I didn’t want to climb the Eiger, I wanted to have climbed the Eiger.
– Jon Krakauer, Eiger Dreams
Gianni’s Take
This Cogal seemed like a good idea to Frank. Right up until he understood we had to be riding at 5:25am to meet up for espresso or muffins, or dense fuel omelette loaded with cheese and sausage (Peter only). This ride had been weighing heavily on my psyche for a long time and I needed to get it underway. I needed to have done the East Maui Loop. Long distances and climbing are two of the many weak points of my cycling. This was by no means the Too Much on 100 slog; the East Maui Loop was 50% the distance and 80% of the climbing.
Frank proclaimed he was going to do this cogal without fuel. Frank is other worldly. He is from Mars and I, evidently, am from some outer orbiting pussy planet. I had stuffed one of my rear pockets with Clif products. Hell yes, bonking is dumb and I didn’t need to add that to my list worries. Why would one propose such Rule #91 folly? To meet the Man with the Hammer, a confirmed date with him, to really get it square in the forehead? No, Mr. Body Dismorphia wants to lose weight. With tongue cleanly bitten off I mimed that it was a fine idea.
After a zero dark thirty start we met the other riders, most of whom had no idea what a Cogal was. They were just up for a day of riding through the many climates and geographies of the East Maui Loop, followed by pizza and beer gorging. Frank and I were the only East Loop virgins on this ride. @mauibike was our guide but with one road and no turns, he didn’t have to worry about us getting lost.
Everyone returned to their starting points. Frank suffered a non-fixable flat with five miles to go and had to call in the support truck. He will have to come back to finish this one. It was a hell of a ride. I’m glad to have done it. Everyone else treated it like an easy roll around session. Rob even added some climbing after dragging me along.
The beer and pizza made us whole again.
Frank’s Take
At a cozy 160km with and a few thousand meters of climbing, this ride has been given something of mythical status by Gianni ever since our first trip out to Maui a few years ago. Poor tarmac, dirt roads, loads of climbing, and heat all add their unique elements to Maui’s already unique climate.
Being a small island just big enough to have distinct climates in different areas, there is a tropical rainforest on the north and northeast sides of the island, desert in the south, and normal in the isthmus that runs between East and West Maui. That makes this ride the only ride I’ve ever been on that takes you through all these weather zones in one day. I’d experienced part of this when riding the Kaupo ride with my friend Dave Ezzy on our last trip, and I was thrilled at the chance to ride the whole thing.
Bad roads and peer pressure meant a last-minute change to clinchers, as the wheels I had brought were my Café Roubaix climbing wheels and it was (repeatedly) postulated that I might destroy them when introducing fat ass, carbon, and potholes. I scrambled to get tires and valve extenders sorted out and claimed the VMH’s Zipp 404s for the ride. This turned out to be a bad idea as the extender I bought sucked, and the inner tubes I repurposed from her wheels were old and cracked and destined to fail just prior to us completing the ride. You’ve never been doing this so long that you can’t learn a basic lesson: never change your equipment the night before an important ride.
I had a rough night; I stayed up late writing, and staying up late writing customarily requires ample portions of wine. When I finally got to sleep, it was soon interrupted by phone calls from work when the servers chose to fail. I was awake just long enough to realize how hung over I was going to feel in the morning and how few hours were left before the alarm would go off.
Hangover, no food, and coffee seemed like an excellent way to meet the Man with the Hammer, and though I brought a Clif bar and a few shots by way of escape chute should I need it, I was determined to run the tank empty. This endeavor was aided somewhat by losing a bidon on the Maui Pavé.
This is dragging on, so I’ll stop after making a few final points. First, this is an amazing ride and despite the pouring rain, was one of the most beautiful I’ve done – full stop. Second, riding from desert into rain forest is one of the coolest things you’ll ever do. Third – and this is mostly just for the islanders – that tarmac on the back end of the island is rough, but it is nothing like the Pavé of Northern France and Belgium.
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View Comments
@Deakus
Ha - my mum was with us at Kleine Scheidegg and this reminds me that her and my late father used to do quotes from The Ascent of Rum Doodle in the same way us sadsters get off on Python and the Hitchhiker's Guide.
@Deakus
East Coast for me mostly - Lochnagar, the Cairngorms with one big (for me) West Coast route on the Triple Buttress of Beinn Eighe - still with bits of Lancaster wedged in it. @strathlubnaig would consider most of what I did mild scrambling at best but they were suitably scary for me.
@Buck Rogers
Mark Twight is a scary man hero - fuck he posts on here and reads this shit - I'm going to have a lie down in a dark room and will never mention that I'm overweight and delusional on here ever again as he might send a training programme over to my house with someone who doesn't exist to enforce it.
I say again, fuuuuuuuck.
@the Engine
ah yes, Fuselage Gully, a fine Gr II winter traipse, nice one !
@the Engine
I did my winter mountaineering course in the Cairngorms....fell on a Grade 1 gully 70ft (Corrie An-Lochan just round the east side of Cairngorm). Broke left tibula and had a 7 hr rescue (no choppers flying out of lossimouth that day) on foot/stretcher. The instructor was gutted, he had been doing it since the 80's and I was his first ever casualty. The secret....don't kneel on the slope when only the points of your crampons are in....it tends to relieve the weight...and off you gooooooooooo!
@Deakus
Ouch - however good to know that its not only me who manages to have catastrophes that instructors have never seen before
@the Engine
Ha! I forgot Mark Twight may have commented on this site. He was Jon Krakauer's gung ho young climbing partner on that failed Eiger bid. We don't want to have him telling us to HTFU, he is not fooling around. He is Mr HTFU.
@strathlubnaig
I did one in the Cairngorms which was both epic and easy - a narrow quartz band that runs through Vatican Steps - there's a few centimetres of relatively easy climbing in a three of four pitch vertical staircase surrounded by a lot of smooth vertical granite. Wish I could recall exactly where it was...
@roger
Did you notice your bottles on my bike? Chapeau my friend. And yes, we are a childish bunch. Frank and I spent most of our time here giggling like teenagers and our better halves rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. It's all we know.
Funny how we got from Maui to mountaineering.
@Gianni, I didn't even know a "road" went all the way around Maui. Awesome.