Santana Hawaii Valentine's Tour Part 2

[BloomingCyclist]

Molokai is the least touristy of the islands. We rode from the dock to the small town and had a shaved ice before going on to the small Hotel Molokai on a stretch of calm coastline protected by the longest stretch of barrier reef in Hawaii. We were able to rinse the salt water off of our tandems. That night we had a non-touristy luau just for our group with a presentation of traditional Hawaiian song and dance by some middle school and high school students who are in a Hawaiian cultural immersion program at their school. It was very different from the for-the-tourists laua on Maui that we attended.

The next two days brought memorable riding and hiking experiences. The group divided in half and did one of two rides / hikes each day. Our first day included a good climb on the tandem to 1700 ft elevation to the mule barn at the trail head of the trail leading down to Kalaupapa National Historic Park which is the site of the Leprosy settlement which was started in 1866 with Hawaii’s leprosy isolation laws and accepted patients until the laws were abolished in 1969. Access is down the trail or by boat or small plane.

There was a ratio of one mule per couple and the captain and stoker could decide who would ride which way. Some people walked both ways allowing more people to ride or some to ride both ways. My stoker and I walked both ways. The views of Kalaupapa are breathtaking along this 3 mile hike down cutting back and forth along the steep side of this mountain as it descends 1700 vertical feet. We were hiking in our bike clothes and met a ranger on the way down who has a classic Schwinn Paramount single and a Paramount tandem on the island. At the bottom we had a guided tour in an very old well-worn school bus to several points of interest in the history of this settlement. We had a box lunch near the tall sea cliffs / mountains that are seen at the beginning of Jurassic Park II and III. We could take photos of any building or scenery but none of current patients. The remaining patients are free to leave but they have chosen to stay and live out their lives in this place that became their home. We climbed back up to the “topside” as they refer to it and descended to the coast and pedaled to our Hotel Molokai. We didn’t think too much about the physical effects of the trail climb but our calves were so stiff the next day we could hardly walk. Neither of us expected the “stair” descending / climbing to be that much different than riding our bike. We could still ride, thankfully, but walking was a comical chore and we had to start doing calf stretches multiple times a day from that point on.

The next day, we rode our bikes to the east to Halawa Valley 26 miles each way including a challenging climb and descent each way. Much of the ride was along the coast but near the end we climbed about 900 vertical feet and then descended back to sea level. This descent was on a beautiful but very narrow road with a low stone wall. There were almost no cars. Phillip, born and raised on Molokai, now a teacher at the high school as well as the local bike shop owner and friend of Bill and Jan, hauled people up the hill in his pickup truck if they didn’t want to or couldn’t climb. We then met his friend, Kalani, at his flower farm in this lush valley and he led us for a several mile hike through the woods containing the remains of stone walls built by the early Hawaiians. Our goal was a tall waterfall with a natural pool at the bottom. The climb coming back up from this side was the steepest with the stoker’s inclinometer reading 15% on three or four different occasions as we came up. We would have probably stood a time or two had our calves not been so stiff (we tried – it hurt) so we just stayed seated and used the low gears. Several couples took a ride from Phillip in one or both directions.

Hotel Molokai has an Aloha Friday tradition and many local people were there for the live music and drink and company which made for a festive atmosphere for our last supper on Molokai. Jan also arranged for us to participate in another local tradition and make a “bread run” into town to the bakery which bakes bread every night to be taken to Maui early each morning. In town, down a fairly dark alley, at 9:45, the rear windowless door of the bakery opens up and a worker steps out to take orders for round warm loaves of bread filled with one’s choice of butter, cinnamon, strawberry, cream cheese, etc. He writes down the orders, closes the door, and brings each order out one a time as it’s ready, closing the door in between. It was a very tasty and interesting experience (and we were up past our bedtime).

The next day we ferried back to Maui and flew back home with our friends Counselguy. My wife and I were long time single riders but fairly new tandem owners when my wife began talking with his wife about tandems and it was really the idea of this trip that got Counselguy excited enough to buy a tandem and make reservations for this trip a year and a half early.

Bloomingcyclist
Bloomington, IN

[R900]

Wow! Looks like great fun. Thanks for the report.

