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Haleakala Bike Tour
The Haleakala Bike Tour is unique on the planet. The Haleakala Sunrise Tour is the most famous version of this ride. Not only will you be enthralled by this sunrise spectacle at 10'000 ft. but you will cruise down the mountain, without peddling, for miles and miles. Now you have two good reasons to experience the Haleakala Sunrise Tour. This is an adventure that visitors to Maui should participate in at least one time. The memories will last a lifetime.
Checkout Tom's Tips and Insights about Maui Bike Tours
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Tom's Tips - Maui Bike Ride
The Maui Bike tours have been one Maui excursion that has changed so much over the course of time. I remember back in the early eighties when a young entrepreneur who later became known as 'Cruiser Bob' came up to me and described his idea to take visitors on a bike ride down Haleakala from the crater at 10'000 ft to the seacoast below. I remember thinking that the idea seemed like an exciting one but also might be perilous at the same time. Some months later I heard that he had taken his first trip down the mountain and although it proved to be an experience for all, there were some problems involving accidents where at least one person ran off the road and was badly hurt.
In subsequent trips there were many changes made to make the tours safer and the idea caught on with the general public and the downhill bike ride experience became somewhat of a phenomenon. Many other bike companies joined in the gold rush and the bike industry on Maui was headed to its heyday... read more.
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Video Transcript
Maui is the home of really one of the most famous bike tours available anywhere on the planet, the Haleakal? downhill. This is something that we have been doing here on Maui since the early '80s, and it has to do with the mountain called Haleakal?, which goes up 10,000 feet. There's a beautiful roadway that goes all the way from the beach up to the very top. At the very top we've got observatories and just it's a great place for a vantage point. Also at the very top of this mountain is what we refer to as the crater of Haleakal?. This is at 10,000 feet. There is essentially a crater that goes down 3,000 feet and it's 21 miles in circumference. This is like looking at the surface of the moon. It is really one of the experiences that you would want to see when you come to Maui. The bike tours take advantage of this mountain so you can kind of get an idea of seeing Haleakal?, and also enjoy a really interesting and different, exciting kind of an activity.
It's changed somewhat from the early days. Back in the early '80s, we would have vans that would take you up to the top of the crater. You'd have a chance to look down and enjoy all the spectacle that is Haleakal? crater. Then in these vans, or behind the vans, or on top of the vans, or however it was arranged at the time, they would have bicycles that they would bring along with them. They'd adjust all the handlebars and the seats for everybody at the top. You'd get on your bike and then you'd cruise all the way down to the ocean. That's the way it used to be.
Today, it's very similar, the same situation. They'll take you up there to see the crater, generally for sunrise. You can see it for what they call a mid-day trip as well, but sunrise is the most popular by far. Everybody wants to do that. You do need to leave really early for that. The idea is to get up there when it is completely black, and get there just in time to see the colors start to change, going through the hues of blue and violet, and all the colors that you see as the sun starts to come up. The idea is to be there at a time when you can see all the stars. This is an amazing place to see stars, and that's why they have these huge telescopes, plural, up there.
You'll get there. You'll have an opportunity to see that, and then when it comes time to start going down the mountain, instead of getting on the bikes right there, what they do is they go down to the outskirts of the Haleakal? National Park, which is at the 6,500-foot level approximately. From there, at that point you're going to get on your bike, so you're going to get mounted, and then you're going to scoot down, either to the ocean or some other little place. All of the different companies are somewhat different in terms of where they go, but the tour at that point is exactly the same. You're cruising on your bicycle just like this down this beautiful highway, and just enjoying the ride down.
Here's another picture, I think, so you can get a little bit of idea of the multiple numbers of people that will do this. Usually you're given rain gear or something to keep you warm, because it can get cold. If you're going up there in the early, early morning, obviously you're up there at 10,000 feet before the sun comes up so it's going to be cold. You'll want to bring whatever you can to stay warm, but they're also going to have parkas and that sort of thing, and also rain gear in case you run into any mist and that sort of thing on the way down the mountain.
