Haleakala Bike Co. - how far back to their shop?
 

We're thinking of doing the unescorted bike ride down Haleakala, however, I noticed you have to drop the bike off at their shop after your ride. How far is the bike ride back, and is it uphill/downhill/tough, etc.?

Thanks for the help!

It is mostly downhill. If you stay on their route it is vey easy--extremely easy. If you want to challenge yourself, take side trips from the route. Not sure how many miles all told, about 30 miles, but you go at your own pace. I habe done it several times and each time we take anywhere from 4 - 6 hours, but we ride, eat, shop, and just sit and relax.

you can do one of two things. the first is an easy route, primarily all down hill and even if you aren't athletic at all it won't be difficult - this easy route has you go down the mountain and back to the shop. The second option is to add on a 7 mile loop that has you going up hill quite a bit at the end (and when we did it into the tradewinds making it even more difficult). My husband didn't have any trouble with the extra loop but I sure did - it nearly killed me.

By the way, I highly recommend this unescorted trip. We saw many other tourists in the escorted groups - it didn't look like a lot of fun to me to have to stick to the program when you might have wanted to stop and smell the roses. Also, in those groups, if you can't keep up they make you get in the van for the ride down (this I am sure would not do much for ones ego).

Another option if you want to ride alone is Aloha Bike Tours. You meet at Rice Park in Kula for a continental breakfast. (We drove up and saw the sunrise ourselves)

Marc Friezner, the owner takes the group to the entrance of the Park--not quite the top--and we started riding down at about 9:00. Many of the downhill riders have already passed this point. There were 12 of us in the van but we rode down with just our family.

It's a beautiful ride but just as nice is the ride through Keokea and beyond. Marc meets you at the Sunrise Protea Farm and will take your bike up the hill. (My husband rode his bike up the hill but I would have never made it) You can ride wherever you wish--we rode up to the Silver Cloud Ranch and enjoyed the views here and through Ulupalakua Ranch.

You end up at Tedeschi Winery where there is a picnic lunch waiting for you. You ride down the mountain at your own pace and enjoy the ride--no keeping up with a group.

We were back in Kaanapali by 2 p.m.

We went with Mountain Riders ( www.mountainriders.com) on an escorted tour and it was fabulous! I'm not much of an escorted tour person but this one was great. We stayed out at the Renaissance Wailea Beach Resort and we were back by 9:30 a.m.

The toughest part of the ride was getting up so early...they picked us up at 2:30 a.m. The ride is 28 miles downhill so its very easy. Our company provided us with everything you could possibly need...bike, helmet, gloves, very nice warm-up suit, coffee and muffins before sunrise, blankets, and breakfast 1/2 way down the mountain.

Have a great trip!

I agree that is tough to get up early for these rides. One strategy (which is what we did) is to plan the outing for your first day on the island.

We were on East Coast time, so for us to get up at 3:30 in the morning was not that big a deal because we hadn't adjusted to the different time zone yet. We did really enjoy watching the sunrise at Haleakala and I definitely think it is a worthwhile trip.