Oahu circunavigation 2010

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I have aspired to ride my bike around the circumference of Oahu way before i had ever set foot on Hawaii or knew anything about the route. I just thought it would be pretty cool the circumnavigate a volcanic island. The reason i came to Hawaii was to live with my girlfriend while she attended college at UH Manoa. During here first semester I shipped my old aluminum cannondale roadbike and panniers out for about 150$ (and back for about 200$) I did plenty of smaller rides and had my odometer and all but i never even rode to the north shore or got around to doing an overnight tour. it was like i was having biketourists block...in paradise. And then one drunken night in the 2nd semester in chinatown my housemate kevin said he down to ride the island and so it was on. we decided to ride our bikes around the island no matter what it took. it would be Kevins first bike tour ever on his recently acquired 1970s steel Schwinn. thing weights about 40 lbs. I was was psyched to ride my girlfriends newer aluminum cannondale that was a little big for her ad a little small for me. It was my speediest option. at first we set to ride in early December but plans changed and i would be heading off the island sooner than i had originally planned in order to make it home for thanksgiving, so that meant that we would have to leave in a week instead of 3 weeks. So anyone that rides their bike alot (3-7 days a week) could do this trip. and it could be broken down into an easier trip as well. I have never seen or heard any other accounts of anyone doing the route we did. there is one guy who rode the shorter route that cuts back throurgh the middle of the island on Kam Highway check his roughte here

