shona

My husband and I want to road cycle in Hawaii this summer. We don't want to go with a tour group so we will have to figure out where to make our base and routes on our own. Can any of you help? We would probably stay in one place and ride from there for about 5 days. We will bring our own bikes. We are not familiar with Hawaii so if you make suggestions please don't assume I know anything. I have planned a few great cycling vacations with the help of people from this forum. Thanks everyone. p.s. Is it possible to avoid riding in the rain and see green?

FlanHi

Perhaps the reason you haven't gotten any replies is that you aren't specific about which island you plan to visit. Each island is different. If you are planning a five-day trip, you'd better pick one island and focus on what you'd like to see and do.

Hawaii Island is the largest and includes the active volcano at Kilauea, the lush Hamakua Coast, funky Hilo Town, the vast expanses of Parker Ranch and the beaches of leeward Kailua-Kona. If you're really ambitious, you can try climbing from sea level to the top of Mauna Kea, a 13,792 foot challenge -- the last 3,000 feet is gravel road.

Oahu has much more populated, but offers history, amazing beaches, cosmopolitan Waikiki, restaurants, Pearl Harbor, culture, museums and some beautiful coastline rides.

Molokai is rural, windswept, friendly and quiet.

Maui has some of the most challenging bicycle rides: up to the summit of Haleakala, stopping at the Lavender Ranch on the way; east on the Hana Highway to remote Hana Town; west into the spectacular Iao Valley; and out to Paia, the windsurfing capital of the world.

Lanai, the former Pineapple Islands, is now owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle and America's Cup fame. It's small, scenic, expensive and gorgeous.

Kauai, the Garden Island, is more a mountain biker's Mecca. It includes the Waimea Canyon -- the Grand Canyon of the Pacific -- 14 miles long and 3,600 feet deep, from the summit of Mount Waieleele, which is the wettest spot on earth, to the ocean. It has spectacular resorts at Princeville and Poipu, funky plantation towns and an amazing 11-mile hike out the Napali Coast to secluded beaches.

If you come in the summer, don't worry about the weather. There might be "windward and mauka showers" -- early morning or evening tradewind squalls that blow into the eastern coastlines and mountain areas -- but nothing to stop you from enjoying yourself on the road or at the beach.

shona

Thank you so much for this detailed and very helpful response. We know nothing about the islands; that's why I posted the question.

Perhaps the reason you haven't gotten any replies is that you aren't specific about which island you plan to visit. Each island is different. If you are planning a five-day trip, you'd better pick one island and focus on what you'd like to see and do.

Hawaii Island is the largest and includes the active volcano at Kilauea, the lush Hamakua Coast, funky Hilo Town, the vast expanses of Parker Ranch and the beaches of leeward Kailua-Kona. If you're really ambitious, you can try climbing from sea level to the top of Mauna Kea, a 13,792 foot challenge -- the last 3,000 feet is gravel road.

Oahu has much more populated, but offers history, amazing beaches, cosmopolitan Waikiki, restaurants, Pearl Harbor, culture, museums and some beautiful coastline rides.

Molokai is rural, windswept, friendly and quiet.

Maui has some of the most challenging bicycle rides: up to the summit of Haleakala, stopping at the Lavender Ranch on the way; east on the Hana Highway to remote Hana Town; west into the spectacular Iao Valley; and out to Paia, the windsurfing capital of the world.

Lanai, the former Pineapple Islands, is now owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle and America's Cup fame. It's small, scenic, expensive and gorgeous.

Kauai, the Garden Island, is more a mountain biker's Mecca. It includes the Waimea Canyon -- the Grand Canyon of the Pacific -- 14 miles long and 3,600 feet deep, from the summit of Mount Waieleele, which is the wettest spot on earth, to the ocean. It has spectacular resorts at Princeville and Poipu, funky plantation towns and an amazing 11-mile hike out the Napali Coast to secluded beaches.

If you come in the summer, don't worry about the weather. There might be "windward and mauka showers" -- early morning or evening tradewind squalls that blow into the eastern coastlines and mountain areas -- but nothing to stop you from enjoying yourself on the road or at the beach.[/QUOTE]

FlanHi

You are welcome. Think about how much and what kind of biking you want to do:

Want to climb 10,023 feet from the ocean to the peak of Haleakala? Go to Maui.

Want to tackle the Ironman Triathon route, visit a live volcano, go sports fishing or diving? Go to the Big Island.

Want to do a DIY vacation on a funky garden island, visit gorgeous, deserted beaches, climb a 10-mile, 3,000-foot deep canyon, enjoy plush resorts or rustic camping? Go to Kauai.

Want to visit Iolani Palace and the Bishop Museum, Banzai Pipeline and Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach, Punchbowl, the Battleship Missouri and the Arizona Memorial? Go to Oahu.

Want to get away from it all? Visit Molokai or Lanai.

You can't miss, but it's all different.

