You should be well located for some great rides. If you ride from Waikoloa Village every ride will start or end with a fair amount of climbing.

For Kaloko I would recommend riding south on the belt highway from above WV or the Queen K below, then return by way of the QK which means finishing with a climb to WV. I don’t like riding the belt highway north from Kaloko/Kona because the uphill vegetation along the road pushes you into traffic often unless it has been recently trimmed back. It isn’t as much of an issue on the downhill side of the road when southbound.

Mauna Loa would start out the same as the upper Kaloko route, climb to belt highway, head south a few miles and turn left/east on saddle road, then climb to saddle road and head east to Mauna Kea/Mauna Loa access road intersections, turn right/south onto Mauna Loa observatory road. This is an awesome ride. Outside of weather the main limitation here is no fluids available after leaving WV. Dropping off some the evening before or SAG are the options. You can also cut off the lower climbs by starting from Mauna Kea state park.

A great loop from WV is down to Queen K, north to Kawaihae, then Hawi, then Kohola Mountain Road to Waimea, back south on belt highway to WV Road with screaming descent back to WV to finish. It can be extended past Hawi to Pololu Overlook before climbing back over Kohalas. The ride to Pololu is one of my favorites.

You can also ride from WV to Waimea and further east to Mana Road (gravel or mtb ride that Dan and Ian posted about). For road riding keep going east to Mud Lane/Old Mamalahoa Hwy intx, then take Old Mamalaho Hwy to Honakaa. This is an awesome ride with very little traffic. Get a malasada at Tex Drive In! Then have a great climb back. Or extend ride to top of Waipio Valley before heading back.

Also great loops south to Kona beyond Kaloko.

We’ll be there just before TG and for about a week after. No solid plans at this point.

Enjoy your vacation!

Those are all great suggestions. You could also pick up the Ultraman Day 2 ride right from Waikoloa Village and see how long you can stay on Rob Gray’s wheel. ;-)

Don’t forget to carbo-load at Pueo’s Osteria in WV. It’s one of my faves on the island.

Ian

This is amazing! Thank you so much for the info. I really want to do Mauna Loa, specially since I might have the chance to do Alto de Letras in Colombia in December and that would be a dream to be able to do the 2 longest climbs in the world, however I figured like you said that is probably not doable without SAG, and probably best to find a group for such a long ride. I hope I'll get lucky and find someone to ride with. Thanks again for the detailed info!

Don't forget Ultraman is also Thanksgiving weekend I think, so there's that to do too...

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Saw your WVR lead out ride with Lars for his Alohaman test event! I forgot about UM moving to this course.

Thanks for Pueo info. I didn’t know this was there. It looks great:)

No worries. If we put something together for Mauna Loa I’ll drop you a PM. It is a such a unique climb.