Friday
so the day we leave kevin has to got to work at like 5am. He got out of work showered and packed a few things and we were on the road by noon. we were on our way out of Kaimuki twards the east side of the island where we would jump on the Kalanianaole hwy. We were jammin, makin great time and had just blasted up the hill next to the Hawaii Kai Skatepark when kev gets a thorn right through his tire. So we patch the tube right there on the side of the road in about 15 minutes and munch some powerbars real quick and we were back on track. we rolled through the Hawaii Kai golf course and popped back out on Kalanianaole hwy just in time to ride the big downhill at Makapu. Then we rode the 10 miles or so into Kane'ohe and stopped there to fill up some water and eat another powerbar. Also kev had to make a quick stop to work out a leg cramp. Then we jammed up the east coast until we hit kualoa ranch and we stopped there to take a few pictures and i took that opportunity to jump in the ocean before the so i could dry off riding before the sun went down.Kev grabbed some Ahi poke at a Tamuras in Hau'ula, and then we rolled into Laie as the sun was going down and got some subway sandwiches and cookies for dinner as well. then i walked into safeway to grab some beer and after 2 laps of the store I came to the conclusion that since that safeway way near Brigham young university that the mormons controlled the safeway. so after talking to a well informed young lady we heard that we could go no less than 2 miles in either direction on the road to find our hard earned beers. We decided that we better just keep truckin forward and find somewhere to camp and then go on the beer run since it was already dark out. so we made it to Malaekahana state rec area. We rode about 50 miles and somewhere along the way my knee started getting inflamed. So we hiked into the campgrounds past some yurts and huts after asking around we found the front office/house and found a nice old man that rented us a micro cabin for about 40$ i think. Oh and i forgot to mention that the guy who directed us twords the mainhouse also caught wind of our beer run and put in an order for some poke/rice and beer, and the guy who gave us the keys got some poke too! so i unloaded my panniers into our our hut and bounce out back on the road to find the next market up in Kahuku. I then purchased more poke rice and beer than ive ever bought before. and somehow got it all attached to my bike and back to the camp site. I gave the the guy at the house his food and one of his lady friends gave me some coffee drinks and a big waterbottle. Perfect for a bike tour!! then when i got back to camp Kev and I started devising a plan as to the best place to have a camp fire. then our buddy the caretaker came back and was ready to chow down on some poke. He said his nephew was gonna come thru and help him with the night shift too. then we started gettin the fire going and his nephew showed up and we all drank a few beers and kicked it for a bit. then they went off to do some work and i fed the fire up and Kev passed the fuck out. then the caretaker came back thru sayin that his nephew was gonna come back by with some fresh caught wild pig meat. and did he ever! he brought back a few lbs. of it and chopped it all down. then into the skillet and onto the hot coals in between two thick logs it went. we threw some rice in a pot on the other side of the fire, and as i kicked back that homie cooked up some of the most tantalizing fatty meat ive ever eaten. I woke kevin up at one point to try some and accidentally gave him the most gristly unchewable piece (my bad kev!) and then it was 2 in the morning and i was drunk and remembering i had to ride another 80 miles or so the next day and my knee was killin me. so i said fuckit and went to sleep in the cabin, then after a little while i got restless and remembered i had brought my hammock all the way out there, and decided to string it up between these trees right in front of our shack. I might have gotten a an hour of sleep of lying out there for about 3 hours, in some super strong winds. it was whipping my parachute grade hammock around like crazy! so i caught my last few hours of rest inside the hut. Kev and i both woke up around 10 or so, and i am pretty sure i was a little more hung over and haggard than him. and my knee was still swollen! I was pretty sure by this point that i just rode with the seat a tad to low. but either way we had to get up and out of there. so i hopped in the ocean for the refreshing rejuvination, i left a few beers for the caretaker and brought a few for a toast at Kaena point. we dropped the key to the lock on the hut off at the front office and we were on our way. We rolled through turtle bay and decided that our next stop was gonna be the northshore skatepark, because if someone is gonna bring three full cans of paint on a 150 mile bike trip, he better damn well use them, right? so we stopped there and as the shredders shredded some legal painting was done. one guy did come up and say that if we painted on any of the ramps he would bash our faces in with his trucks, but the walls along the park are legit. anyways that was a 45 min. layover, we whizzed by waimea and then we pushed into Hale'iwa where kevin knew of the dank sandwich shop stortos subs
then at the last gas station on our way out of town we grabbed a bag of ice for a dollar and poured half of it out and threw the beers in and tied it up tight. I call that one the bike travelers cooler. Anyways we started riding to the most western part of the island and at one point i saw a truck driving by with a fresh pig kill on the back so i stopped to snap a photo and consequently me and kevin got split up for a while. but then we did run into each other again and rode past Dillingham airfield and finally came to the infamous Kaena point.
On the western tip of Oahu is Kaena Point. This dramatic lava shoreline is said to be the place where souls of ancient Hawaiians would jump off into the spirit world and meet the souls of their ancestors. With scenic views of the Waianae coast to the south, Mokuleia to the north, and the vast Pacific, it's easy to see why this point was deemed so sacred. There are no roads here. just very bumpy off road stuff. Kevin had camped here once so we knew what we were getting into. We werent sure if it was 5 or 6 miles or what, but we pretty much rode 80% of it and walked 20%. If my girlfriend knew the things i rallied over on her bike with fully loaded panniers she would kill me. I did true her wheels when i got home to be fair. we were able to see glimpses of the Air force satelite tracking station up on the mountain above us as well. in short it was extremely gnarly getting out to the point. The last 3/4 mile or so is unrideable sand but once we were there i was put in to such a state of awe and excitement and accomplishment, because i was standing at the edge of the world. and we had cold beer and dank sandwiches to boot! So we sat right down next to the big old cement structure and had the best lunch of our lives. I even got to ice my swollen knee with the extra beer ice. we took about 30min or so to just take in the area and rest and hike around a little At one point we ran into some people Kevin knew and they mentioned something about part of the trail being out further southwest on the trail. we had to keep moving so then it was back to the old dusty trail because although we had already ridden around 30 miles that day we still had 50 infront of us if we wanted to sleep in our own beds that night. and we still werent sure how much trail was infront of us before we hit the hard road again.
so we were off and again could ride some and had to walk some. it was alot like picking out a route on a black diamond mougels hill on a snowboard. because if you missed a turn you were most likely bouncing over big rocks and ruts. anyways we were moving right alot when a mile or so up we come to a crumbling cliff drop where there should be a substantial chunk of trail. If the day wasnt crazy enough, this was insane. and exactly what kevins friends had warned us about. so we scoped that there was a little crumbly makeshift trail that when down a bit and across this eroding hillside and so we decided we would get one bike across at a time. so we got Kevins across and on the way back to grab mine i realized that there was a crazy ass cave that went into the hillside there. we went in to take a look and it seemed pretty deep. On the map they have it named Kiluea cave. once we got across i threw the panniers back on my bike and we were on our way.
After a few more miles of trail riding we started seeing fishermen and their vehicles on the side of the trail and then finally we hit the hardroad again. we popped out right at this magnificent place called yokohama bay. we rode hard for a while and passed a few makeshift villages and tent cities of hawaiians living for free on the beaches around Onikilolo beach and then finally rode into Makaha.

Then we kept riding until we hit Wai'anae and finally Ma'ili grabbed some gatorades there. We were pretty worn out and it was getting later in the day (4pm) but we had to find the energy to keep on treckin. So as the sun set we rode through Nanakuli, and Makakilo, all of this on the farrinton hwy of course. Then we did a long dark lonley stretch into waipahu. Once we hit pearl city it was pretty urban the rest of the through Aiea, and Saltlake. There we finally hopped on the Nimitz Hwy and were on the home stretch. Next thing we knew we were cruising through waikiki around 8pm, just a few miles from our house in Kaimuki. Then Kevin brought up a point that i could not refute. If we wanted to say that we rode around the whole island we were gonna have to make it around diamond head. We were running off of some raw instinctive energy now and i knew that if he could do it i could do it, and he knew the same, so we rode right past our house and went up diamond head road and looped right around and camp around the inside and past the community college and finally after 80 miles and a full day of island site seeing we came back to our house. my girlfriend was there waiting to take the after picture. it was a truly EPIC trip and i dare any one of you who reads all the way through this to go out there and try it! 130 MILE CIRCUMNAVIGATION COMPLETE
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