{"id":554,"date":"2011-04-26T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T15:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/?p=554"},"modified":"2011-04-26T08:04:05","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T16:04:05","slug":"mauna-kea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/?p=554","title":{"rendered":"Mauna Kea"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bryan Shaner<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>I arrived at Mid Pacific Wheels in Hilo half an hour early hoping to get a jump on the ride up to the Mauna Kea Visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center. The cloud cover was thin for a change meaning it would be hot today.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t open early and had no record of my reservation. It took just over half an hour to get me set up on an old aluminum Giant (at least it had a triple) and I was off by 9:40am. It felt good to be back on a bike. Not that our time on the Big Island hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been fun, but certain muscles had been neglected and were glad to be used again. The bike felt a bit sluggish, but that could have been the extra weight I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d enjoyed gaining during this past week in paradise.<\/p>\n

The lady at the desk of the Dolphin Bay Hotel had told me about a short cut over to highway 2000 that connected to Saddle Road about six miles out of Hilo, but the fellow at the bike shop said that I should go down to the ocean and catch Saddle Road from there so that I could have a few miles on the flats before the relentless climb up Mauna Kea began.\u00c2\u00a0 I followed his advice and was glad I had.\u00c2\u00a0 I took highway 2000 on my way back, and it was really steep! They both told me about the two miles of gravel on Saddle Road that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to deal with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The first two hours went pretty well, but then I could feel the energy draining out of my body.\u00c2\u00a0 I was already in my granny in survival mode and had only covered 15 of the 30 miles to the turn off of Saddle Road.\u00c2\u00a0 After that I still would have a climb of 3000\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 over six miles up to the visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s center.\u00c2\u00a0 I was in the construction zone and pleasantly surprised that the gravel had almost all been driven into the dirt by the car traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 It was slow but easy going.\u00c2\u00a0 And my speed (or lack thereof) was more about me than the condition of the road.\u00c2\u00a0 I was starting to doubt I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have anything left for the final six miles if I even made it that far.\u00c2\u00a0 I just had to hope that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get a second wind.\u00c2\u00a0 Water was another worry.\u00c2\u00a0 I had my Camelbak plus a quart bottle in the one bottle carrier, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been drinking a lot to keep from getting too dehydrated.\u00c2\u00a0 My deadline for getting to the turnoff was 2pm.<\/p>\n

At 1:45 it looked impossible to make it, but the road flattened out for the last 5-6 miles, and I completed the first goat up Saddle Road at 2:15pm.\u00c2\u00a0 I stopped for a bit and then started up the road to Mauna Kea.\u00c2\u00a0 But after only a few minutes I decided to turn back.\u00c2\u00a0 I was pooped.\u00c2\u00a0 There had been no second wind.\u00c2\u00a0 I was at 6000\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and already feeling the elevation.\u00c2\u00a0 My Camelbak was dry, it was getting cold and the mountain was in the clouds.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that Molten Lava drink last night (after two glasses of wine) wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t such a good ideaJ.\u00c2\u00a0 So the Mauna Kea goat would have to wait.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What a descent!\u00c2\u00a0 I took Saddle Road all the way down and was back to the bike shop in an hour and twenty minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d had to slow down to 10-15 mph for the two miles of unpaved road, but most of the rest was smooth and fast. As I was flying down the mountain I was glad I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d taken the time at the top to scrape off the tar on the tires that had picked up bits of rock (fortunately no glass) from the construction zone.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was still a bit scary on an unfamiliar bike that was producing a few interesting sounds and that had a slightly elliptical front wheel.\u00c2\u00a0 It was good to get back to the bike shop all in one piece (me and the bike).<\/p>\n

The drivers I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d encountered had all been polite.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been given half a dozen friendly honks and several \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hang loose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs.\u00c2\u00a0 I was wearing my Death Valley jersey and had quite a conversation with a motorist at a long red light.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153200 miles in one day . . . wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it hot?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 I chatted with the bike shop owner, Jerry, when I returned.\u00c2\u00a0 He had been out cycling that morning and was apologetic that he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen me off .\u00c2\u00a0 He also reinforced my decision to skip the last six miles.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Even if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have made it to the visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s center, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have had a very difficult descent. I worry about inexperienced riders who push themselves too far.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Whether he was just being nice or not, his words helped.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not used to stopping before I meet my goal.\u00c2\u00a0 But last year I had completely exhausted myself climbing the last pass (Monitor) of the Alta Alpina Challenge and had an extremely difficult and dangerous descent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the things I love about cycling is testing your limits and doing more than you could have imagined, but as I approach 65, maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m maturing as a cyclist.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just getting olderJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bryan Shaner I arrived at Mid Pacific Wheels in Hilo half an hour early hoping to get a jump on the ride up to the Mauna Kea Visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center. The cloud cover was thin for a change meaning it would be hot today.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t open early and had no record of my reservation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ride-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rides.actc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}