By Tom Roberts
Near the end of last year I met a woman. Technically I didn’t meet her until Jan. 1 of this year, but we had begun corresponding near the end of last year, so I’m going to say we met last year. (relax Charlie, this is mostly about biking, but I have to set the stage.) Many of you have met this woman, she goes by the name of Marti, but it’s not her real name. In the interest of honesty, I’m going to refer to her as Martha in this story. That might not be her real name either, but at least it MIGHT be her real name. Anyway, Martha and I met and started dating. As we continued dating, we found that we liked each other more and more. I won’t bore you with the details, but as we got to know each other better and better, Martha confided in me that she’d never been to Hawaii and had always wanted to go.
Well, going to Hawaii had never been very high on my list of things I wanted to do before I died. I had spent most of my life going to work, coming back home, and trying to keep the wolves from the door. I had just recently discovered Yosemite and wanted to spend more time there and in other State and National Parks communing with nature. In fact, Martha and I had spent an enjoyable week camping with my uncle and aunt in Yosemite. She had never been there. But I decided that if Martha wanted to go to Hawaii and if we could afford it, we would go. Heck, I even enjoyed going shopping with her. Hawaii would have to be pretty good if it was with her.
Long about July Martha and I became engaged. At about the same time, we decided that when we got married, we would do it in Hawaii. We started researching Hawaii. One of the first things I found out was that it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. This made me feel better about it. See “trying to keep the wolves from the door”, above. In our research, we found that the best island to visit, if you could only visit one, was Maui. It is said to be the most romantic of the islands, plus if you get married somewhere else, you can’t get a “Just Mauied” T shirt. Anyway, we found that there were lots of things to do on Maui.
When I first got into recreational cycling about 10 years ago, I knew absolutely nothing about cycling except what I’d learned as a kid. Oh, I’d heard of Greg LeMond and the Tour de France, but I had no idea what it was. I had no idea that LeMond and all these other guys could ride 2000+ miles in three weeks. I had no idea that old fat guys like me could ride 100 or more miles with the proper training. In fact, when I got my first bike as an adult, I thought riding the whole 14 miles of the canal trail was pretty good. But as I got into cycling more, I learned a lot of information about cycling.
Somewhere along the way, I heard about this mountain, Haleakala, in Hawaii that people rode down. It must have been after I’d learned a lot about cycling and had come to respect how hard it was to climb UP a mountain. My initial response to going down this mountain was “Where does the feeling of earning something come into this. I wouldn’t want to go down unless I earned the descent by going UP first.” But I never thought much more about it because I never intended to go to Hawaii. There were just too many other places I wanted to see first. As I was doing my Hawaii research, I decided just out of curiosity to see what island in Hawaii this big mountain was on. Lo and behold, it was on Maui!
As Martha and I had been dating, I had started riding fewer miles. And easier miles. For example, last year through mid August I had done about 3800 miles including several Diablo climbs, this year only 1700 and only 1 or 2 Diablo climbs. Martha tried to encourage me to ride more and spend more time with my friends, but somehow, when given the choice of climbing Diablo with Clint or spending time with Martha, she usually won.
Now I had this big conundrum. I was going to “The Mountain”, probably for the only time in my life, and I wasn’t in shape to climb it. Would I do what I said I’d never do? Would I get a ride to the top and ride down? Well, I decided I wasn’t going to be like all those other people. I was a real cyclist (whatever that is) and a real cyclist earns his descents. So in mid-August, I decided I was going to climb Haleakala and I started training.
It wasn’t like I’d quit riding. I was still climbing through the Oakland hills on Friday, but I wasn’t getting the extra 20 miles to Danville and back. And now my Wednesday ride was over Willow Pass instead of Diablo. So I wasn’t totally out of shape, I just wasn’t ready for Haleakala. I was probably in 1 pass Death Ride shape and needed to be in 3 pass (or 4 pass) shape if I had any hope of conquering Haleakala. Because of other things going on in my life I wasn’t able to ride as much as I had in the past, but I WAS able to intensify my riding. My main training increase was to change my Wednesday ride to Diablo from Willow Pass. The first time I tried it in mid August was a little tough. I had to stop a couple times, but I made it to the junction. My time wasn’t great, but it was OK (for me). I felt like something the cat drug in, but I made it to the junction. My next couple rides were about the same times. But each ride I felt a little better.
My last 3 Diablo rides were among the best I’d done in a couple years. Let’s face it, even at my best I don’t climb fast. But I CAN get to the top of whatever climb I’m trying if there’s enough daylight and if I’m in good enough shape. For Haleakala, daylight wouldn’t be a problem. The record is about 3 hours. I figure if I can do it in 6 hours, I’ll be doing good. In fact, if I can do it at ALL, I’ll be happy. And my last training ride on October 1 was encouraging. I climbed all the way to the summit. My time wasn’t particularly good (or bad) but I felt pretty good the whole way. I felt like I was as ready as I’ll ever be.