Hypno Toad

We're headed to the North Shore of Oahu in a few weeks - staying at the Turtle Bay Resort. My wife and I would like to get some miles on during the trip. We are open to road riding or some tame single-track mountain biking. My wife has a lot of miles and experience, but very little patience for stressful rides (i.e. busy, fast, narrow roads or hard-core DH MTB). So there's a couple questions:

Rental recommendations - rental shops up near Haliewa? Or closer to Turtle Bay? We will not want high-end bikes, but also avoid the rusty death-trap. (really narrowed it down). My wife likes her flat-bar road bike, that would be the target for road riding or rigid frame MTB.

Self-guided route recommendations for road riding or single-track MTB. I expect we will only do one, this isn't a bike vacation, just want get some miles and smiles from a bike while in Hawaii.

As I write this, I expect I will want to stick with road riding. Logistics of picking up bikes and bringing them to a MTB location would likely be more than we can manage.

It's going to be a serious shock to our systems, Minneapolis is already cold and snowy... it was 5F when I left on my morning ride to work.

Thank you for your help and let me know if you want any additional info.

shona

I cannot help you with Hawaii (I posted the original question) but I just had to say something about the fact that you ride your bike in 5F. You are my hero! I can't imagine that.

Hypno Toad

LOL, thanks!

FlanHi

Turtle Bay is up in the northwest corner of Oahu, out in the "country" and on the edge of the North Shore surfing community. I have no experience renting bikes here, since I have five of them in the garage. Yelp.com has recommendations, however, including North Shore Bike Rentals in Haleiwa, which is about 8 miles from the resort. According to the Yelp review, they'll deliver bikes to your hotel. The big wave surfing season is starting and the road will be choked with traffic on the weekends, so I'd recommend a mid-week bike outing, either westward through Haleiwa Town out to Dillingham air field and Kaena Point or east and south to Kahuku, Hauula and Punaluu.

Hypno Toad

Thank you! We were thinking the area by the old airfield would be quiet. We drove down there the last time we stayed on Oahu (roughly 10 years ago). I will post updates on rental shops and routes on our return.

Funny story about driving past the airfield... as we were driving a long there were plane parts everywhere, then a full section of fuselage with seat hanging upside down and engine just laying on the beach. We were so confused, how did we not hear about a plane crash?? Why are we allowed to drive right through the wreck?? On the return trip, we saw signs marking it a film set, but we didn't notice the signs early because the plane crash set took all of your attention. It was the set for "Lost".

FlanHi

Yep, and Hawaii Five-0 films out at the airfield or various spots on the North Shore. So, you might find yourselves at another TV shoot on your next trip. Oh, and I mistakenly wrote Turtle Bay is in the northwest corner of the island when I meant to say northeast. Doh! And I should have mentioned that you should save energy for the ride back to Turtle Bay since you'll likely have the tradewinds on your nose all the way back from Dillingham Field.

Hypno Toad

That's good to know!

Hypno Toad

We ended up renting bikes at the Turtle Bay resort, they have beach cruisers, Kona MTBs, and Origin8 Crawler fat bikes. We took a couple fat bikes around the resort trails for the morning. $20 per bike per hours or $50 per day. The resort has 14 miles of trails on-site. I believe this is open to anybody (not just resort customers). We had a ton of fun!

Standalone 

Outfitters Kauai - Directions to Poipu rented a longtail Kona bike here last week in Kauai @ $35/day. They run a bus up to the top of the big canyon and you can ride downhill -- that's a full day activity that I did not get to, but will if I go again! 3 days with the cargo bike to tool around and get to some off the beaten path beaches on the south shore was plenty of fun for me.

modelmartin

I spent 5 days riding on the big island a year and a half ago. It was great. I rode on much of the route that the Ironman Triathlon rides on. Smooth roads, wide shoulders and fantastic ocean views, windy and hilly! I rode up the Kohala Mountain road from Hawi to Waimea. That was spectacular - 3500 feet climbing and then descending and ocean views riding through ranchland. There were lots of cows. I rented from Cycle Station Kona - they were great and very reasonable. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

shona

It sounds as though the big island will have more road riding options for us. Is it big enough that we need recommendations for the area in which to stay or will any area be fine? Thanks again everyone.

bkrownd

It isn't the size of Greenland, but it can take 2-3 hours to get from one place to another so you do want to make a good decision.

If your primary interest is cycling you'll want to avoid areas with narrow roads, bottlenecks/dead ends, and unfavorable weather. The first obvious option is Volcano Village at the summit of Kilauea, which being on the windward/leeward divide gives you weather options, and is on the edge of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The other option is the (to me desolate) resort area from Kailua northward around the northern tip of Kohala to Kapa'au. If you're asking me Volcano Village is vastly nicer and a more authentic experience, but most people prefer the generic tourist resorts in the Kona-Kohala area because they come here to loll on beaches, drink fruity drinks and be entertained.

I will also recommend trucking your bikes down to visit the upper cane haul road (not the highway) between Na'alehu and Pahala down in Ka'u. Refreshments are in Na'alehu. You could ride down there from Volcano, but the round trip would be quite a long day out.

