Paul's adventure

Yesterday morning Paul decided he was ready to ride the road to Hana. For any of you that have actually driven this road, I don't need to tell you how crazy an idea this really is. For those of you that haven't driven this road, believe me, it is a crazy idea! But that never seems to deture him. We talked to a guy at a bike shop over here and he told Paul it would be a great day to ride because the winds had shifted to the other side of the island and it would likely not rain. This is the side of the island that it usually rains somewhat every day so a non-rain day would be a real bonus.

We drove over to Paia which is where Paul wanted to begin his ride. It would be 45 miles from there to Hana. He thought it would take him about 4 hours. I kissed him goodbye, told him to be careful and waved goodbye. Then I took off to find my quilt shop. After about 2 hours killing time on my own, I decided I better head out to Hana myself. Paul & I have driven this road once before but it was about 20 years ago and I knew it was narrow and twisty but I'd forgotten HOW narrow and twisty! The posted speed limit was 10 - 15 mph and a lot of the way that speed seemed almost too fast.

It is a really beautiful drive. It is like a rain forest with thick vegetation and tall trees and vines growing right up to the edge of the road. It concerned me a lot to think of Paul riding on a bike since there was a lot of
sightseeing traffic. I was afraid a distracted driver would come around a sharp corner and run him over. Wives tend to worry like that. I thought I'd probably catch up with him before I got to Hana so I kept expecting to see him when I came around every corner but I never did. We had decided on a location to meet up at when we got to Hana without really knowing where that location would actually be. But with a warm feeling of relief I found him sitting on the side of the road in the location we had chosen. He had been there all of about 3 minutes so our timing turned out perfect also. He had finished the ride in 4 hours. The ride had a lot more terrain than he expected. There was an uphill section that was about 3 miles long that was quite the workout but then on the downhill sections he was going faster than most of the cars. When I got out of the car and walked up to him I did notice a bloody, scraped up forearm and he admitted he had a "little crash landing" along the way.

He was riding along taking in the ups and downs and feeling quite confident when he went around an extremely sharp, uphill, hairpin turn that had a lot of ruts in the road and his bike chain slipped and he couldn't get his feet unclipped out of his peddles and he ended up tipping over. He landed on his elbow and forearm and shoulder and then bonked his shin pretty good as well. There was a guy in a convertible right behind him that saw the whole thing so he stopped and made sure Paul was OK. This guy was an athelete too. In fact he had just finished a triathalon a couple hours before down on the other side of the island. This wasn't a serious incident but Paul is kind of sore in those place today and he is having an off-bike day.

Ironically, as we were driving back down from Hana we came across 2 teenage girls who had been on mountain bikes and one girl was laying on the side of the road. We could tell as we got closer that she was hurt. So we pulled over and jumped out. This must have just happened because she was kind of out of it; she couldn't tell us what exactly had happened. Between them they only had one helmet and thankfully the girl that crashed was the one wearing the helmet. She had bonked her head pretty hard and she said her neck was hurting. She had scrapped up hands and knees. We gave her friend our cell phone and she called her mom. Luckily, they lived close by and the mom came within 5 minutes. The hurt girl was able to get up off the road and we had her sit in our car until the mom came. Paul could totally relate to her!

So all's well that ends well. He is still planning to ride up the volcano but not for a few more days! Stay tuned!