Summit plummet: a bicycle trip for you
Look, Ma no peddling!
Mount Haleakala, on the island of Maui, offers the ultimate noncyclist's bike trip: 38.2 miles downhill. It's billed as the best gravity-enhanced ride you can take outside bungee jumping the heavier you are, the faster you roll.
That's the good news.
The bad news is imparted to us by our wise-cracking cycle guide Darin Gault, as we prepare to depart.
"Y'all listen up: Volcanologists say Haleakala (hally-awk-ala) has erupted every 200 years. The last eruption was in 1790, so she's about 10 years overdue." Our transplanted Texan leader pauses dramatically.
"If she blows, there will be two clear warning signals. First, you'll see a puff of smoke off my back tire as I accelerate the chase van. The second will be a red-and-white blur. That will be your guide, Steve, racing past you.
"At that point, this will no longer be a guided tour. And you can keep the bike, courtesy of Mountain Riders."
With those last words of tongue-in-cheek advice, we pull on our motorcycle helmets and gloves, zip up our school-bus-yellow rain slickers, and take one wobbly test-loop around the parking lot atop Maui's tallest peak.
The view from this 10,000-foot high Pacific knob is impressive. You can look across the crimson-and-black moonscape of Haleakala Valley, a 7.5-mile long and 2.5-mile wide basin that's often compared to the grandeur of the Grand Canyon.
Off to the right, on one of the ridges, are several white domes of the Haleakala Observatories, including a complex that tracks missiles as part of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars"). In fact, the smooth ride down the mountain is courtesy of "Ronnie's ray-gun project," says Darin. Prior to 1991, the road wasn't paved.
While the view is impressive, it's chilly up here even in summer and we're anxious to start our run. Single file, 13 of us push off on our specially designed bicycles (with extra-wide seats and motorcycle brakes), following the red van driven by Darin. The pace seems a bit fast and exhilarating.
In our ears echo Darin's warnings from the drive up the mountain: "Guys, this is not a white-knuckle race to the bottom," he said. "Ladies, this is not a stop-and-pick-the-daisies run. It's somewhere in between. If you drop below 18 miles per hour, we can get ticketed for holding up traffic. If you cross the double yellow line. I have to put you in the van, and you become a van spud."
A van spud? Could there be anything worse on this trip?
For the first couple of miles, we're above the clouds in the cold, crisp air, whizzing along the switchbacks past the barren, lava-rock landscape, dotted by the occasional silversword plant a native species that grows only on the highest Hawaiian slopes.
It's peaceful. Quiet. We glide through a fragrant pine forest, past lush emerald pastures occupied by cows and cactus. The rider ahead of me disappears into a cloud bank, and a second later we burst out the other side.
"Maui is home to the third-largest private cattle ranch in the US," I recall Steve, our other guide, saying as we passed a bunch of black and white cows.
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