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Hawaii Motorcycle Tour

September 29, 2005 - Over the summer, we decided to take a short vacation to Hawaii.  The reason we chose Hawaii was so Anne could get a boatload of miles to move up to the next level with Delta.  As it turned out, we flew on Northwest instead due to a lower rate and the opportunity to get first class seats both ways.  We arrived in Hawaii Wednesday, September 28.  The motorcycles were reserved for Thursday.

We decided to reserve Honda Shadows. The reasoning was that we would be unfamiliar with the roads, traffic, etc and the Shadow was a more nimble bike to ride for a day.  Since we were on the island of Oahu, the only rental place was Big Kahuna Rentals. I had spoken to Larry from Big Kahuna several weeks ago and the reservations were completed at that time.  He sounded like a somewhat shady character, so I was a little concerned that all the appropriation would still be in place when we arrived. On Wednesday night, I got directions off Mapquest and Thursday morning at 7:45 we left the hotel which was about 25 miles west of Waikiki.

We began with a smooth traffic flow until we were about 8 miles from our exit. Here the traffic was hopelessly backed up and we were moving about one mile every 10 minutes. Plodding along in our Subaru Forester rental, I soon realized we would be late getting to Big Kahuna. By the way, there was nothing to listen to on the radio, unless you like hip-hop or lame Hawaiian catterwalling.  Even the AM dial had little to offer. No Hawaiian heavy metal stations,  Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh either.

We finally reached exit 23, which was Pahaula Drive. At this point, I realized the Mapquest direction were somewhat innacurate.  I fumbled my way around for another five minutes before we found Big Kahuna (streets in Honolulu and Waikiki do not run in a grid pattern and all have long, confusing Hawaiian names).  A more unimpressive motorcycle outfit I may have never seen.  It was just a stand along the sidewalk with a few motorcycles parked alongside. There was no building or shop. I had to park the Forester two blocks away in a parking garage where I was fleeced for $8.00 to park all day.  We met Larry and his assistant who showed us to the Shadows.  They looked like they would be acceptable, even though they had both obviously had been beaten around by other renters.  Also, we requested helmets. Larry seemed to want us not to wear them as he repeatedly said there was no helmet law in Hawaii.  He ended up bringing out some real brain buckets for us to try on. We finished the paperwork and asked for a map. Larry suggested a circle tour of Oahu (which I had already decided was the best thing to do). He marked off some points of interest along the way. He gave me directions to get out of the city and to the coastal highway.  I tied down my rear seat bag to the rack on the back of my Shadow where we had all our belongings.

We left Big Kahuna at about 10:00 AM.  The weather was very nice - about 75 degrees and sunny. As I was about one block down the street, I noticed my fuel tank was loose and was bouncing around. Being that we would only be riding these for one day, it didn't concern me that much. We drove in a southwesterly direction out of the city and encountered our first of many brief rainshowers.  Very confusing, but my inner sense of direction led us to our first point of interest at the edge of Waikiki - Diamond Head Crater.  We looped up a small canyon, went through a tunnel and were at the entrance to the park.  The guy at the window said it would be $5.00/cycle to enter. Since we were already inside the crater, we decided to just make a U-turn and exit back out the tunnel. Diamond Head Crater was just as the name says, a large crater probably about 2 miles mile wide. There was a trail that went to the top, however this day was reserved for motorcycle riding, not hiking. Outside of the tunnel, we stopped so I could consult the map.  We had a great view of Maunalua Bay from this spot. Nearby there was a concession truck. Since we hadn't eaten breakfast, we walked over and bought two smoothies.  Mine was a banana-mango smoothie. Yeah I know, pretty gay. But you gotta do what is customary, right?   We left this vantage point, headed back down the mountain, found Hwy 72 and started toward the southeast corner of Oahu.  Photo below of the cycles parked at Diamondhead Crater entrance lot.

Five or six miles along Hwy 72, we pulled over right along Manaula Bay.  Here there were parasailers and jet-skiers.  The wind was beginning to pick up and we started off again after about 5 minutes. Our next stop was about another five miles at Hanauma Bay. We snapped a few ocean photos here, as we were about 50-60 feet above the water.  As we continued on, we turned to the north and began the long ride up the east side of Oahu. We passed the Halona Blow Hole which in retrospect we should've stopped at.  However, we had just stopped two miles back, and I wanted to get moving up the coast.

I still don't believe how blue the ocean water was along this stretch. In some areas, it was almost like pool or blue toilet water. At Waimanalo Beach Park we stopped again for more photos.  Quite a magnificant sight as we looked out over the blue ocean toward Manana Island five miles to the northeast.  See photo below.

We drove by many beaches to our right and tall green vertical cliffs and outcroppings to our left.  Great scenic riding, despite the high winds and slow traffic. I began to notice how uncomfortable I was riding the Shadow. I didn't like the placement of the foot pegs and my shoulders were beginning to get a little sore. I would never consider purchasing this model.  It had low horsepower as well, and only four gears.

About 10 miles past the Blow Hole, we turned inland and came to the junction of Hwy 61.  We needed to go a little west on Hwy 61, before going back north. Hwy 61 went through a mountain tunnel and back to Honolulu.  We stopped briefly in Olomana where I consulted the map again (I should've brought my map pocket along). It was nearly noon, so we jumped back onto Hwy 61 and took that to Hwy 83 (the Kamehameha Highway). Surprisingly, this was a four lane highway and we were able to drive over 50 MPH for the first time.  We passed by the large city of Kane'ohe and kept in a northerly direction.  To our left were the Ko'olau Mountains  - a fairly scenic area. Soon we were back riding along the ocean.

