Long story short: We are expecting in June 2006, we wanted to take a 'babymoon' before the chaos came, we decided on Hawaii. When telling people we were going to Hawaii, I frequently heard that "you have to do the ride down Haleakala crater". There are many tour companies which will take you to the top of the crater with a bike, and let you ride down -- about 38 miles or so of essentially continuous downhill. But after doing some research, I began to realize that these tours were fairly restrictive -- you have to stay with the group, the bikes are hybrids or mountain bikes (heavy and slow), and worst of all, you have to wear a motorcycle crash helmet. For me the whole point is to go down as fast as possible, so I just couldn't see the point of doing it this way.

(Ahem... so much for the long story short. Anyway...)

The solution to this problem was obvious: rent a bike and get my wife Shirley to drop me off at the top, from where I could go downhill in the fashion to which I've become accustomed. However, there was one serious drawback to this approach -- Shirley was 6 months pregnant, the top of the crater is at 10,000 feet, and the reduced oxygen content is bad for the baby (so we had read).

Thus the plan was hatched to first ride up the crater, and then go down (in the fashion to which I've become accustomed). I found a small bike shop that leads crater tours for masochistic cyclists; they would provide the bike and support; all I had to do was show up. The question was whether I was up to the challenge. 10,000 feet is a lot of elevation gain, but I've done centuries with that much climbing. It's a sustained climb, but I've done those too, and Haleakala never gets really steep for very long. The only really new element was the elevation; previous rides I'd done with lots of climbing built their elevation gains with shorter uphills followed by downhills, so although at the end of the day you've done a lot of climbing, you've never really gotten up that high in the atmosphere. Haleakala is different -- it's a sustained climb with no downhill, straight up to 10,000 feet.

But after doing relatively little riding over the past 8 months or so, I'd been getting back into shape, and though I would like to have had more time to train, I felt that this was within my reach. If nothing else, I figured whatever shape I was in now, it was the best shape I was ever likely to be in to attempt this feat. I wasn't expecting to keep my cycling form once the baby came, so this was going to be my best shot. I signed up for the ride.

I had been riding pretty regularly for the past few months, but I could tell I wasn't in the shape I'd been in the previous year, when I participated in a 2-day group ride from Fremont to Yosemite. I knew I needed to train; unfortunately, I only had about two weeks before we were to leave for our vacation. My only real serious training for the climb was a ride up Mt Hamilton. (Perhaps I would have done more had the weather been better, but it seemed like it rained nearly every day around that time.) Hamilton was the closest thing to Haleakala I was familiar with. It is also a sustained, gradual climb, but it still pales in comparison to Haleakala. It's about half the distance (18 miles), the elevation at the top is in the 4,000 foot range (altitude effects not particularly noticeable at this level), and it has a couple of downhill sections which give you a breather on the way. Still, it's a challenging climb in itself; I knew if I had real trouble on Hamilton, then Haleakala was probably out of the question.

So, the week before we left for Hawaii, I rode up Mt Hamilton. In the end I did fine; the ascent took me about 2 hours and 10 minutes. In my best shape I have probably done it in a little under 2 hours, so I wasn't that far off. But most importantly, I felt good at the end of the climb. I was as ready as I was going to be for the crater, and it felt like that was ready enough.

One more thing before we skip ahead to the day of the ride: a few days before we left for Hawaii, we had a monthly pre-natal visit, and we asked whether the elevation at the top of the crater was a risk for Shirley. Surprisingly, our NP said we would be fine; after all, Shirley would be driving up and not exerting herself much, and wouldn't be there all that long. So in the end we could have done plan B (rent a bike and drive up to the top ourselves), but by this time I was already psyched about doing the climb anyway, so we stuck with the up & down plan.

Anyway, the night before the big day, Shirley still hadn't decided whether she would even come with me or not. The ride was fully supported anyway, so I didn't need any additional help. But the morning of the ride she woke up early with me, and decided to at least drive to the start of the ride with me, and probably partway up at least.

The weather was nice and we made good time at the start, without wearing ourselves out. I don't recall the exact route, but the essence of the route is the Haleakala Highway, which ultimately took us to Haleakala Crater Road, the main part of the climb.


We started in the little town of Haiku, and made our way to the Haleakala Highway, and soon we turned onto the Crater Road. The sign says 22 miles to the top, but the mile markers only go to 21, and (believe me) we were watching the mile markers carefully, so as far as I was concerned, it was 21 miles.

By 10:45, a couple of hours later, we were already at the first main rendezvous point at 4000 feet. That's me in the yellow jersey and red helmet, and Colin in blue.




Here you can see one of the downhill groups going by -- the roadies call them 'ducklings' because they go the whole way down in formation. I think about 10 or 15 of these tours passed us on the way down; everyone was very friendly of course and there were lots of jokes about how we were going the wrong way. (Check out the crash helmets too!) I'm glad I saw these groups coming down -- it was confirmation that doing my own descent was the right choice. Anyway, Shirley met us there and took some photos; Donnie also came and we packed on more food and water as well as extra layers, and continued on.



View of the western part of Maui from Haleakala. This is where the grade goes up to 8%.

Here's about the best view we could get down into the crater. Not a great shot, but then I wasn't really there for the view!

(Check out this 9-second video clip -- Shirley is cheering us on with a cowbell. Notice how Colin still has enough energy to wave to the camera. Me? Not so much...)

But of course we did make it -- here I am, totally spent, but I'm at the top! What a great feeling.

And we'd had pretty good weather the whole way up... but that was about to change. It was about 2:50 when we got there, about 6 hours after we left.

Here are a few shots at the summit.

I don't have photos of the rest, but while we recuperated briefly at the top, a fog came in, and that turned into a light drizzle; by the time we had recovered and were ready to head back down it was raining. Although I don't really enjoy riding in the rain, it didn't bother me too much; what worried me was that it was pretty cold. I put on all of my layers and we headed down; we felt pretty sure that once we got below the clouds it would dry up. We did get below the clouds, and the rain abated for a while, but then it started up again... and the fog rolled back in, and it pretty much rained the rest of the way back to the bike shop. At one point the visibility was quite bad -- no more than 20 feet I would guess. But in the end it wasn't that bad -- although it didn't dry up, it did at least get warmer, so although we spent the rest of the ride in the rain, it was a warm rain and we weren't uncomfortable. (Although for the first half of the descent I had a fairly serious attack of the shivers, probably more from a sugar deficit than from the cold.) And what really surprised me is that in spite of the wet conditions, the quality of the roads was excellent, traffic was light, and we were still able to fly down at a pretty good clip. I estimate the descent as far as Pukalani (I think that's where we stopped to fuel up again) took us about 45 minutes -- definitely no more than an hour. From there we just went straight back to Haiku, arriving at about 4:30.

So, as I like to say -- 6 hours to go up, and 45 minutes to come down. Even though it rained most of the way down it was a total blast, and totally worth the effort to go up. At the end of the day, I was tired and hungry but unquestionably exhilarated. Definitely a day to remember.