The next morning my wife,Diana, dropped me off in Paia (elevation 20 ft). By 7:15 AM I was on my way, having had to spend a few extra minutes to get my seat height just right and to figure out that I didn't need to be wearing my warmer clothes for the uphill.
For food, I brought along 3 Three-Muskateers plus 4 PBJ's, cut in half and packed in 8 snack-size baggies (I bought the wrong size by mistake, but this worked out ok). About every 1000 ft or so I would stop and eat a half-sandwich. I refilled my waterbottles at 3500 ft and again at 7000 ft at park headquarters. My food and water came out exactly right. The bike shop told me about water at the Sunrise Market, on the 2nd hairpin up from the junction at 3500 ft, but I didn't clearly remember this at the time, so I stopped at a house where no one was home and helped myself to their hose instead.
I had to pay $5.00 as an individual to enter Mt.Haleakala National Park. It was $10 for a car.
I had perfect weather for the climb. It was sunny all of the way up the hill, and had only a slight breeze. I wore my tanktop all the way up. But I was very glad for my winter clothes for the downhill. I had hauled everything up the hill with me, knowing that I would need it for the downhill.
I figured that it should take me about 5 hours for the climb, but I soon found out that wasn't going to happen. I finally made it to the summit at 1:05 PM, so it took me 5:50 for the total climb. I think I had about 10 food stops along the way, each for about 5 to 6 minutes, and I needed every one of them. The climb seemed as much mental as physical, and I had to keep telling myself that each pedal stroke got me a bit closer to the top and that all I had to do was to just keep going in that direction. Towards the top I allowed myself extra stops at the 500 ft elevations just as long as I knew that I'll be continuing on up to the top. At the top I skipped the visitor center and headed on up to the kiosk at the summit (elevation 10023 ft). That last stretch of road needed all of the energy and will power that I had left, and even then I had to stop halfway up it (just to check out the view, of course).
The bike didn't have a cyclometer, so I don't know any speeds. It did have a triple chainring, and I was very thankful for that, as after 2 miles I was convinced that I really wanted to not be in my middle chainring anymore. I then spent most of my time in 2nd to 4th gears.
I was very glad to have made up a detailed map of the route. I knew where all of the switchbacks were and where all of the elevation markers should have been. I found elevation markers at 2500, 3500, 4000, 4500, 6500, 7000, 8000, 9000, and 10023 ft. That long gap between 4500 and 6500 ft would have been very hard to handle except that my map showed that I was indeed making progress. Looking up the hill and seeing all of those road sections high up above was also very disheartening, as it seemed like it would take alot of work to get there. I was pretty tired just after the first half of the climb, and it was only the fact that I was taking regular eatting/rest stops that kept me going. The last few thousand feet were done mostly on will power. If there had been fog or strong wind, then it would have been much tougher to keep going.
While climbing, I passed about 200 riders doing the downhill, each paying from $49 to $79 for this experience. There seemed to be group after group of them, anywhere from 3 to 20 riders each. They all seemed to be going painfully slow, all dressed up in astronaut suits and staying behind the leader. I only saw one other person riding uphill early on, but never saw him when I was going back down.
I left the summit at 1:30 and made it back down near the airport by 3:15 PM. This included about 15 minutes worth of stops at park headquarters to get water and to call Diana, and another stop at about 2000 ft to take all my winter clothes back off. Diana offered to drive over from Kihei to pick me up, so I took her up on the offer. I had enough of a workout for one day. The whole downhill was great, and so I was pretty much fully recovered from being tired. And I would have had a tailwind pushing me all the way to Kihei, but Diana's offered to pick me up so I accepted.
Summary : 38 miles each way, 10000 ft of climbing
Uphill Downhill
total (h:mm) 5:50 1:45
rest (h:mm) 1:00 0:15
riding(h:mm) 4:50 1:30
speed (mph) 7.86 25.3