I fell on lava rock from Haleakala when we went mountain bike riding at Poli Poli state park on the southern side of the volcano. On Wednesday we probably had the best ride on the west side of the island. We put in about 70 miles round trip. We started at Kapalua and rode through Waiehu and made a loop through upper Wailuku and then down through lower Wailuku by the beach and back to Kapalua. It was great because there must have been about a 20 mile length of road that was as wide as the Hellyer Park Bicycle path. The speed limit signs stated 10 mph one lane road. There was very little traffic and absolutely no tour buses of any kind.
All those tour buses were on the road to Hana, clogging up that narrow road. The road to Hana was like Pierce Road, the narrow bushy part of Pierce. If you rode it like Bob and Chris Thompson, then you had to start at 6:00am from Paia to Hana it was about 58 miles one way a lot of steep rollers and a very busy well traveled road. That ride was done on Friday after the Laua and most of us decided to go on a snorkel boat trip instead. Saturday the 9 of August we drove it in our rental car. It would have been a great ride but so early in the morning and busy traffic we would of gone counter clockwise from the backside starting at Kanaio and rode south toward Hana and we would have had a better view of the ocean that way.
All in all it was a great ride up Haleakala and riding through the rain forest at the tiny little fishing village on the west side at Kahakuloa. During that ride we saw a pod of about 100 hundred spinner dolphins. And we found out why they were called spinner dolphins; what an amazing aerial show they put on. It was far better than Sea world. On they way back we checked out the blow hole at Kanounou point and saw a green back sea turtle in Honokahau bay. We meet friendly locals who stopped us by the side of the road and gave us directions into Wailuku past the macadamia orchards. It was a great trip.
-LeRoy Rodriguez
Go to Bob Thompson's version of this trip.