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We would play a game of hide a seek with the sun. As soon as clouds cover the sun, we would make a mad dash for our bikes riding as fast as we can till the sun breaks out again. Then we would look for the next available shade. The next 30 mi stretch would take us all the way to Ocean View. We start out with downhill twists and turns till past the Painted Church of Saint Benedict. Next is a series of roller coaster rides, going up and down the next hill - not steep but a lot of them. There are stretches, where the shoulders almost dissappear, but just be wary of traffic and everything should be OK. Traffic is no longer as busy as the Kona to Captain Cook stretch. This part of the ride is through lush forest vegetation on each side which turns into vast lava fields as we approach Ocean View. Absolutely no services till Ocean View. It is good we refilled our bottles at Captain Cook. The cookies and dried fruits we carried surely helped fuel the aching body. This portion of the ride surely is the hardest mentally and on the butt. To keep our mind off the ride, we had to look and analyze the vegetation. A lot of wild fruit trees - from passion fruit, bananas, guavas, papayas etc. There are houses tucked deep into the forest leaving you wonderring what they do around here for entertainment. Don't make the mistake of counting the mile markers as it will psyche you out. Enjoy and think about the scenery instead. Closer to Ocean View, you see lava fields left by prior volcano eruptions slowly growing trees probably to become a rain forest after we're long gone. Also marvel at the vastness of Ocean View, the biggest subdivision in the state pushing 6 miles up the mountain to your left and 3 miles down to the coast. |
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We did not reach Ocean View till almost 5 PM. This was our first chance to eat real food since the mid morning snack at Captain Cook. Since it has been already a long day, we decided to order "food to go" at the diner for tonight's dinner. We were hit by a few drizzles before Ocean View, but the clouds further on looked like real RAIN clouds. No choice but to store the camera for fear of rain damage. No more video or pictures at this point. We started the next 12 miles in heavy rain. One thing good is that is was warm rain. I did not even try to put on any rain gear on. We were starting to loose daylight. Cars would pass at high speeds in the rain but the wide shoulders provided a safe buffer. At about 6 pm with sunlight almost gone, we had another 6 miles to go. We were lucky it was the start of a long downhill descent and traffic very light We covered the last 6 miles in under 30 munites. We we're like fireflys with red blinkers as we approached tonight's lodging, Macadamia Bed and Breakfast. Today's ride is categorically HARD. I think we underestimated the heat factor and our riding speed. Sixty plus miles does not seem to be a lot if you have a whole day to ride it. But with the rolling terrain and heat, we should have started earlier. But the important thing is we finished it. Hopefully the next days of riding with a lot less miles will not be as hard. |
