Dreaming:

Imagine the scene. Hawaii. Maui. You’ve slept late and enjoyed a pleasant tropical breakfast, rich in protein and carbs. You are getting dressed for the ride. You will wear summer weight cycling clothes, but you will carry arm warmers and a wind shell. You apply plenty of sunscreen, fill two water bottles, and make sure your sandwiches, bananas, and gels are all packed aboard the bike.

You eat a light lunch, and then ride over to meet the others just outside Lahaina. Ride time is at 2:00 PM.

Everyone is ready. You start. After about 20 miles of gently rolling coastal road, you turn inland, and up. As you climb, you quickly leave the sugar cane country. After about five miles of steady gentle climbing you reach the split in the road, and again turn uphill. Soon you are climbing through dense tropical forest. Around mile 30 the climb steepens, and the scenery changes again. The trees thin, and you see grassland ranches with a lot of cattle. You turn onto the road to the summit.

Now you are in it! The grade goes to a fairly steady 6%, with occasional pitches of 7% or a little more. The grass becomes patchy, and rocks are a lot more apparent.

At mile 40 or so, you notice that your breathing is more labored, even though your speed and cadence haven’t varied. One of the group has a GPS reciever, and he mentions that you are over a mile above sea level. More than half of the atmosphere is below you, and all you can see ahead are mountain and switchbacks.

By mile 45 most of the vegetation is gone. There are only a few scraggly desert brush type plants, widely scattered among the rocks, and occasional patches of lichens. Mostly, your surroundings look like a picture of the surface of the moon. The light is brighter, and has a harder “edge” to it. Things look a bit more blue than you are used to.

At mile 50 there is no vegetation visible. You round a bend and suddenly you are looking out over the island to the west, and across the wide empty Pacific. There are some wispy clouds out there, but they are below you! The grade seems steeper. You reduce speed again. You are making a lot of heat, but it’s okay, the air is cool. The GPS guy mentions that you are at 7,500 feet.

It’s an hour later, and you are pulling into the parking lot at the caldera. You have summitted Haleakala. The “House of the Sun.” You are standing atop Maui’s huge and ancient extinct volcano. In almost all directions you can see the improbable blue of the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon. And the Sun is lowering toward the ocean.

You eat your rations, drink the last of your water, and go to refill your bottles. It is late enough in the day that the last of the bike tour operators have left, herding their disk brake equipped, fat tire riding charges into the closely supervised “gravity pilot” descent. You notice that, when you stand, you get a little light headed. Of course! You are over two miles above sea level!

As the lower limb of the Sun just touches the Ocean, you are all assembled. It’s time to go! You all pulled on arm warmers, knee warmers, and wind jackets. Now you are glad of it. It’s a bit chilly now.

The descent is absolutely exhilarating! Mile after mile of swooping curves go by. By the time you are down in the cattle country it is getting dusky. Night will fall quickly in the tropics. Still you descend! It’s warmer now, but you are still glad of the wind cheater clothing.

By the time you hit the coast road, the Sun is fully down, but there is just enough light to see by. You all pull off the jackets, and then turn on the tail lights and go!

You pull back into the historic whaling port of Lahaina, just at full dark.

Of course you made reservations in advance at the Old Lahaina Luau. You will be entertained wonderfully, even as you are fed extravagantly.

Congratulations! You’ve just had one of the world’s perfect cycling days.