[robmitchell]

Wow-za

My wife has been wanting to sign up for that tour for a few years.
We have ridden two Santana tours, Durango and California Big Sur.
They are great host and food and hotels are usually tops.

How many non-Santana tandems?

How many standard (without couplers) tandems?

Rob

[Hermes]

Great report and pics. Thanks for writing it up and posting. We did Santana's Tuscany tour last year and plan to do their Mallorca, Spain trip in September. Jan and Bill are great hosts.

[specbill]

Great report...you write exceptionally well.

Bill J.

[zonatandem]

Great review of the Valentine Tour.
A note on Molokai; a Belgian Catholic priest, Father Damiaan, devoted his life to help and live with the lepers back on the island. He's a Belgian folklore hero.

[BloomingCyclist]

...How many non-Santana tandems? How many standard (without couplers) tandems?...

Of the 35 tandems, there were two Calfee tandems, one with 160 rear spacing with Sweet 16 wheels and a Winzip, a couple of Cannondales, one Paketa magnesium with flat mountain bars, a one of a kind Calfee recumbent tandem, one Rodriguez, and one Steve Rex. There were no Co-Motions. I may be forgetting something else but basically the rest were the whole range of Santana with lots of Winzip brakes. One Santana had a hydraulic Formula disk brake but it had a 10 inch rotor. The rotor looked a little different than the one with the Winzip. It had a wavy edge and to my eye it looked a little thicker but not sure about that.

I'd say the coupled versus non-coupled was about 50-50.

Bill brought his own coupled Beyond in a big cardboard box such as he did the non-coupled bikes he rented. I did watch him help a rider pack a coupled titanium into the one box with the foam tray system. He said he likes that system and that it appears that the airlines are moving towards a pay-for-each bag system so the one box will be better than the two boxes that has been more common for coupled bikes PLUS the foam eliminates parts rubbing or bouncing at all. When you take the wheels off of the bigger case it meets the size requirement for going on the conveyors at the airport which meant no special oversize fee. It looked good to me.

Bloomingcyclist
Bloomington, IN

[TandemGeek]

...and that it appears that the airlines are moving towards a pay-for-each bag system...

As much as I abhor airline travel I do wonder what the hell I was thinking about when I spec'd our last tandem with couplers. By the time we actually have time to travel someone will have made "a device" out of golf clubs or a bicycle that was put on a plane and all sports equipment will be banned from checked baggage... or carry such an obscene surcharge that it will be easier and less hassle to ship the darn thing via FedEx.

[BloomingCyclist]

...A note on Molokai; a Belgian Catholic priest, Father Damiaan, devoted his life to help and live with the lepers back on the island. He's a Belgian folklore hero.

I didn't get into the history of Kalaupapa in my report but it was not neglected on the tour. I've only been on this one Santana tour but I witnessed what I had heard previously. Bill is very interested in history and culture and wants to do what he can to ensure that people on his tours get this history and a sense of the culture around them. Before the trip he recommended that we watch the 1999 movie "Molokai: The Story of Father Damien" and / or read about him.

After we descended the path down to Kalaupapa, the actual tour there is conducted by "Damien Tours." The gentleman who has been in charge of the tours for many years is still alive but apparently is not leading tours now. The younger man who led our tour and drove our bus talked some about his "boss." The village now is not quite where it was originally but we did drive over to where Father Damien built the first church on Kalaupapa near to where the boats brought patients to drop them off and often dropped them off to far from shore in rough water and they had to literally swim for their lives.

He came to Hawaii in 1864 and it was 1873 before he came to Molokai where he built some churches (we saw one of them on the ride to Halawa Valley). He soon went to Kalaupapa and he died in 1889 after serving at Kalaupapa for more than a decade.

The guide let it be known that he felt Father Damien should have already achieved sainthood. Father Damien was buried by the church but in 1936 was reburied in Belgium and eventually a relic bone was returned to Kalaupapa which was reburied there at the already existing monument.

Bloomingcyclist
Bloomington, IN

[zonatandem]

Father Damien (known as 'Pater Damiaan' in Belgium) was a very selfless individual.

