Our trip to the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii took place in the Fall '97 from September 11-22.
We rode around the whole island of Maui, and up to the Haleakala crater.
We all left very early in the morning to Kula, except for May,
Tim and Calvin who were waiting for Waikiki to pick them up. We loaded with plenty of water on the long 60+ miles plus journey to
Kula. The ride to Kula was very scenic and interesting for the first half, with lush vegetation, waterfalls, road river, mosquitoes, rain
showers, uphills, and plenty of guava trees on the road. Not to mention the score of 4x4 pickup trucks passing us by, full with tourists and locals.
I was looking forward to reach the Kaupo store at about the 28 miles mark for a rest stop, juice and a food break -Peter, was the first one to get to the store,
he is an animal when he rides, no one can catch up with him.
"It's closed" he said, when I got there -I guess the locals operate on Hawaiian time. Closed? The next food and waterstop was going to be in another 20 miles.
My golly, good thing I had a good supply of candies and powerbars to get me thru the ride.
Monday, Sept. 15
We all woke up late this morning and had a great breakfast with egss, portuguese sausage, toast and fruit salad.
I had J, look at my bike bottom bracket problem but we were afraid to take it apart since we could
complicate the problem by unscrewing the bolts. The screw bolt was loosening up a little after every turn so we had to tighten it every
so often.
Time flies when you're having a good time -late in the morning, I was thinking that I would not be able to ride up to Haleakala.
Peter had already taken off at about 10:30 am and nobody else felt like going up, the long and arduos Hana road got everyone tired, except for Cecilia and Chester who were going to go for a short ride to the base of the crater.
I decided to test the bike and ride to the base of the entrace to the national park to Haleakala.
At the base of Haleakala National Park.
A 22 miles ride to the top, and a
10,025 ft. climb to the summit.
After riding for several miles, I got to the intersection of Highway 37, and the entrance at the base to the Haleakala highway, the bike felt fine and I had lunch at one of the small roadside store.
I decided to go up and started climbing up to the summit of Haleakala at about 1 pm. The ride up was going to be about 21 miles and a 10,000 ft. elevation climb to the top
-not too long after I started climbing and thinking that I should probably take it easy on the first part of the leg going up, when all of the sudden this big German shepherd dog came out from one of the side houses on the road and started chasing and barking at me like he had not had anything to eat for a few days
-fear and panic struck all at once, this puppy was ready to take a big chunk out of my nice suntan calf -well what can you do? instinct takes over and tells you to PEDAL like hell, and yell your lungs out, HEY! HEY! NO! HEY! GET AWAY! a couple of more loud heys and you hope that this big puppy would understand some mainland Spanglish.
I realized after this incident that HEY is the easiest thing that comes out of my mouth for yelling aloud when I'm in trouble, nothing else would come out of my panicky mouth.
Big doggy continued chasing me for about 30 feets, my lactic acid started to build on my legs and worst of all I was wearing my bike sandals -fresh meat exposed all the way to my shorts -I could feel the wetness of his tongue on my foot when suddenly I decided to bike across the road to the other side, where cars were coming on the opposite direction
-it was either a choice of getting hit by a car, and collect some insurance from a human, or falling off my bike and leaving myself on the road for Big Dog to chew me alive.
I stood on my bike and crank it up a couple of notches, sprinting like the finish line of a stage in the Tour de France, finally I made it safely going accross to the other side of the road, before the car coming from the opposite direction, shielded me from Big Dog, he was pretty smart not to follow me, because if he had crossed the road, he would have been history -purina dog chow on the road, the car would have hit him -he finally stopped and let me continue on my journey, more cars coming from the other side came and shielded me.
Wheew, boy what a way to start! -and I just had finished a real hawaiian lunch with guava juice, pig, poi and the whole works -Burrppp!
The road to Haleakala was amazingly smooth and the hairpin turns
were gradual and for some reason I felt good climbing it. Cars passed
me and people in the cars waved at me on the way up and on the way down, yes I was still climbing when some of the cars that had passed me earlier were coming down. It took me 5 hours to get to the top. I had to stop several times to tighten the bolt on the bottom bracket of my bike, as it kept loosening up and making noise. At about 4:30 pm at the 7,500 ft. mark, I saw Peter already descending on his bike on the way down.
We stopped and chatted for a couple of minutes and he warned me about running out of sunlight if I did not pick up the pace.
Sunset was predicted at about 6:15 pm for that day. When I got to the 9,000 ft. mark, I knew I was going to make it all the way to the top before sunset. I was afraid that at some point I had to turn down if it got too late and dark. Finally, I got to the top at about 6 pm.
At the top of Haleakala. Lots of clouds below me.
