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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Road through Maui can be traveled on two wheels

Philip Hersh Chicago Tribune

MAUI, Hawaii – I am a creature of habit. For 20 years, I have been making biennial two-week vacation trips to Maui, staying in the same unit at the same condo complex, following essentially the same daily routine: morning exercise, breakfast, beach, lunch, nap, beach, join the friendly crowd at the barbecue to cook dinner, watch a rented movie or read, bed.

Other than an occasional restaurant meal, only two things have altered this schedule after early trips, when my wife, son and I got touring out of the way.

One is we all learned to scuba dive, and we do that three or four times per trip.

The other is that a combination of severe Achilles tendinitis and a bone spur forced me to change my preferred form of exercise two years ago from running to road cycling. Running is so simple: shorts, shoes, T-shirt, out the door.

But now I was facing my first Maui vacation when running was out of the question, and I wanted to substitute riding on an island that had never seemed particularly friendly for road bikes – relatively few roads, ever-increasing numbers of cars. (Maui is much better known for its extraordinary mountain-biking possibilities.)

And then there was the matter of the bike, complicated by the fact that I am mechanically challenged.

If you can take apart and reassemble a bike, it will cost from $100 to $175 each way (query your airline) to check it as baggage to Hawaii in your own bike bag. If you have a bike bag no larger than one wheel, sometimes an airline will check it as regular baggage.

Hint: If asked, tell them it’s exercise equipment. If you are a really serious rider comfortable only on your own bike and capable of the mechanics, go for it.

But if you just want a good bike to ride, renting is the way to go.

I had a head start on this, because the man who sold me a road bike (Giant OCR A1) on the mainland had gone to work for West Maui Cycles. After checking prices at other shops, one of them much closer to where I was staying, I wound up renting from West Maui Cycles, and it turned out to be a great choice.

For $320, I had a 14-day rental of a Cannondale Six13, a bike very similar to my Giant. It came with a spare tube, tire levers, a very good pump (all used to fix a flat on my final ride) and a water bottle. (I brought my shoes, pedals, helmet and bike clothes.)

I did 20 to 40 miles a day, much of it on the road that runs from Kihei to the lava fields at the south end of the island, where traffic was lightest. I also used the wide bike lanes along the high-speed, heavily traveled Pi’ilani Highway, where drivers were surprisingly courteous.

And I rode from Kihei to Wailuku, Kihei to Lahaina (bike lanes nearly all the way on both) and took the off-highway bike lane that runs from north Kihei to the sugar factory near the airport.

None of those routes had breathtaking climbs. All had breathtaking scenery.

I know I still missed the nicest routes on the island. My plans for the most dramatic ride on the north half of Maui, from Kapalua to Waihee, fell through because the hilliest (6 percent grade), most winding and least maintained stretch of the route was rain-slicked both days I planned it, and I did not want to risk trouble while riding alone far from my lodging.

So I took the easy way out: the oceanside, rolling ride to the lava fields, and my reward each time was one of the rainbows Hawaii is famous for.