A Bike Ride To Remember: 38 Miles Of Cruising Down A Maui Volcano

HALEAKALA NATIONAL PARK, Maui - Mark Twain was right.

I had my doubts when my family groggily stumbled out to our condominium parking lot at 2 a.m. for a van ride to the summit of Maui's 10,023-foot dormant volcano, Haleakala, to watch the sunrise.

Twain, who hiked to the top in 1866, had written that dawn at the lip of the volcano's vast crater "was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed."

But then Twain didn't have to rise in the middle of the night for "Cruiser Bob's" 38-mile bicycle coast back down the peak.

Incredible, I thought, as van driver Andy Campbell drove up on schedule to pick us up. Waking in the middle of the night on Maui to go to a place where the wind chill is near freezing to make the longest bike trip of my life? I'm paying them?

Yep. And I, and my family, loved it.

The sunrise over the volcanic crater's moonscape lived up to its billing. As lights twinkled in Maui's valley nearly two miles below, a full moon turned orange as it sank into the sparkling Pacific to the west. Then there was a near-hour of rainbow hues as the clouds' edges caught fire to the east. Finally the rays of the sun revealed the crater (actually an eroded summit valley punctuated by later cinder cones) like a scene from another planet.

What followed is what has to be the world's best bike ride, at least in terms of energy expended for scenery gained: an exhilarating coast down to near sea level through eight climate

zones, the temperature warming 3 degrees for each 1,000 feet of drop, the lower road redolent of the heady flowers of Maui.

The road slopes steadily downhill for virtually the entire distance.

We pedaled maybe three times, for maybe a couple hundred yards. It's bicycling as it would be conducted in heaven, all downhill and none up.

"I've made 1,200 to 1,300 trips down the hill for nearly 50,000 miles and I still enjoy it every day," said our tour leader, Richard Hayden, with a reassuring midriff to prove we hadn't signed up for a triathalon.

The trips began in 1983 after Bob Kiger, a Hollywood producer who had moved to Maui and opened a bike shop, took friends on a bike cruise down the road that switchbacks through the national park. "Gee Bob," they told him when it was over, "you could charge money for that." And so he did.

Since then, 300,000 people have made the trip. Of the dozen companies which have conducted tours over the years just three presently survive, including Cruiser Bob's, the original.

The trips are very similar. There's a hotel pickup that takes you to the bike company's headquarters point near the base of the volcano; a hurried continental breakfast; and then a van ride up to the summit. The 2-to-3 a.m. pickup time is necessary only if you want to see the sunrise: hotel pickup times are also possible at about 6 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Riders are equipped with helmets and windbreakers which cut the chill at the summit. It was 45 degrees at dawn during our August trip, and temperatures can fall to near-freezing in winter, even when it is 80 degrees at sea level.

You descend down the mountain on the main park road in a single-file group with a leader at the front and van at the rear. They do an excellent job of controlling passing auto traffic, signaling the bicycles over periodically and thus taking the worst danger out of the trip.

Some caveats: There have been two deaths and a number of injuries the past eight years, including a spill and wrist injury for another group's rider the day we came down. The Park Service permits and regulates the trips, but is officially neutral on encouraging them.

While the journey isn't scary, difficult nor unduly hazardous, you do negotiate a mountain road with hairpin turns for 38 miles at speeds that average between 15 and 20 mph. If you haven't been on a bike for 20 years, this is not the place to start.

While riders have been as young as 7 and as old as 80, I'd recommend a minimum age of about 12 - the age of our youngest daughter - unless your child has a fair amount of highway bicycling experience.

Opinion differs on the necessity of seeing the sunrise. My oldest daughter and I wouldn't have missed it, but my wife and youngest thought a later trip would be just as good.

Weather is usually good but can be rainy or cloudy, particularly in the peak tourist season from December through March. One advantage of a dawn trip is that the chances are better for a clear view of the crater, which often clouds over in mid-day.

Because the best things on Maui are arguably free - the scenery, the weather, the beaches, the underwater reefs - one can question the need to spend around $100 a person for a van-bike-breakfast trip that consumes eight to 10 hours.

After all, you can drive yourself to the summit on the same road, can hike some of Haleakala's 30 miles of trails, and even take your own bike. (There is even a Maui bicycle race up the road - one of the world's steepest paved roads.

Well, my daughters voted the bike trip as one of the best things we did on the island.

More information

Bike tours can be arranged through hotels or directly with the company. Choices are Cruiser Bob's, 1-808-667-7717; Maui Mountain Cruisers, 1-808-871-6014; and Maui Downhill, 1-808-871-2155. For other bike tours at a more individualized pace, or to rent a mountain bike, there is Chris' Bike Adventures, 1-808-878-2575.