Tantalus is a hill climb. I think every serious biking community must have a hill that everyone tries out their teeth on. In Honolulu, that hill is Tantalus. When I lived near Santa Barbara, the hill was Gibraltar, and I never did manage to ride to the top of that one. In Aspen, the hill was Independence Pass, which I have done on skis but not on a bicycle.
The hardest part of Tantalus, for me, was just finding the bottom of hill. I went back and forth three times before I figure out that I was approaching from the wrong cross street. MapMyRide got me straightened out. You have to start by climbing the hill towards Punchbowl Cemetery, then across a small bridge. As soon as you cross the bridge, the hill starts climbing immediately ... never too steep, just enough to remind you to stay in a low gear.
Up past the older ramshackle houses at the bottom, then into the forests of monkeypod trees, banyans, bamboo, and a gazillion other trees and plants that flourish in a sub-tropical rainforest. The hill climbs, twists and turns, hair-pinning its way towards the skyline, past increasingly fancier houses, and increasingly dense rainforest. Roadside pullouts give a gorgeous view of downtown Honolulu, Waikiki, Diamond Head, the Pacific Ocean, the sky and clouds ... but who has time to stop? Got to keep the cranks turning.
I was passed five times by the same guy on a red motorcycle, going up and down practicing leaning into turns. I was easy prey ... I was still going up hill, still in low gear. I came to a long stretch that was slightly more level, and decided to do the "selfie" thing without breaking my pedaling rhythm. Here's the results, plus a bonus pic of a small part of the road ahead.
Of course, just as I was snapping my selfie, another cyclist pulled past me. The entire climb, I saw only two other cyclists, and perhaps five cars.
The only milepost I saw indicated that I had ridden 4 1/2 miles, and my Strava training log indicated that I had climbed nearly 1600 feet during that time. That's a bigger hill than anything we'll see next summer, so glad to have it under my belt.
I was waiting for a summit, but if there was one, it disappeared into the rainforest somewhere near the milepost. Almost imperceptibly at first, the road leveled, then I suddenly found myself hanging onto the brakes as I plummeted down the other side on Roundtop Drive. Hairpin after hairpin, left and right, sometimes dropping at nearly 45 degrees if you took an inside corner too sharply. Then a long straight stretch where I reached speeds approaching 40 mph even though I was feathering the brakes. Next time, maybe I'll be a bit faster, but hey! That pavement is flying by, and I don't want to suddenly find myself dodging a pothole at that sort of speed.
Going up, my legs were fine. Coming down, my hands started to ache from gripping the brake levers so constantly. And I had no idea where I would emerge once I got back into town. But soon, there was Makiki Park, and a couple of turns later, I found Punahou School (President Barak Obama's old stomping grounds), and from there, it was a familiar ride the rest of the way home.
At the end of the day, my log says that I rode 53.1 miles. You have to look at the small print to discover that I went from sea level to sea level, with 3000 feet of climbing in between, counting the hill over Tantalus, the hill over the shoulder of Diamond Head, and the hill up to Tripler Medical Center. And need I mention the gusty wind? Okay, I won't mention that.
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