When Martha and I flew into Maui on Friday, Oct. 3, my first view of Haleakala, from the window of the plane, was of a mountain covered in clouds. I would learn in the week we were there that that was the way it was pretty much all the time. Once we landed and I got to look at it from the ground, I was a little surprised. I had expected to be craning my neck to look up at it because it was so high. But it just looked like a big hill to me. I thought that maybe it was because it was so far away that it didn’t look more impressive. But I discarded that idea almost immediately. Maui isn’t very big, about the size of central Contra Costa County. I thought for a second that maybe they used a different unit of measurement in Hawaii, but of course they don’t. Then I tried to visualize Mt. Diablo and compare the 2 mountains. I realized that Mt. Diablo doesn’t really look impressive from Walnut Creek, but I had expected a mountain that was 2 1⁄2 times as tall to LOOK taller than Haleakala did. We drove about 5 miles up Haleakala highway because I wanted to get a little closer and I wanted to look for a good place to start from if I actually decided to do the ride. I hadn’t reserved a bike and I didn’t know what to expect from the weather. I still wasn’t sure that all the pieces would fall into place, but I figured if they DID, I’d find out if Haleakala was really as tough as I had expected.
Martha and I had a few things to do on Maui before I finally had to decide whether to climb Haleakala, so the next few days were pretty busy. We were staying in Lahaina, and I did have a few minutes to visit West Maui Cycles to see if they might have a bike I could rent. I had tried to find out over the internet if anyone had a bike that would be appropriate for me without much luck, so I was fully expecting them not to have anything. I talked to a young guy named Jamie who was very helpful. It turns out they had TWO rental bikes that would work. Well, there went THAT excuse, it looked like I was actually going to have to do this thing I’d been talking about.
Monday evening I went to West Maui Cycles and rented a red Giant OCR3. It had Sora shifters so the shifting was different from STI, but I didn’t expect to do much shifting. This time I talked to Scott at the shop who suggested starting early because it often got windy and wet in the afternoon, so our plan was to leave Lahaina at 6 and start up the mountain at 7. When I say “our plan” I mean Martha and me. She was my support for the ride. We arrived at Haleakala Highway shortly before 7 A. M. only to find that traffic was bad and I couldn’t start where I’d planned. I had planned to start at about 500’ elevation where the road starts going up hill. As it turns out, by the time we found a place to start, we were closer to 1500’, but I didn’t really care because I still wasn’t sure I could even do the whole ride.
Most places you look to find out about Haleakala say it’s 38 miles to the summit. I believe that’s measured from Paia, which is at sea level and is where they start the annual “Cycle to the Sun” ride every August (www.cycletothesun.net). They claim the ride is 36 miles, but I don’t know where they start and finish. Based on several different sources, I believe I started 30 miles from the summit at about 1500’ elevation. I took 2 bottles of Sport drink and a couple Clif bars with me and the plan was for Martha to drive a few miles up the road and wait for me, at which point I’d refuel as needed. I also popped a couple Ibuprofen just as a preventive. The weather was mostly clear. There were clouds at about the 7000’ level, but it cleared up again above about 8000’.
Anyway, I started riding at 7:15 and immediately dropped the chain shifting to the small chainring. I got it back on with a minimum of trouble and started riding again. The start of the ride was pretty deceptive to me. The road looked almost level but my speed was similar to what I do climbing Mt. Diablo. The grade actually was pretty much the same most of the way. The average is 5% and it doesn’t seem to me that it varies much between 4% and 6%. I continued climbing through farm and pasture land, stopping for a minute or 5 every 1⁄2 hour or so for food. The ride continued uneventfully like this for the next 2-3 hours.
As I continued to climb, I was passed by numerous groups going down the mountain. There must have been at least 20 and maybe 30 groups, each with 15 or 20 riders. I guess riding DOWN Haleakala is pretty big business. But I never saw another roadie, either going up or down the mountain. It appeared that I was the only one to be climbing the mountain today. As I approached the 5000’ elevation, I passed my wife and yelled “5000 down, 5000 to go”. She was stopped across the road from one of the groups of downhillers who had stopped to rest from their arduous trip down the mountain. She told me the leader had yelled “here comes the cheap ride” to his group and she yelled back “Hey, that’s my husband”, at which point he stumbled all over himself apologizing and explaining he hadn’t meant it as an insult.
At about 10:15, I noticed that the wind had started to pick up and it had gotten quite cloudy. Shortly after, I passed the 6,500 foot sign, followed by the 10 mile marker where my wife was waiting for me. Up until this time, I had been talking into a tape recorder, mostly to record time and distance information. My entry at this time was “approaching the 10 mile marker, stopping to rest … and gloat”. I felt great. I didn’t feel like I’d climbed 5000 feet at all. I didn’t really feel like I’d even been climbing. I told my wife how good I felt and said “I can do another 10,000 feet today”.
One of the guys at work had joked about starting a pool to see how far I got. I pulled out my cell phone and called him and said “Tell whoever bet I’d get to the top that they won. The only thing that will stop me will be weather or a broken bike, because I feel great”. About this time, it started to drizzle. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t cold. Martha was concerned, but I told her wet was ok, windy was pretty much ok, and as long as I don’t get cold, I’ll be fine. But I gave her the tape recorder and put on my jacket and wind breaker. The drizzle picked up a little, but it was probably 65-70 degrees, so I got pretty soaked, but I wasn’t cold, so the wet didn’t bother me much. This continued for about an hour. I would pass Martha from time to time and say “I’m fine”, although I probably looked like a drowned rat. Gradually I climbed out of the rain and the warmth of the sun dried me off.