I was happy I had done it, since I have never climbed this high before. You could see the clouds below you.
It was like being in heaven. The view was just great, I took my camera and took a few shots. I rode to the top of the summit, another 0.3 miles, of steep grade and wind, but nothing could stop me now.
It was getting cold and it was very windy when I got to the top.
There I saw a group of Japanese tourist at the top admiring me in amazement that I had climbed this high on my 20 inch wheel Gaerlan bike -they must have passed me a couple of hours earlier because they seemed to recognize me.
This australian girl even took a picture of me and couple of people shook my hand in admiration, congratulating me. That felt good. I had a chance to see the sunset but did not hang around long enough to enjoy more of the view at the top.
I was there for about 30 minutes and I started my descend to the bottom from the summit at 6:30 pm. It was very windy and cold coming down for the first few miles.
The sun was setting down really fast now -time was of the essence. By 7 pm it was pitch dark. I put my rear blinkers and my small headlight on my bike. I started to slow down, trying to adjust to the darkness as I knew that there were lots of cattle grids on the road.
These grids are there to prevent cows roaming on the road as they are afraid to get into them and breaking their legs.
These grids are dangerous for a bike. If your wheels get caught in the wrong angle in one of these grids, you can easily go flying over the handle bar and kabooon!! -your body will look like raw hamburger -If you are coming at a high speed and crash, you might as well pack your bags and be ready to meet St. Peter at the pearly gates.
After descending for about an hour my batteries started draining and my front light was getting very weak. At this time all of the cars that were on the top of the summit had passed me, there were no more cars coming down.
They provided nice lighting when they were behind me and acted like guides as long as I could keep up with them going down. Somehow along the way, after a blind curve, I almost hit a black cow grazing along the paved road. I don't know who got more scared, me or the cow, because I saw that cow jump out of the way at the very last second while I veered to my left.
That's what happen when you ride a well oiled Gaerlan bike -smooth and quiet like silk. Visibility was poor and I could not see more than 10-15 feet in front of me -when I think about that incident, I think it was funny, the only other time I have seen a cow jump like that on his two rear feets that fast and with that jerky motion is when I was little and used to watch cartoon on TV.
I was lucky it was a full moon and I was getting some moon light, but on some parts of the road the moonlight was blocked by the mountain side or clouds. As I kept on coming down, I noticed that there were more and more cows on every turn, that's when I got scared -any bulls around?, for some reason at night when it is dark and quiet those cows look BIG and scary when they are so close to the road
-I was afraid I was going to hit a cow on the next curve on my descent so I started pulling my brakes more often and yelling like a wild dog from that point on all the way down to let cows know that I was coming down so they better move out of the way. Did it help? -well I managed to move cows out of the road and I did not crash, neither did I produce kill or made ground beef.
It was a very scary experience. I was glad I made it to the bottom of the hill and home to the Silver Cloud Ranch by 9:00 pm.
It had taken me 2 1/2 hours to come down on that descent under those conditions.
By the time I got to the Ranch, everybody had finished their enchilada dinner and were about to send a rescue team and look for me -that's what my buddies said, but when I first got in the house into the dinning room they all seem like they were having a good ol' time, laughing, eating and drinking beer.
-I was glad to be back. Interesting experience, I'll never forget.
Two things I learned: a) When the sun sets, it sets very fast. b) Cows are big and scary at night, they also afraid to die too.
Tuesday Sept. 16
On this day we rode to Kihei. Easy ride since it was downhill for
most of the first half. We passed many sugar cane fields on the
way there. The total ride to our next hotel and rest stop for the night was about 30 miles. It was an easy ride.
We stayed at the Aston Maui Lu. We arrived there by lunch time and
headed to the Ukelele Grill restaurant next to the hotel. The lunch
was cheap and good.
In the afternoon some of us rode to the Grand
Wailea Hotel heading south. Magnificent hotel, a place where you
would want to spend your honeymoon. The normal rate is about $300 to
$380 per night. Had a few drinks at the bar by the pool -compliments of Calvin.
Our waitress, a gigly brazilian girl, kept on telling us that everything on the drinking chart was good. She seemed like she was stoned or something, -that's what too much pakalolo will do your head. -the kiwi drink that Peter had, tasted more like medicine.
At night time we headed back to the Ukelele Grill where some of us had the prime rib buffet dinner or the local catch of the day.
Wednesday Sept. 17
This morning, May, Peter, Tim and I went snorkeling to the beach.
The rest of the gang rented a car and headed towards Haleakala in the morning to watch the sunset. Calvin and J rode their bike from the base of the crater up to Haleakala.
Our snorkeling adventure did not turn out too good.