Knew he had been re-buried in Belgium but was not aware that a relic was shipped back to the leper colony on Molokai.
Thanks for the update/photo and a great trip report!!

[counselguy]

Just wanted to add a few postscripts to BloomingtonCyclist's excellent and quite complete description of our Santana tour. It was very interesting to talk with the different tandem teams after the descent down Haleakala. The vast majority of WinZips did okay but it appeared to the bike mechanic who was with us that BloomingtonCyclist's metallic brake pads were without doubt the pads of choice if you were taking this kind of descent. The standard pads that came on the WinZip had problems on several of the tandems forcing them to stop several times during the descent. It appeared that the WinZips were more than adeqate for the rigors of the mountain - the weak link were the standard pads that just had too much wear for that kind of descent.

There were a few Avid disc brakes (including mine) that performed well during the descent. I had to stop once during the descent to make an adjustment and after moving one pad two "clicks" closer had a more comfortable feel during braking. This is after already going 2800 miles on them since March in hilly southern Indiana. I didn't hear of anyone having any issues with plastic pieces melting on their discs, and I did not have any issues with that on mine.

Several of us did comment on the soreness of our right forearms after the descent, but still much preferred to sore butts and legs from an ascent. I didn't notice any teams going particularly fast down the mountain as steep dropoffs, no guardrails, and very cold temperatures(high 30's) kept Captains in a speed range of the 30's, not to mention stokers like mine who would be telling me when my speed got above the 30's. Seemed similiar to a co-pilot telling the pilot his speed as he was taking off. Its amazing what pinches on your backside can do.

We felt very fortunate to be able to go down Haleakala as there were three major cycling accidents last year which led to two deaths and a critical injury that almost resulted in death. Bill's ability to get a special permit to do the ride was very much appreciated by all of us.

One other side note -

Having the native Hawaiian chant at the top of the mountain right after the sun rose above the lower clouds gave me goose bumps. The sounds, the views of the sun and clouds below us, and the lunar type landscape at the top of the mountain should not be missed, even if you aren't able to ride down the mountain.

We feel particularly lucky as it is more common for the mountain to be covered in fog, mist or rain at this time of year. I think BloomingtonCyclist mentioned that there was snow on it two weeks before we arrived.

One other safety note that was a good reminder for me. One tandem team wiped out while going down a 1000 foot decline after blowing a front tire.The road was clean and free of potholes although there were some pine needles on the road suface. The captain suffered a collarbone injury that wasn't diagnosed prior to our leaving the island but we think there is a good possibility he suffered a fracture. He said that he used his front brake quite a bit during that descent while not utilizing his rear disc to the extent that he should have. We think he heated up his front rim to a sufficient temp to cause the flat.
Counselguy

[TandemGeek]

Several of us did comment on the soreness of our right forearms after the descent, but still much preferred to sore butts and legs from an ascent.

This speaks volumes about why true drag brakes on tandems still remain appropriate or desirable for certain applications and certain teams. It's sometimes bothersome when the latest and greatest technologies -- disc brakes, racing wheels, exotic / lightweight materials -- become 'must haves' for teams who are better served by more conventional equipment and materials. Better, tandem specialty shops will often times dissuade certain customers from going for the often times more expensive lighter equipment because they understand these things, whereas the average bike shop that also sells tandems will sell the buyer whatever they want... even if they really don't know what they need.

One tandem team wiped out while going down a 1000 foot decline after blowing a front tire... He said that he used his front brake quite a bit during that descent while not utilizing his rear disc to the extent that he should have. We think he heated up his front rim to a sufficient temp to cause the flat.

Just curious, do you know if he was using wire bead or foldable tires? How about the bike and brake configuration: front rim / rear Winzip or Avid or some other configuration? Were they flatlanders?