The major part of the climb is on state highway 378. There was a sign at the start of the highway that said “Mile 0” and another with the mileage to the summit. I thought it said “Summit 25 miles”, so at each mile or altitude marker I was doing mental calculations of how many more miles and how many more feet I had to go and how much time it would take me. There was a sign saying “Altitude 8000 feet” between mile 15 and 16 and my mental calculations told me either:
- The climb would level off because 2000 feet in 10 miles was only about a 2% grade, or
- There were less than 10 miles to go, because a 5% grade would only take about 6 miles to climb 2000 feet, or
- One of the signs was wrong, or
- I was getting altitude sickness.
I didn’t think it was altitude sickness because although I had been warned about this, I had no symptoms. As I was pondering the other choices I passed the “Mile 19” marker and shortly thereafter I passed the “Summit 2 miles” sign. It was apparently #2 and the sign at the bottom of the mountain said “Summit 21 miles”. I still wasn’t really tired, but I felt rejuvenated. Two miles and I’ll be at the top. Less than 20 minutes.
Many of you know I’m really good at breaking bike parts. Well, Haleakala was no exception. As I was climbing toward the summit with less than a mile to go, I hit a fairly level spot and tried shifting to the middle chain ring. I’d spent most of the day in the small chain ring and I was smelling the barn and had a chance to get in the middle ring and pick up some speed. I dropped the chain again! I wasn’t standing, I wasn’t even pedaling very hard. I figured I’d just put the chain back on and finish the ride. Not so simple. The chain was stuck between the chainstay and the small chainring. I got it unstuck pretty easily but when I got it out I found one link was bent at nearly a 90 degree angle. I couldn’t straighten and I couldn’t ride it.
But I was too close to the end to quit. I could either remove the bent link and maybe make the chain usable. I had the tools, the skill, and maybe a spare chain link with me. But it was less than a mile; I decided to hoof it. I walked the bike to the lower parking lot where I met Martha and told her what happened. We talked, rested, and then she asked if I wanted to put the bike on the car and drive to the top. I said no, that walking counted if you took your bike and I was walking the bike to the top! So I did. We looked around and took some pictures and then I started back down. I went about 1⁄4 mile down and my glasses fogged. I stopped, waited for Martha, and said “I already know I can go down, let’s put the bike on the car and ride down like sane people, so we did.
All in all the ride wasn’t as tough as I’d expected. Maybe it was so easy because of the physical and moral support I got from my new wife. She was just wonderful. Maybe it was the training, though I don’t think I did enough to feel as good as I did. Who knows? When I returned the bike to West Maui Cycles I dealt with a third guy named Dave, who I think was the owner. I explained to him about the bent chain and what had happened. I also said that although it wasn’t West Maui Cycles’ fault, I didn’t think it was mine either. But the rental contract I signed had stated that I was responsible for damages to the bike. We talked for a while and in the end, I paid for the damages, but he charged me what I thought was a minimal (and fair) amount. I may talk to my friends at Shimano again about the durability of their components.
I had originally planned to sub-title my article “Turns grown men into little boys crying for their mothers”, because I thought that even if I was able to finish I’d be pretty much wasted. But since I felt so good after the ride I’ve decided on the following sub-title, stolen from Keith Packard – “Just another ——- bike ride”.
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Ever wonder how many pedal strokes you would have to turn if you rode 100 miles? (Come on, admit it, you think about it all the time…) Well, if you’re on a bike that shifts gears and can coast down hills, then you would need a wheel rotation sensor to count it out for you, or the best you could do would be to estimate. However, if you’re riding a fixed gear bike, then you can actually calculate the answer pretty accurately. You’ll need to do some conversions, and you’ll need to understand something about gear ratios and gear inches, also called virtual wheel size.
On Wednesday we drove to Diamond Lake and followed the Diamond Lake – Crater Lake Challenge route (Falcon Publishing, Road Biking Oregon Guide Book) that we downloaded via Trails.com. We began at the South Shore Picnic Area at Diamond Lake and started climbing immediately. Our climb was interrupted briefly as Stephen waited in line to pay the $5.00 entrance fee into Crater Lake National Park. We finally reached the rim of the lake and were rewarded by the incredible vista of Crater Lake, with Wizard Island erupting from the vivid blue water. The very hilly 33-mile Rim Drive circles the lake and offers many fabulous viewpoints where we stopped to marvel at the beauty and impressive geology of the area. We rode the loop in a clockwise direction and as we approached the south eastern side of the lake the road led away from the rim and past Scott Mountain with views of Upper Klammath Lake to the south. We stopped for lunch at the historic, elegant Crater Lake Lodge and sat out on the veranda enjoying the fine cuisine and yet another awesome view of the lake. After lunch and a short climb we completed the loop and headed down, down, down out of the park and back toward Diamond Lake.
Themocracy