Big Island Rides1 - Big Island Rides2 - Big Island Attractions 1 - Big Island Attractions 2

Last leg of my trip. Had to drop by Maui to do Haleakala, the world’s biggest paved climb ( supposedly ).

Spent the previous day traveling and unpacking. It’s always quite a hassle, I think in the future I’ll try to stay 2 weeks in the same place before moving around. Only did a short ride to drop by a bike shop and get a spare part. Rest of the day was spent walking to the grocery store and hauling back 10 days worth of groceries. I bought 60 eggs lol. Cooked them all at the same time to make egg salad sandwiches.

Kahana Pond on the coast next to the airport. It smells like a sewer swamp.

These Hawaiian Stilts live here. Turns out they are not endangered it's just a common bird that's found worldwide but they gave it a different name here.

Same for these guys. They're all over the planet. Not endangered. Stop it.

View looking back at Wailuku, where my Airbnb was in what is basically "the bad part of town" lol. But those mountains are epic.

Roadside stand with lots of tourist stuff for you to buy.

This island is also overrun with chickens. They are literally everywhere.

Met up with the local bike group for a thanksgiving ride. It was nice to bike with people but having to show up at 7am 40 minutes away makes me sad. They just did an out-and-back but I decided to part ways and do the full West Maui loop.

It's a pretty small community and everyone knows everyone who bikes at this point.

Starting to realize nobody young bikes or something. What sport am I supposed to switch to now?

The road from Wailuku to the northern tip is very wild and epic. Lots of lookouts and no towns.

Just these snaking roads along cliffs and lush forests.

Stopped near the Nakalele blowhole to check out the views. Saw 2 humpback whales but unfortunately that was it for this trip :(

Proof of whales. Some arrive as early as october but mainly the bulk of them are here in late December and January.

Nakalele Blowhole. I guess the waves crash into this underwater cave and gushes out of this big hole.

Moloka'i, the island to the Northwest of Maui.

Turning back south you start going through all the resort towns and big popular beaches.

This is why people come to Maui.

Island of Lanai. Would have liked to visit but transport between the islands is extremely impractical and slow, it just wastes your entire day.

Zooming back near Lahaina, the town that burned down recently. The road through is repaired and open at least.

You can see lots of building imprints where all that's standing are the foundations.

Haleakala on the other side of the Island. Then it was just massive headwind back home. The clue was the string of wind turbines along the slopes.

Had planned to do the East Maui loop but the south road is under construction so I turned back and did Waipoli road instead. That road is just an endless series of super steep switchbacks that climb up the side of Haleakala it stops at 1900m elevation or which is still a pretty crazy climb all things considered.

Epic view of the West side. Note the total lack of vegetation to the West of the mountains, replaced instead with wind turbines.

Lanai in the distance.

About 1/3 the way down the hill I see this shit. Nope.

Went back up to the Botanical Garden and Waipoli road which is this weird super steep road that climbs another 1000m on the side of Haleakala

Then it kind of just... ends in the woods. There's a hunter's cabin up there and I saw a deer on the way up so I guess that's why this road exists?

View from the peak. 2000m up so already above the clouds! You can take a gravel road back down if you have a mountain bike...

Mainly the road is in the "grassland" biome area of Haleakala. There's cattle ranches and a Lavender farm at the bottom. Bunch of people also launching off to do paragliding.

This is the most notorious drive on the Island. The road narrows in many places to cross rivers and little gulches and cars have to stop and let the opposite traffic pass. It sounds like the most maddening place you could possibly go on a vacation. Unless you’re on a bike and just sneak around the traffic like I did. Then it’s a fun twisty road!

There's a few spots along the road where this kind of Jurassic Park view peeks out at you but mostly things are hidden by trees :(

The road is famous for all its twists and turns, many being one-lane bridges across little ravines with waterfalls.

There's also a few actual waterfalls, some you reach with a little hike. The point of the is to swim under and take a picture for Instagram, thus proving to your friends they are losers.

View from the Hana harbor.

Statue of an Asian guy.

Took as many pictures as I could when the view got better.

It gets really damn hot and humid on Maui btw. Stop when you find water.

Perk of not being in a car: I can just stop and take this picture in the middle of a hill.

Ho'okipa lookout, about 20 miles from home base. Pretty amazing views! Lot of surfers here.

One of the bike guys told me this is where the government is trying to house the Lahaina people who's houses burned down...

#2 Climb in the USA and #30 in the world! Tried to do a good time on it but brought way too little water and food, as I do. This was definitely the highlight of the trip’s riding for me, no other climb has better roads and better views, especially as you can look into the crater from the peak. Reminded me of La Palma.

View from the base before turning onto the official climb in the town of Paia

About halfway up. This climb has some of the best views ever.

Up above the clouds with a new change of vegetation. There's a little boreal forest part in there too.

Climbing and climbing. Probably over 2000m now, well above the cloud line and the visitor center.

You can see the observatories at the top from almost any point on the island. It's impossible to gauge how ludicrously far away they might be.

Finally made it. 3 hours 17 minutes. Bonked pretty hard due to lack of calories and water. The altitude starts to kick in too near the peak.

The view from here is amazing and basically a full 360.

There's a side road for the observatory workers. Looks like Mona Kea here, just nothing but red volcanic dirt and rock.

You can see the Big Island in the distance with Mona Kea and Mona Loa right next to each other.

West side of Maui seems so far away from this spot. You can see other islands peeking out too.

The coolest views are the inside of the long dormant crater. Just looks like Mars.

There's trails you can use to hike down in there and go around some of the cones.

The descent is really fast and fun, barely ever need to touch the brakes and it goes on forever with these views.

Last ride because my legs hurt and my bike was starting to make too many annoying noises of things that need to be greased and/or cleaned. Decided to use my last day to snorkel more instead!

Started by going up to Iao Valley, about 300m up into the mountains that tower to the west. There's a few hiking trails in there but you need reservations and blablabla

Kepaniwai park and heritage gardens on the way back.

Has a few small garden sections representing different nationalities of people who settled on Maui

Portugese, Korean and Japanese mainly. Worth a little drop by I guess.

Hey I guess chickens can fly enough to get up into trees.

Obligatory koi pond with complimentary duck.

All the way south near the Aquarium is Kealia Pond. Was mostly dried out but during certain seasons it's a migratory bird sanctuary. I GUESS.

Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center as you make your way south of Kihei.

Just a small learning center with whale-related info.

That little mammal there is one of the early whale ancestors.

Out back there's an observation station. In winter these waters are full of humpbacks but there were none yet :,(

Cool humpback statue on the way down south.

Almost all the way south now. That lump is Kaho'Olawe island and the little thing to the right is Molokini Crater, the best snorkel spot around. Apparently.

Closer look at Molokini Crater. Always lots of boats around it bringing tourists for a day of snorkeling.

The road ends at LaPerouse bay, named after the French explorer who discovered it.

This beach has tons of this dead coral or whatever this stuff is.

You get good views of Haleakala's interesting southern slopes from here as well.

This bay is supposedly a spot where Spinner Dolphins come to sleep/relax during the day after feeding at sea during the night. I saw ZERO.

That’s it for Hawaii riding! It’s truly a pretty amazing and gorgeous place. Too bad it’s so expensive and sparsely populated. Happy I got to cover most of the islands and despite a few hiccups and days of stress, we got it done.

Very last day I am sitting at this nearby cafe for 6 hours before I need to head to the airport for… more sitting around because my flight is at midnight. Fortunately I left it to the last minute to edit this blog and my snorkel videos! Already spent 5 hours doing this here and still more to do. PEAK EFFICIENCY!

Thanks for reading!

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