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Why do people climb mountains? Because it’s there. When it comes to mountain, Haleakala is not your average hill. It’s a dormant volcano and you can ride it from sea level to summit, 10,023 feet (3′055 m) of elevation gain in one uninterrupted climb. Some claim it’s the highest paved road on earth. Here’s my account of attempting such climb.

I rented a bike from South Maui Bike. They now feature Trek 5000, all carbon for $250/week. You can call in advance to reserve it and make sure you get the proper frame size. The bike was in decent condition, but don’t expect too much. I started from Paia as planned, and got rolling shortly after 6:30 am. Plenty of daylight at that time of the year. Baldwin Beach Park is the perfect location to take a picture and a toe dip in the water before starting the ascent.

Baldwin Beach Park, Paia HI

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It’s only been 48 hours since I finished the Tour of the California Alps, also known as the Death Ride and I’ve been feeling the pressure to share all the gory details. So here ya go.

Joe, Jay and I setup for an early start. We figured we wanted to leave plenty of time to make the check points and finish the ride. We had a great carbo load dinner at Passaratti’s the night before and set the alarm for 4 am. We arrived at the Turtle Rock park shortly after 5 am. There was already a lot of people there as everyone was trying to get a headstart. The temperature was warmer than expected and after much debate about what to wear, we were ready to roll at 5:30, heading south towards Monitor Pass.

The day was off to a good start. The sky cleared up from smoke the day before and we were all happy to finally see some blue sky and clouds. Lake Tahoe had seen some pretty bad air quality recently, so bad that several events got cancelled, including the Donner Lake Triathlon the day before.
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The Best Buddies Challenge 2007 concluded with great success last week-end. The weather was perfect and the organization flawless, thanks in part to Audi and other sponsors who covered all the cost of the events so that 100% of donations would go directly to helping people with mental disabilities.

The 100-mile ride started at 7 am in the Chateau Julien Winery in Carmel and we were sent off by no other than California’s first lady Maria Shriver. Form there, the peloton was escorted to Highway One by a full CHP motorcade. Leading the pack was actor Rob Lowe (Brothers and Sisters, The West Wing) in an Audi RS4 Friendship pace car, hand painted by Brazilian artist Romero Britto.

As we reached the coastal road, my teammate and I started to form a paceline and ride south towards Hearst Castle in San Simeon Hills. Amongst the riders were many members of the T-mobile pro cycling team. Olympic medalist and 9 time tour de France rider Axel Merckx (yes the son of legendary Eddy Merckx), Olympic medalist Mari Holden, two-time National Champion Kimberly Baldwin and few others. I got to ride along (ok, draft along) for about 15 miles with some of these team members. What a great experience.

The ride along the coast is stunning. Imagine going up and down windy cornices, looking at 200 feet cliffs down to beautiful ocean water. My weeks of hard training paid off and I completed the ride with relative ease (to be clear, the double climbs between mile 70 and 80 still hurt).

The ride concluded with a wonderful celebration held at the Hearst Castle Ranch. We go treated to a lavish barbecue and private concert by classic rock icons Cheap Trick. We got to rub shoulder on the dance floor with Maria Shriver and her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger the governator, Olympic Gold medalist Carl Lewis and other celebrities.

Thanks to the generosity of many donors, we raised a whooping total of $3,427,371 for this worthy cause. Many thanks again to those of you would contributed to this great cause and made this ride possible.

Now that BB 2007 is over, training season for Best Buddies 2008 is officially starting. The local century event, Tour for Woodside will be a nice way to keep the momentum going.

You can check the ride profile and overview below or fly the course in Google Earth.

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