold drink are all within a couple of kilometres, and you should top up here rather than gamble on the sparser stretches of the east and south coasts. The road surface along the north shore is good, the speed limit is low, and scooters and the island's brightly painted trucks, the famous le truck buses, share it with you without much hurry. Treat it as a warm-up lap, and keep an eye on the sky: afternoon showers can arrive suddenly, and the painted road markings go slick when they do.