Training Log Archive: revy

Day two of the Hana ride. We left at 6:30 (as soon as the sun rose) and had a pretty quiet road for the first 1.5 hours. It is a steady climb for the first 15-20 km and the road becomes winding very quickly. Being on the bike was great for stopping at interesting spots (it seems many of the pullouts near bridges say no parking now). The weather was quite unsettled and we got rained on multiple times (sometimes quite heavily). Luckily it was warm and as soon as the sun reappeared we would dry out fairly quickly. It is challenging to take pictures in these sorts of conditions - my glasses were fogged up for most the morning. We detoured to the Kenae peninsula but the famous banana bread stop is closed on Sundays. We stopped after about 50 km and lost half a banana bread to an aggressive chicken. The last section of the hwy was pretty straight but had a shoulder, then about 10 km through the back streets of Haiku.

C • Nice GPS tracks! 3

C • You had me at... 15

When we were in maui several years ago and drove the East Maui loop I thought it looked like an amazing bike ride. The biggest challenges are traffic and length. To manage both we decided to break the ride into two days which meant paying an exorbitant price for a place to stay in Hana (though it was worth it). Our Haiku accommodation was very well situated to start/finish the ride. The busiest section of road was just after Makawao although it had a very broad shoulder and after 4-5 km we were able to deke onto a quiet side road which paralleled the hwy. In Kula we stopped for some refreshments at Grandma's Cafe and then continued around the island on the Plane Highway. This section was super nice - quiet, perfect pavement, swooping, little wind and nice views. Once we turned the corner the views changed to wild windswept coastline - the same wind would now be in our face for the rest of the ride. The next hour was the worst although the first few km were downhill so the headwind was less of an issue. An occasional vehicle passed us but otherwise we felt way out there. Once back at ocean level we had a couple very stiff climbs that were exacerbated by the headwind and then we started the rough pavement section. Luckily the wind was not as bad here and the rough sections were never longer than a few hundred meters (though did continue for a 5 km section). We had plans to refuel at the Kaupo store but it was closed. The next 5-6 km were gravel (which was actually easier to ride than the broken pavement) and our 28c tires handled it with no issues. The road is again stunning as it weaves in and out of valleys just above the crashing surf. Past Kaupo everything starts to get lush again and the waterfalls were flowing at a very high rate (it must have rained heavily up high). There were a couple very impressive cascades - it was also very impressive to see how far out into the ocean the brown runoff extended. The final portion of the ride has many more houses with well tended gardens, and then finally near Hana there is some pastureland. I think everyone was happy to be done the ride as despite only being 100 km there was a lot of climbing and many punchy hills in the last half (though the first 800 m of climbing were super easy).

Papalaua Beach paddling - we headed towards Thousand Peaks but a rogue swell cause some carnage with lost sunglasses and snorkel so we headed back in the other direction. We found a nice snorkeling spot (where a snorkel boat showed up after 15 minutes - we seem to be finding the usual spots that the boat tours head to as they are the calmest spots for paddling). Saw lots of turtles... played in the waves after getting back to the beach.

Morning run with Courtney on some farm tracks to an ocean viewpoint for the Jaws wave. The wave only shows up in certain swell conditions so we were not expecting to see it... just wanted a nice spot to run off the roads.

Makena Landing Beach Park paddle. We showed up and the parking lot was full with kayak tour companies confirming that this is one of the calmer spots on the coast. We were a bit late already for the calmest conditions but we managed to make it a few km northwards before turning back. We found a beach that was water access only and spent some time snorkellng in a sheltered spot.

We drove to the summit of Haleakela and hiked the Sliding Sands trail down into the "crater". i put it in quotes as it is not a true volcano crater, rather it is from erosion. Hawaiian volcanoes are shield volcanoes and start are large mounds...

The summit was sunny though the clouds were sitting on the edge of the crater. The scenery from lower in the crater was worth the descent (and climb back up) as views were more impressive than from above. Didn't feel the elevation too much.

Pre-departure run with Milo on the greenbelt. The trails were surprisingly wet from the rain last night. The weather forecast is looking like we've timed our trip to Hawaii perfectly... hopefully we will have lots of snow to play in when we get back in two weeks.