Haleakala descent…

Aloha All…I figured you’d probably want to know if Erich and I survived our ride down the slopes of Haleakala. In truth, no, neither of us survived. We froze to death at the top of the volcano and are now placed outside the visitor center with our bikes, frozen in place, as grisly monuments to poor planning and insanity. 🙂
We had a blast. We also thought we were going to freeze to death for a bit up at the top (near 9800 feet – don’t have the exact number at the moment).
We started our journey separately on Sunday morning. I was with my friends who live in Makawao, which is a town in ‘up country’ Maui. I’d cunningly sent a text with the wrong address to Erich in hopes he couldn’t find their home so that I could avoid the ignominy of being discovered as the slower rider, even downhill. Sigh. Erich still managed to get close enough to their place that I didn’t have the heart to shoo him away.
Erich met my friends and we prepared our kit for the ride. Both our bikes, folded, fit nicely in the trunk of my friend’s (Coleen and Bob) economy car and they graciously drove us up the hill. Bob, who chauffeured kindly went a bit out of his way to show us the three for four choices we’d have to make on our journey down. Most of the choices boiled down to, “when you must turn on to a different road, choose the downhill path.” Seems pretty obvious but hey, I’d never done this ride before so it was helpful. At one of the four turns we’d have to make there were several horses at the corner of their property and we debated calling their owner and seeing if he could make sure the horses were still there a few hours later when we passed by. We didn’t call but as it turned out, they were.
As we drove up the hill we past a few groups of bike riders who were on the commercial tours and headed down. Mostly they were stopped at places I wouldn’t stop – and didn’t later on. While they looked happy, sort of, our host Bob said that he’d done the tour and would never, ever, go with a group again (meaning a commercial group).
The weather, which had been cool but pleasant at Makawao, an elevation of a couple of thousand feet, grew increasingly wet and cold as we went up the side of the mountain. We moved above the tree line in areas covered only in grasses and lava. The wind blew with increasing fury. Erich and I began to doubt our sanity. We suspect both Coleen and Bob doubted it as well but as they know my pretty well I’m not sure there was really any doubt about it.
We stopped at the visitor center just after the park entrance for a restroom break and, if I’m not mistaken, for a chance to tell our hosts that we’d decided we’d rather go back down, buy them lunch, and be done with it all. But no, a few minutes later we got back in the car and headed up the remaining 2500 feet or so, zigzagging back and forth on the many switchbacks.
At the top we were in the clouds completely. On some days I’m told you do breakthrough into the clear and, even if you only have a view of the top of the clouds, you get some view. Not this day. We were in a rain which, because the wind was howling, came in pretty much sideways. The temperature was about 40F so it wasn’t technically freezing (there was no ice or snow around though I’m told there had been snow at some point that weekend) the ‘feels like’ temperature must have been about -115F. That might be an exaggeration.
We pulled out our bikes, had a couple of pictures taken, and our friends bagged out quickly, in a hurry, I suppose, to grieve our passing and consider informing our next of kin.
That’s when we realized how ill prepared were really were. We didn’t have gloves that covered our fingers, just fingerless bike gloves. We also both discovered a couple of mechanical problems, Erich right then and I not till I was downhill a bit. In addition my camera mount broke and I wasn’t able to video the whole thing which had been my plan. Oh well. I’m not huge video person anyway, nor, in fact, do I ever manage to take a lot of images.
It took us at least 30 minutes to sort out our various problems and really decide to go. I retreated to the men’s room a couple of times to use the air blowers for hand drying to warm up a bit.
I did discover that I’d brought along a couple pairs of disposable plastic food service gloves I use to keep grease off my hands when doing repairs on my bike’s nether regions. We put them on as ‘better than nothing’ and I guess they were as I’m typing, not dictating, this missive.
Off we went. Slowly, or so it seemed.
The beauty of howling wind and rain is that you can be pretty sure you aren’t going to overheat your brakes. You’d be wrong as you can, but it’s a nice thought. We didn’t actually ever overheat our brakes, though I do need new pads before I ride my Friday much (and I did bring an extra set with me but never needed to put them on). Erich discovered at one point that not only where his rims hot but so were his spokes!
The initial downhill was into the wind and quite wet. It’s a constant downhill with no uphills till later in the ride (and even those are few and minor) so it wasn’t much work in that sense, but it is, I have to admit, still draining. I attribute that both to the cold and to my fear. I probably wouldn’t feel that way if the weather had been nicer, but in the wet and cold, the constant downhill and the sharp corners on switchbacks I realize that I really should have prepared my in a much more thorough way. As it turned out it was just fear, my bike was (almost) fine. It really did well…I was just worried it wouldn’t.
And that was just the first 500 feet. 🙂
Actually when we hit the first switchback down the hill a bit we discovered something that was make us very happy and made the rest of the ride enjoyable. As soon as we made a turn we discovered that the wind and rain was now blocked and the warmth of the Sun, meager as it might be, hit us. We took a quick break to compare notes and decide whether we should just stay there until someone offered us a ride.
We pushed on, hit the next switchback, and ran straight into the wind, rain, and cold again. This went on, back and forth, as we dropped about 2500 feet back to the first visitor center and park entrance. We made a few mechanical adjustments and thought about heading out again. As I recall I found Erich taking pictures of a couple who’d asked if he could take their picture and was begging them to drive him down, though I will admit that by the point the cold was causing me to hallucinate a bit. I recall thinking that I was bicycling in howling wind and rain and that it must be a dream.