The water got very rough at about 11 am -May, Peter and Tim had to be rescued by life guards after a couple of waves knocked them out to the rocks.
Everybody escaped only with minor cuts on their legs from the rocks -May lost one of her snorkeling fins.
It did not seem like that dangerous, but when you think about it.... good thing the life guards were around, you just never know when you are in the ocean and the waves get rough. That was a close call.
We headed back to the hotel and ate at a local hawaiian place. We sat by the pool at the hotel and at night we went to a Korean restaurant next to the hotel.
We were snorkeling near by the big black rock.
The waves got big and rough all of the sudden.
Thursday, Sept. 18
This morning we rode to Lahaina about 20 miles ride. Along the way
we stopped at mile 14 where we all did some snorkeling at a local beach
-except for Timmy, who was busy reading all of the financial articles he had brought with him. The water was not very clear but we could see lots of fishes in the water. Cecilia even saw an octopus. After this we headed to our hotel, the Maui Islander at 660 Wainee St.
Had a late lunch at Tiny's, (he was actually a big Hawaiian dude!) -they served good kalua pig. I did some riding later in the evening and watched the sunset from the waterfront on Front street just accross an open busy bar.
What a great spot, watching the sunset and listening to a live band from the bar play old melodies.
At night we headed to dinner to Local Boys, a Hawaiian hangout.
I must have had too much too eat because that night I was not feeling well -I think I had indigestion -but luckily I had my chinese pills (pau-chey-huin).
I took some of those little pills and in the morning when I woke up, I was like a brand new person again -never leave home without them. This is the only chinese medicine that I take along when I travel, it works!
Friday, Sept. 19
This morning Cecilia, Calvin, Chester, May, Peter, and I went to the Black Point beach near the Sheraton where we snorkel for the entire morning.
Cecilia Ng and Jay went out on their own to explore the nearby surroundings.
Timmy, we don't know where he went, he had his own agenda.
The Black Point beach was nice and the water was clean, the beach was deep, and you could feel the waves. I rented one of those floating vest to keep me from sinking for about $5/hour, it helped a lot as the waves were strong and also getting the prescription googles made a lot of difference in the water -look colorful fishes! -before that, it was all a blur.
At night everybody went different directions, some of us went for sushi, others went back to Local Boys and some others opted for chinese food.
At Black Point Beach. Cecilia G, Chester, Peter, Calvin, May and me.
Saturday, Sept. 20
We headed back to Kahului in the morning, about a 30+ miles ride.
We followed the north coast passing Kapalua. The first half of the
ride was scenic with up and down rolling hills. Chester had one of
those bad days on his bike with couple of flats along the way. We reached
the Maui Beach hotel late in the afternoon. We then went to the Foodland
market for some take out appetizers of sashimi and poke.
At night time we went to this local place where I had lau-lau for dinner and to my
surprise after our meal for dessert time, there was a big cake for my birthday that my cycling buddies brought along,
-Mahalo everyone, and a gag gift in the form of a woman's nipple that fitted well on my soda can.
Big surprise since I was not expecting it -my birthday was not until the following day. Thanks again everyone, that was a real surprise.
Sunday, Sept. 21
At the last minute, this morning I decided to fly to Honolulu from Maui, (the fare was a little over $100 for a round trip) to visit my good friend Edmund, whose father was very sick at the local hospital.
I'm glad I took the time and went to Honolulu to see him, since it was the last time that I saw Edmund's Dad before he passed away a few months later -he was a very cool person, a very hawaiian laid-back kind of guy.
Later in the day Edmund and I went out for a car drive and lunch to Kim Chee #2 for bbq ribs and beef. I ate at this place the very first time when I went to Honolulu.
The place is still good after all these year. Later at night, we had a real hawaiian take out dinner at the hospital break area room with Edmund's mom and brothers before I flew back to Maui later on that night to rejoin the group.
On the way back I bought a famous island hapauia (coconut) cake to take back to my fellow cyclists for dessert.
Monday, Sept. 22
Last day in Maui. I had to get another plate of poke one more time before I
left town. I went to the Foodland market and got some sashimi and poke to go. I ate it all later on my way to SF, believe me it was the best food in the plane that day.
I rode my bike to the airport, packed my back and luckily enough my bike box, "golfs bags and clubs sir", as I told the local guy who checked me in at the counter, went thru without any problems or the $50 charge that they usually charge for oversize items.
Sometimes you just have to be charm with those local islanders. It was a nice trip back and another superb bicycling adventure with great people.
Everybody's bike came back ok to SFO except Tim's. Shit happens! But he got it delivered to his home by United the next day, which is not a bad thing -home delivery.
Aloha!