We headed north along the east coast of Oahu.  Here we had great ocean views again as we meandered past beaches and around bays and inlets. This was a relatively unpopulated section of the island as the Ko'olau Mountains were nearby to the west.  Some of the houses we drove past were on stilts.  If any realtor told me they had some homes on stilts to show me, I think it's time to look for real estate in a different region. There were some pineapple fields between the road and the mountain range. As we approached the northern rim of the island, we passed though a few small towns:  Hau'ula, Laie and Kahuku. Along this stretch, there were several shrimp beds and roadside shrimp stands. In Kahuku, I pulled over at a gas station. We went inside and bought a couple of ice cream cookie sandwiches (a Hawaiian delicacy............). I asked a Pepsi guy inside the store how far away Haliewa was (our lunch destination).  He was generally confused and didn't speak very good English, but said he thought it was about 10 minutes away.  That didn't sound right to me and as it turned out it was more like 20-25 minutes away.

We left Kahuku about 1:15 and shortly thereafter we rounded the northern tip of Oahu and were now heading southwest.  We passed several beaches here where  professional surfers were out on the rough ocean waves. In a little while, we found Haliewa. Again we stopped to take a few photos of the bay areas.  We drove through the town and stopped at a small pub for lunch. When we were finished, we walked through a small touristy shopping area. We spent about 20 minutes going through some of the small shops.  While we were doing that, a pretty hard thunderstorm came down.  So it was fortunate we weren't out on the highway on the cycles.  Anne bought a wraparound dress. Since there were no sporting goods stores there, I didn't find anything I wanted to buy..........

I had gotten some paper towels in the bathroom, so we wiped off the cycle seats the best we could and got back on the road.  It was already 2:30 by now, so we decided to drive straight back to Honolulu.  We got on Hwy 99 and headed south.  We were more or less dissecting the middle of the island now.  This was a largely unpopluated area, but there was a surprising amount of traffic. The biggest landmark we passed along this stretch was the Dole Pineapple Plantation.  If we had more time, I would've liked to stop there.  For no other reason, than to see the world's largest maze.  This area of the island had numerous pineapple fields.

About five miles past the Dole Plantation, I noticed in my mirror that Anne was pulling over.  I stopped at the top of a hill and tried to turn around and go back. What a boondoggle this turned out to be.  I literally had no opportunities to turn around due to the heavy traffic flow.  And boy was that pissing me off. I gave up after five minutes and starting walking back toward her.  She was about 100 yards back. When we met, she said she was out of gas.  How can this be I thought? I walked back to the bike and switched the tank to reserve and it started up.  Meanwhile, some guy stopped across the road and offered us some gas.  Nice gesture, but I told him we'd be OK now.  He said there was a town a few miles away, but we'd have to take Hwy 80 to get there.  Perfect directions as we entered the town of Wahiawa (the largest town in north Oahu) and found a gas station in short order.  Since we had only gone 85 miles, I didn't think we could be out of gas. Unless Larry lied to us and one of the cycles wasn't full of gas when we left. I put 2.2 gallons in Anne's bike and 2.0 gallons in mine.

We left Wahiawa and met the junction of H-2 a few miles down the road. We merged onto H-2 which is an interstate highway.  I could've stayed on Hwy 99, but was getting anxious to get back to Honolulu.  It was now raining again and the pavement was grooved, which makes cycle riding rather precarious.  I saw a sign that said Honolulu 23 miles, so I kept the speed at 55-60 MPH and we stayed in the right lane. H-2 wound around a few cities and we soon merged onto H-1 which leads into Hololulu. Again we encountered a ridiculous traffic backup about 6 miles from our exit. We crept along at about 5 MPH for quite a while. To our left toward the northeast, we saw a giant rainbow that stretched over the entire northern skyline of the city.  To our right, we could see Pearl Harbor, and further off was the airport.

We finally snaked our way past all the slowed traffic and found our exit.  I stopped at the first gas station and we topped off the fuel tanks.  Gas in Hawaii is more expensive than in the continental US, as we paid about $3.40/gallon. We left the station and found our way back to Waikiki about 10 minutes later.  We found the Big Kahuna cycle place and turned in the cycles.  I complained about the loose fuel tank and pointed out a bald tire on Anne's cycle. Larry wasn't there, so my complaints fell upon deaf ears with the flunkee who checked us back in. Happy that we made it back safely and on time, I didn't make an issue of it. It was 4:30 PM, so we were cutting it close for our return time.

Overall, I'd have to admit it was some pretty spectacular riding.  Especially along the east coast of the island. If we ever did it again, I would spend more time stopping along the southeast and eastern coasts of Oahu.  The cycles were functional and easy to handle for the most part. It would've been nice to have a windshield with respect to the heavy windward side of the island, but having the helmets definitely helped.  The weather was about 75-85 degrees and we drove through about 20 separate thunderstorms, none of which lasted longer than 10 minutes. The sky has fast moving clouds all day long along the coast and clouds generally hover over the center of the island above the mountains.