Most places here drivers aren't used to bikes on the road, and watch out for street racers, monster trucks, impaired drivers, etc.

shona

Thank you bkrouwnd

bkrownd

The "entrance" to upper cane haul road in Na'alehu is the side street that the entrance to Punaluu Bakery is on. (the main intersection in town) On the Pahala side it's harder to find upper cane haul road, being hidden behind old plantation buildings. Pahala has the cute run-down atmosphere of a derelict sugar town, and Na'alehu is a nice place to get refreshments on a road trip.

Get some Ka'u coffee in Na'alehu, if you like coffee.

If you like art, there's Volcano Art Center near the visitor's center in the national park, and Volcano Garden Arts next door to Volcano Inn in Volcano.

Ono Cafe (at Volcano Garden Arts) and Kilauea Lodge are nice places to eat in Volcano Village, and Hana Hou in Na'alehu is good small town food.

D1andonlyDman

I'm off to Maui for 8 days tomorrow. I rented a bike for 4 of those days from West Maui Cycles ($80 for 4 days), but it's not a high performance bike - it's a Specialized Sirrus road hybrid. I debated renting a Roubaix for twice as much money, but I'm not looking to ride more than a couple of hours a day. I'll probably ride along west Maui, from a bit south of Lahaina up past Kapalua, but this isn't the right gear to try to climb Haleakala with, and frankly, I didn't feel like burning an entire day on it.

Hypno Toad

Looking some local knowledge.... I'm bringing my gravel bike to Turtle Bay on the North Shore of Oahu and want to know if this highlight loop is on public-accessible roads. Thanks!

FYI - we've stayed at Turtle Bay many times and I've biked on the resort with their retail fleet. This is my first time bringing a bike and I'd like to get off the resort and find a bike climb.

Phoenix800

Hypno Toad - I just saw your posting today. I hiked some of Pupukea Road about five years ago. Starting at Foodland, the first couple of miles is paved steep uphill, residential, and takes you to a gate where the road is closed. You can go around the gate. The rest of the road is abandoned and not maintained. At the time most of it was good pavement with a lot of fallen debris but nothing you couldn't ride through. Some of it was dirt. Some sections of the road were decaying through landslides and such but were passable. I didn't go all the way to the Kamehameha Highway so I don't know how far you can go. I remember hiking some trails but I don't know if that was because the road wasn't passable or if I just wanted to hike them. If things haven't changed you should be fine on a gravel bike.

Please let me know how it goes for you. I'm planning on making the same ride in a couple of weeks.

Hypno Toad

I'm back and I rode up the Pupukea climb, it was great fun and your report on the conditions was spot-on with what I found. I turned around and rode back down after about 4.5 miles. I skipped the ride to Pupukea from Turtle Bay because of passing showers - not a fan of that road in good conditions, in the rain would be stressful, so I drove to the base of the climb. I wish I'd have kept riding further, but the rain was heavy and I was kinda pressed for time.

Here's a link to my Strava ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/3177859464
Here's an edit with GoPro Quik: (I'll likely make another edit with extra time during the self-quarantine; editing on computer versus phone).

My Breezer Radar Pro on Riddler 700x45 (tires are semi-slick after 3,400 miles)

Phoenix800

Hypno Toad - Thanks for the video! That looks like an awesome ride. There's a lot more debris on the road and it's more washed out than it was when I hiked. I'm not surprised. I wouldn't have ridden from Turtle Bay to Pupukea Road in the rain either. That route isn't very bicycle-friendly. I'm glad you made it to Hawaii. My trip has been cancelled due to corona-issues.

Hypno Toad

Sorry to hear your trip was cancelled. We feel very fortunate to have threaded the needle with this trip. We flow out on March 8, when Hawaii and Minnesota announced the first cases, and obviously it totally blew up in the last 9 days.

I picked up our dogs from boarding right after getting home, they told me that they have animals that will stay there while family is stuck out of country with the travel bans. Frankly, that'd be the only part that would have stressed me about getting stuck in Hawaii, boarding the dogs would've bankrupted us after a few weeks! I had talked with our daughter before leaving, asking her to live at our house with the dogs if things when sideways ... at the time, I thought I was being silly, I had no idea.

Staying at Turtle Bay was perfect for social distancing. We always buy food and drink to keep in our room (on-site bars and restaurants are pricey). So we maybe had one meal a day outside our room and typically at the pool bar. Otherwise, we did lots of long hikes, snorkeled (we bring our own gear), biked, and watched humpbacks from our balcony (that was awesome!).

Now, the two of us are focused on staying home and avoiding social contact since we sat on a packed plane for 8 hours coming home. I honestly expect us to get hit with COVID-19 after that flight, I'd be happy to be wrong.

I hope you can reschedule your trip after things settle down ... when ever that will be.

Phoenix800

Hypno Toad,

I'm glad you made it back and hope you don't get sick. It sounds like you had a great trip! We are pretty bummed about not going but employer policy now requires two weeks of isolation after a flight. That would mean being out of work for an entire month. I would expect that the trip would be a career-ending move for me.

Turtle Bay is nice, I've stayed in the condos there.

Good luck with your isolation. I hope you can at least get out and ride!