These trips are extremely popular. We have quite a number of companies that do this. During the busy seasons, they get really booked up, and so it's best to make sure that you can book these in advance. The best way to do these, mostly for people who are coming from the West Coast or from the mainland US, is to do this on the first day or second day that you're here. Because they leave so early ... When you're coming over, in all likelihood when you get here, you're going to be waking up early just simply because of the time change. That's the best time to take advantage of going on this particular tour, since you have to get up early to do it anyway. If you're up already, you might as well just go for it. The first day that you're on island, you're almost always waking up really early. That's a good day to go.
This is a fun tour. You really get to be outside. You get to be on a bicycle. One of the best things about it is you're cruising downhill. There's no uphill pedaling, so it's just this kind of a going down the mountain, down, down, down. They've got really good brakes. That's what you use. There's really almost no pedaling involved, and it's almost a little bit like a child's dream of not having to go up the hills, just down the hills. You cruise all this distance, usually all the way down to the ocean. It really is a lot of fun.
The technicalities of how they do it is that they have a lead biker and a chase van. This is typically the way it's done. You're in a line, like you've got here. You're not allowed to go ahead of the lead biker, so they keep you in a line, but behind you is going to be a chase van. This is usually the van that you came up in. The purpose of the chase van is to kind of keep cars from coming around and getting into your pathway. There is radio communication between the lead biker and the chase van. They're always in communication. Typically what'll happen is you'll cruise down for a while, for a few minutes.
The chase van might let the lead biker know that there's a car or two cars that are building up behind, and then the lead biker will find an area where they'll just pull off the road. Everybody will kind of follow him off and the cars will pass, and then you'll continue down again. That's typically the way it's done. You're somewhat sheltered from the notion of having to worry about the cars coming down as you're going down the mountain. But you're keeping your eye on the road, obviously, and doing that but you've got all these views and vistas that you're seeing as you're going down, and just the outside and the fragrance of the eucalyptus as you're going through the eucalyptus forest, or just the fresh air that you feel, that invigorating, oxygenated Maui air, is very, very exciting.
This is an example of what we refer to as a guided tour. You're picked up at your hotel. You're brought in the van up here. You do this. You go back down the mountain to the ocean and then you're taken by the van back to your hotel. The other format that we have is a little bit different. It came about much later in the course of these tours, but it's kind of the freestyle where you kind of go on your own.
They are similar in the sense that you're going up in a van up to the top. You get a chance to see the crater. Then they bring you back down again to the 6,500-foot level and get you all set for your bicycle and so on. But at that point, what they do is they give you a map, and they show you how to get back to where you're supposed to be, and they take off in their van and you take off on your bikes, so you're alone. It might just be the two of you, for instance, and you'll be cruising down. You'll be able to stop whenever you want to stop, take pictures, enjoy the way down. Maybe you'll stop in Makawao town and have lunch. You can do what you want, just so long as you're back at the place you're supposed to be at a particular time. They give you an idea of how long it's going to take to get you down there.
The thing that you need to understand about those are that you are 100% responsible for watching for cars that are coming behind you. It's a little bit of an added responsibility. It does get a little bit tenser as you're on a road that cars are on, so you need to make sure that you're navigating things properly. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people do this, so I'm not saying that it's a tremendous additional difficultly, but it is just an extra responsibility you have when you are operating on your own, and there's no one to challenge your rationality about how you're actually traversing the mountain on your bike.
I should say, too, with regard to this activity that you are 100% in charge of your bike. You are the one that steers. You're the one that brakes it. Where it goes, to a large degree, has to do with you. You need to know that all the responsibility is yours. You can get hurt, obviously, on these, if you were to go off the side of the road or if you were to go into oncoming traffic. Indeed, this has happened over the course of the many decades that we've been doing this, where people have lost control of the bikes by going too fast, or just not feeling comfortable enough on the bikes, and doing something silly that ends up getting them hurt. Although you're going to be protected as much as these companies can possibly do, you need to understand that it's totally your responsibility with regard to making sure that you are going in the right areas on these bikes.
With that being said, I can tell you that hundreds of thousands of people have successfully gone down these mountains and enjoyed it, and it's one of the things that people continuously rank as one of the top activities that they want to do on the island of Maui. It is really an activity that is unique to this island, that if you have the slightest desire you should look into it because it is really a popular and exciting activity.
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