And in fact, it soon was. Once we got below the park entrance the rain mostly let up, the wind died down and it was merely cool, not cold. We were, in fact, prepared for cool. The ride then started becoming fun. We stopped few times for photos. My camera had pretty much fogged up so I don’t have that taken with my camera. Here they are:

At this point I discovered that my derailleur was out of adjustment and I didn’t have any top end gearing. Erich could pretty much pass me at will if he actually pedaled while heading downhill. As our coasting speed was above the gearing I had I was basically relying only on gravity.
Now here’s where something really odd started happening to both Erich and I. Even on downhills roads are going to vary a bit, sometimes being a bit steeper than at other times. In addition it seems the mind adjusts pretty well in trying to normalize what one sees. What was happening to us was this, the road started looking flat in front of us. In other words, even as we sped along at 20-25mph downhill it seemed like we were cruising on a flat. Thus, when the grade became a little shallower it actually appeared to both of us as if there was going to be a bit of an uphill grade ahead of us. We’d both start pedaling ahead of the climb only to discover there was no climb, just less descent. Erich would, of course, pull way ahead of me at these points because I no gear able to engage.
The view wasn’t always great because while we were out of the high clouds there were clouds below us, not a complete plain of clouds, but enough to block some views. Later on and further down that would’n’t be a problem but by then were back in tree line.
At the first cafe, which is a roadside attraction with a zipline ride, we stopped and took off most of our cold gear. It was still cool, but not cold and definitely not wet. We’d get hit by a couple of sprinkles further down, but nothing one would bother stopping to change gear for.
This part of the ride was like doing a lovely country ride. We were ‘off the mountain’ and back to farm country. Soon we had were back to where we need to make our first turn…uphill or dowhill, which was it to be. I half hoped Erich would head back up to slow him down a bit as I was having trouble keeping up…with no high gear I still couldn’t pedal to any advantage, but down it was.
This went on for a bit till we got near the turn with horses. They were still there! At this point we stopped again and I checked my derailleur…
Of all the stupid things…folding bikes are great. They really are. But when they are folded and unfolded one of the things that can happen is that cables can get pulled out of connections. There has to be a lot cable to allow for folding (which also means you usually don’t have crisp action in gearing or braking – nothing to worry about, but it does take a wee bit of getting used to at first).
Well it seems because of the cold up above I’d neglected to really go over my bike. I’m forgiving myself because at 10,000 feet in the cold you pretty much want to head down no matter what your bike is like at the time. That’s sadly what I’d done.
It seems my rear derailleur cable had come out of the socket holding it in place and because of that exposed the wire wrapping a bit it had caught on the edge tightening the whole thing and keeping me from using my three smallest cogs. In five seconds, reseating the cable, I had my gears back.
My Friday has a single chainring, a SRAM Dual Drive, and an 8 speed cassette/derailleur. the whole system gives me 24 speeds with a range from about 19 gear inches to about 105 gear inches. That means I’ve got a great spread. I can climb a wall or hold my own with some pretty fast bikes. True it’s not a racing machine, but it has a higher gear than I usually use.
Now I had that gear back and were still headed downhill.
Erich has an 11-speed Alfine setup. I’m not sure what his gear inch range is but mine is wider, at least at the top end. Erich, who is definitely faster uphill than I am was not in position to keep up with me if I pedaled in high gear while headed down and we still had a lot of ride and downhill to go.
I kicked his butt the rest of the way down. 🙂
We came into Makawao and pedaled slowing through town taking in the sights. Then we were off again for the last few miles between Makawao and Paia on the ocean’s edge. This part of the ride is lovely as well for the most part. The roads are good, though not quite as good as those higher up, and drivers are very courteous (and fairly few and far between – most traffic being at sea level). In any case, I kept Erich behind me by calling out “Car Back” whenever it looked like he was going to catch me and we pedaled into Paia.
Our next step was to get our pictures at the beach dipping our tires in the Pacific. We did, must to the enjoyment of folks who were at the beach. We explained and it appeared that they ‘got it.’ But you could still tell they thought were a little crazy. We were. We are.
Finally it was off to Ono Gelato. Ono is Hawaiian for delicious. And the gelato was definitely ono.
The rest of the day involved getting a ride from Coleen and Bob back to their place to break down our bikes, get cleaned up, and make ready to go. We took Coleen and Bob out to a really nice dinner to pay them back for their hospitality. They really went out of their way (10,000 feet up in fact) for us and are really wonderful folks.
We left them at the restaurant with their desserts as we had to get Erich’s car back to the rental return. We made it with minutes to spare. After that we checked in, went through security, waited for our plane, and flew back to Oahu.
Wow. It what a ride. We got to see pretty much everything from winter weather to a lovely day that might almost be summer in other parts of the world. We got to ride folding bikes really fast and carve some lovely lines around corners. We survived (and Erich even bought me t-shirt to attest to the fact).
I do it again in a heartbeat, winter and all.
Anyway, that was our ride down Haleakala. Erich may tell a different tale, but the part about me breaking down, falling to my knees hugging his legs, weeping and begging for him to find someone to drive us down, did not happen. No matter how convincing he is about that part, it never happened. 🙂
tl;dr