Slightly longer version of the Strava description 🙂
We had a week in Maui as part of our epic 8-week sumer road trip. I’m training for a half Ironman, so have been looking for interesting rides along the way.
Haleakalā is the big volcano that makes up most of Maui, and it’s a famously cool view that Leslie and I visited when we were here 14 years ago. We thought it would be cool to take the kids up. Then I thought, hey, can you ride up? Yes, you can! After reading the description I figured this one was beyond me, but a friend suggested that it might be doable if I planned my day carefully. So I started to get excited and booked a bike rental in Maui.
Alas, a wildfire started near Crater Road, which is the only road to the summit. The summit was closed and remained so for a couple of weeks as our time in Maui approached. After we got to Maui with no change in the status, I put away my hopes to try the climb and started planning for the West Maui Loop instead. The night before my ride, I checked the park service website one last time and was delighted to discover they’d reopened the summit
So just like that, the original plan was on! This morning I threw the rental bike in an Uber at 4:30am for a ride to the start in Paia.
It was an awesome climb (reputedly the world’s longest paved climb?) and quite a challenge for me. I was riding almost exactly for 5 hours, with only a few hundred yards total that wasn’t uphill. I took the “slow and steady” approach, keeping my heart rate low. I wasn’t sure how the altitude would hit me as I climbed toward the 10,000ft summit. It was not too bad, but if you look at the Strava report you can see that my power drops a lot as I approach the summit.
My wonderful and understanding wife drove the kids to the summit to meet me and give me a ride back down.
It’s hard to describe an experience like this that is so internal and hits everyone differently, but I will say that at a certain point about 2500ft of climb / 2 hours from the top I started to really believe I would finish, and a banger of a Justice remix came on my earbuds, and I actually started to cry with joy. There is absolutely no reason to do things like this–they are time consuming, self-absorbed, and physically demanding beyond any reasonable fitness benefit you might gain. But somehow there is also something profoundly affirming and grounding about them, too.
Leslie says that this ride means I can no longer say I’m not a cyclist 🙂 Notes for the future:
Things I should have brought but didn’t: more snacks, chamois butter.
Things I brought but didn’t need: my large chainring, brakes.