While this “mountain in the middle of an ocean” is as car culture as it gets, after pedaling a few minutes from our resort, we found ourselves climbing, descending, and cornering the narrow, winding roads of Maui.
Last year when were in Kihei, rode Haleakala, the winery, and along the beaches. This year in the Lahaina, Napili area, we rode what I called the “road of the Gods” and the locals call the Jim Stuart Memorial (pdf).
Over 3k feet of climbing in 60 miles and featuring Mr Steepy the ride exhilarates, breaks your legs, and finishes with a 30 mph tailwind-tempo ride back into town.
Along the way and after recovering from Mr. Steepy’s 20 percent grade, we stopped for banana bread at Kahakalua and that fueled us back to the resort.