Category Archives: biking

I often end up going places – from the Dordogne region of France to Grafton, Vermont and Columbus, Indiana (an unlikely architectural hotspot) – because my parents went before me.   I  am driven not only by vague memories of their travel tales but because I inherited their tastes and sensibilities (if not their budget.)

Soooo, when I was trying to figure out where to go in Hawaii, the main reason I  settled on visiting the Big Island and its Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park  is a vague memory of my parents’ story about riding a bike into a dormant volcano there. Sure enough, here’s my dad’s  recollection of  that trip – which makes me want to go all the more…and on a bike! (Note to self: find out if/where we can rent bikes at the national park.)

We did a bike trip around the big island many moons ago. There is one road that circles the island at the high level…it goes thru several kinds of climate from rain forest to barren lava beds. We would stay at hotels near the water, ride up the big hill to get to the road, ride down to have lunch by the water, ride up again and then ride till the end of the day and come back to the water. The only change was when we got to the volcano where we stayed overnight in the hotel right next to the volcano mouth. Some hardy soles actually rode their bike up the hill but mom and I opted for a sag-wagon ride. In the morning we could then walk out onto the volcano which still had some small smoking holes. The next morning was the culmination of the trip. We rode our bikes down the mountain, coasting for almost 2 hours without peddling once. The final miles were down the route of the Ironman marathon, which was run uphill in the opposite direction. There was a town near the base of the volcano that was famous for being the home of the hippies…more pot smoke came up from the town than from the volcano. Don’t neglect buying macadamia nuts while you are there…they are the single most caloric food possible. Also, the Kona coffee is a major tasting.