Posts tagged “maui”  

Geoff Casey from Baron Bicycles wrote to ask me about riding in Maui. Below are my responses.

I'm going to Maui on the 24th, bringing a bike...what should I know?

Excellent. It's way less Blue Hawaii and more strip malled than you'll expect, but ride a few miles out of town and you're good. They have new bike paths along the main highway and you'll ride every ride along highways. The locals there are tolerant of bikes with some haters. I got nearly killed two years ago by an angry hippie in a bio-diesel Mercedes with a No Iraq War bumper sticker. Maui is car-centric and all those white sedans you'll see are tourists.

In our 31st Huggacast, we ride Upcountry in Maui, down an 8 mile descent, a bike path, lava fields, and meet a fixed rider on Honolulu …

I was riding in Maui, near Napili when this bike zoomed out, across the highway and ahead of me. I wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t stopped to get her mail. Later, she wrote us and said

“It was fun meeting you yesterday here on Maui.I just started riding my electric bike to my business, West Maui Wellness Center, and I have to be so careful. The issue here on the island is the lack of bike lanes. The lower road here on West Maui not only is sketchy, there aren’t sidewalks for the pedestrians and the bike lanes come and go. Everyone drives over the speed limit here, too.
Laura”

The bike is a Tidal Force with a Wavecrest Lab’s electric motor hubs. Googling the bike resulted in news that it’s no longer imported into the USA, but from talking with Laura it sounded like it was new.

More from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

That’s part of Maui experience: lots of cars, tourists, and a few cyclists.

We’re back in Maui for Winter Break, training, and riding the last batch of big miles before racing season starts. We rode yesterday and unlike the last trip, it didn’t rain on us — woohoo. We also discovered a new bike path!

I’m riding a new set of Hed wheels while here and will report on those later.

The Bike Hugger, outside his natural habitat …

Note that Pam called me pussy foot and I said, “the rocks were rough” and to “shut up.” And, “ya know I can go like 50 mph+ down a hill, on my bike, eating a bar with one hand and removing my arm warmers with the other.”

The wet, windy, and stormy weather shortened most of our Maui rides and made the trip to Hana and back downright brutal at times, especially when climbing. The road conditions make for tense riding because it’s slick and unpredictable. Where you’d normally slice through the s-curves, with body english and power to the pedals, the red clay-slicked road means your riding with the bike upright and very carefully — clay buildup is also a problem. Riding Maui in the rain, beats 40 degrees in Seattle, but it’s still rain.

In our 21st episode of the Huggacast, we ride Maui — to the world’s best banana bread stand, Hana, and everywhere else.

Download now for iTunes, your iPod, and iPhone

Carrying wrapping paper to the condo to wrap some presents from Santa …

Enjoy the Holidays all — the bike hugging will continue in 08 — thanks for reading and being part of bike culture with us.

A cool, rockabilly cruiser, next to a Hummer, on the Lahaina strip.

Before Maui rides, I’ll eat light, ride to a banana bread stand, and fuel up. Riding back from Hana, I went a little too far, and was bonking — I ate 1/2 a loaf in about two bites and that satisfied the hunger.

Getting that hungry reminded me of various bonks and eating whatever was in sight — that includes a burger once and I don’t eat beef. What’s your worst bonk? How do you satisfy the hunger after a long ride?

We’re packed and leaving for Maui on a day of pouring rain. At least, it’s not the windstorm from last year!

Check the Timbuk2 bag snugly fit in the S&S case, next to the Modal. I designed that a couple of weeks ago with the BYOB feature and it matches the hugga colors. Like the Crumpler I took to London, but more compact to fit into the smaller S&S travel case. I’ll use that for errands and a few shorter rides. Inside of it are tools, pedals, HRM, etc. Also notice on the bottom left, the green Knog Frog light.

Hugger departs next week for our annual Maui ride. We’ll ride to Hana, upcountry Haleakala, and more for about 28 hours of ride time. If we’re feeling good, we may just ride around the whole island. I’ll have the Modal with me.

Posts and podcasts to follow.

One of the fun tourist activities in Hawaii is to take a bus up Haleakala, and zoom back down. No more of that for a while as the Park Service has had to suspend the activity in light of recent accidents and 3 deaths.

For those that enjoy riding the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska Airlines announced today that they’re flying to Honolulu and Kauai. That’s great news, as is their introductory fares starting at $109.00.

A local told us that there are 4 bike shops in Maui and about 50 dudes. We didn’t meet any local dudes on our rides, but did visit West Maui Cycles and Go Cycling Maui. Good enough for me to carry half a loaf, jammed in a jersey pocket, up a six mile climb!

As much as I enjoy riding in Maui, it’s like the LA of tropical islands — everyone does everything by car and it’s as car-based as it gets. On the last day of our trip, on top of Pineapple Hill at the Kapalua Resort (another leg-breakin’ climb), a Mercedes on a pedestal showed up and I was like, damn, worship this!

The Mercedes showed up (looking very much like a Lexus) for the Mercedes-Benz Championship PGA tour event. I’m sure that’s a real nice car and people love driving it, as well as watching golf, but by that time I’d had enough of cars and construction trucks working the new resorts.

While the island is full of cars, Maui does have wide-shoulder lanes, bike route signs, a plan, and the Maui Bike Alliance. I’ll note that we had zero problems with cars and in the country, it’s like any quiet country ride, but everywhere else you’re riding along highways that are full.

In contrast to the hard work of Mr. Steepy, the road to Hana on a bike is a relaxing pleasure. That’s not to say it couldn’t be a tough day, but we rode it at a tourist pace, enjoying the curves and scenery and the more rhythmic climbs. Hana is the least developed area of Maui and a nice change from the crowded resorts.

Once every hour or so, we also appreciated our bikes even more, when a line of cars would roll by stuck behind a tourist bus with obviously frustrated drivers. We also enjoyed flying through the S-turns while they waited behind us.

Just uploaded Maui photos to the Bike Hugger Photostream. The photos include Local Knowledge, Cruiser Girl, and Bike Volcano.

As it was told to us, the 20% gut-wrenching climb on Maui’s best ride was named Mr Steepy after Lance said “man that’s steep!” during a ride with some locals. Mr. Steepy is the right name and the photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s a climb where you lose all momentum immediately and it hurts as bad sitting or standing. Nearing the top, the thoughts in my head were not, “man I can climb and I’m going to kick ass next season.” Instead it was more, “when will this end, I can’t climb for shit, a few more pedal strokes, and I’m at 187 bpm!”

In about 30 seconds of climbing, I was at max power and heart rate and it took me nearly a half an hour on the other side of Mr. Steepy to recover. The ride itself, before and after the climb, is hard and very challenging for me because there’s no rhythm to the road. Each crest, valley, and rise is a different grade, length, and road surface.

Not until the last hour and a half, with the big tailwind, and rolling it at 30 mph did I feel good — really good.