The weather was crisp and sunny Wednesday afternoon on the Windward side, so I went for a spin. I was considering riding over to Kailua, but I wasn’t sure if there would be adequate daylight time. Instead, I rode up to the high point of Kamehameha Highway and looped thru Mokulele Drive and Namoku Street to K-Bay Drive. I headed toward the waterfront via the spooky tunnel behind the golf course driving range, but there was a sign where the road to Keana fishpond and the STP passes through a right-of-way at the back of the golf course prohibiting entry. Cars were going in and out, but since bikes and golf courses have a traditionally adversarial relationship, I turned around, not wanting to get hassled by the course marshall.
I meandered through the backstreets of Kaneohe, holding as close to the coast as possible, going down Waikalua Road by the police station and taking the left fork at the graveyard. This is where I ran into drivers who didn’t know what they were doing. I had two vehicles speed past me in the oncoming lane in a slow 10 or 15-mph residential zone. There was more than enough room to pass me in the traffic lane, but they were so freaked out at seeing a bicycle that they insisted on going all the way over into the other lane, really fast. After all that work passing me, they immediately had to stop at the stop sign at the end of the street. Not unexpectedly, they both blew through the intersection without stopping. I passed the first car as she was waiting for the gate to open at her ritzy waterfront community. Since her lack of driving ability made it difficult for her to manage her green Pathfinder, she had to open the door and get out of the car to swipe the passcard because she didn’t maneuver close enough to the reader to do it through the window.
Climbing the hill, I turned onto Lilipuna Road and followed the coast past the Coconut Island landing. The Navy P-3’s were making practice passes over the MCBH airfield. The road was really rough and narrow, but there were a fair number of runners and walkers. The drivers along this stretch had a slightly better idea of how to deal with other road users. Crossing Kam at Windward Mall, I climbed Haiku Road to Kahekili Highway and the loop was complete. My total mileage ended up being not much off from what I figured the Kailua loop would be. Maybe next time around!
D = 18.80 km (11.68-miles), Vavr = 21.4 km/h (13.3-mph), Vmax = 53.3 km/h (33.1-mph), T = 53-minutes
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