Harkening back to my comments on BC's Part #1 post, this is clearly why Mr. Bill offered up the instruction for riders to NOT use the front brake and, instead, to use their rear disc or drum brake. I'm not sure how you teach anyone who has not done extensive mountain descents that when a rim or disc brake starts to make a different noise after prolonged use it's overheating & fading which means you're headed into the danger zone and need to take immediate action. Of course, if you've been riding both front and rear brakes and are a heavier than average team you've probably done a good job of heating up both front & rear brakes. This is truly a frustrating thing to hear about because I really don't know how you teach a tandem team to recognize certain warning signs if they just aren't sensitive to what they're machine is telling them. It's kinda like someone who keeps driving with the OIL PRESSURE, ENGINE TEMP, or a clearly audible and evil noise coming from some part of a car that is then surprised when the thing breaks-down.

Anecdotal here: Speaking of getting caught up in the spirit of the moment at a tandem rally or disregarding prudent warnings or instructions, at the '99 Santana Tour we attended in Asheville, NC, there were two tandems with strong teams who decided to time trial it back to the hotel on the last day of the event... an early morning ride in May where the roads were all covered with dew as the temps were a bit coolish. Despite being warned that there were several sets of railroad tracks that crossed the roads we'd be riding at dangerous angles, these teams kept their heads down and held their lines as they hit a pair of these tracks.... I believe both tandems may have gone down as their front wheels did what skinny front bicycle wheels do when they hit moist steel train rails at an oblique angle, which is to loose traction and skid oh so slightly out from under the bike: On at least one of the tandem, both the Captain and the Stoker went to the hospital with broken or fractured clavicles and their Sovereign's top tube was folded. I think the other team escaped with bumps and bruises.

[oldacura]

I always try to listen to what my machines are telling me - especially on the tandem on a descent. We have done several short, steep descents around here with tight switchbacks. The ones where you have to slow to
< 10 mph to make the turn. I want to know if the rims are getting too hot before we blow a tire. So far, no symptoms & no blowouts. When I did become concerned, we stopped & felt the rims. Hot but not instant skin burn. Don't know if they will start to squeal when they get really hot.

Fast, relatively straight descents are easier to control because above 20 mph, some of your potential energy is lost to wind drag. The faster you go, the more effective wind drag is.

The tight switchbacks near the summit of Haleakala require one to dump a lot of energy into the brakes.

[johnfhess]

As much as I abhor airline travel I do wonder what the hell I was thinking about when I spec'd our last tandem with couplers. By the time we actually have time to travel someone will have made "a device" out of golf clubs or a bicycle that was put on a plane and all sports equipment will be banned from checked baggage... or carry such an obscene surcharge that it will be easier and less hassle to ship the darn thing via FedEx.


Well, I can't speak to assembling "a device" out of golf clubs, but we were on the trip with our coupled Rex and it couldn't have been smoother. check in, fly, no extra charges, no overweight penalties. Bike in 2 boxes (hard box frame, soft box, wheels and stuff), each of us had one bag for luggage. I still think that taking the bike apart and putting it together is a lot like work, but it did work out for us, this time and the 2 previous times we've flown (no charges extra ever).

I'll also add good writeup!

[TandemGeek]

...but we were on the trip with our coupled Rex and it couldn't have been smoother. check in, fly, no extra charges, no overweight penalties.

I don't disagree about the current state of affairs. However, my comments were more forward-looking in light of recent announcements (perhaps trial balloons) by the likes of United and US Airways introducing new 2nd checked bag fees of $25 -$50, and past history with TSA and risk-avoidance, i.e., taking shoes off when passing through screening.

[counselguy]

Okay - I really promise this time - last new threat on this.
I was thinking about the cases as I read TG's last comments about how they may be charged in the future.

I took two S&S hard cases with the black padding around each of the bike components. All went well, no inspections by the TSA, but one dent in one corner of the case.

I must admit I was intrigued by Santana's hard case, both in terms of its ability to protect the bike internally, and its extra locking capability. Not only does it have two front latches, but it also has a latch on the side that turns to tighten the lock to make an even tighter seal. Every part has its place in the foam in the case, and once closed, seems to fit together tightly to avoid scratching other pieces.

The downside is that you will be charged for an overweight bag, but at least it is only one piece, and still small enough to fit in cab trunks and back seats. In other worlds, it is not unwieldy. It may be in my future some day because of the great padding, and the ease in finding where each component should fit.
Counselguy