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Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - Punarain - 05-28-2018
@ 75 years old one of the last Rock Island Riders standing, chillin' on the hot Kalapana lava flow talking story of back in the day we road motorcycles up the Pahoehoe flows to the Pu'u'O'o vent.
https://www.thefoat.com/Gasser/video/Gnarly+ride+on+the+hot+Kalapana+lava+flow/video_id-jBmPGk2FAMcKXbtFNwT7uA%3D%3D/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The great motorcycle Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure
Being a Rock Island Rider meant you were a professional at riding a motorcycle in a constant controlled crash mode in nasty unforgiving lava rock conditions such as undulating a'a' and Pahoehoe in any weather from sea level to the top of 13,000 foot volcanoes.
One Sunday, after practice riding in the upper Kulani rain forest, we were cooling off sucking up Stinelager beers after spending all day riding in the deep slippery mud and launching our dirt bikes over numerous logs and attacking bad ass hill climbs that we called do or die survivor trails in the upper Kulani rain forest of the Big Island of Hawaii getting ready for the Mauna Kea 200 mile two day time keeping world class enduro event that we competed in every year, Darryl said, hey! Lets ride up to the smoldering Kilauea Pu’u 'O'o volcano vent, we can follow the frozen lava rivers up to the vent, watch the lava bubble and eat lunch there, we all said; shoots brah! cool lets do it.
Now we all have accumulated lot’s of lava rock riding experience over the years and paid our due’s to mean old mister gravity plenty of times, the slightly inebriated four of us agreed to be at Verna’s drive inn at Kalapana next Sunday rain or shine!
It turned out to be a beautiful sunny hot day with coco palms swaying in the trade wind breezes of the blue, blue Hawaii sky with a Sun sparkling ocean, it was a pristine Hawaiian day.
We all had water and food stuffed into small back packs and fanny packs holding tool’s to cover about any situation because there is no way you can push or tow a bike in the nasty lava rocks back to your pickup truck to get home.
It is all up hill riding right from the start as we rode next to the burned forest line but soon found out that the scattered scorched tree branches were tougher than nails and would not bend or give at all tearing into our riding gear and pulling us right off the bikes, so we moved further out into the lava flow stacking rocks and tying a long blue ribbon for trail markers as we went along finding the easiest route that didn’t have super chunky impassable rocky dead ends.
Speed was a factor because we had to have enough momentum to bunny hop over the swallow you up lava tube holes and super chunky a'a' that would pile up in the middle of the undulating solid semi smooth Lava Rivers that crisscrossed down the mountain side heading for the ocean.
The ride required to be constantly popping wheelies to keep the front wheel up off the lava so not to jamb the tire into square edge rocks, huge cracks and deep holes, causing a flat tire, it was extra hot out on the black lava that day and it was sapping our energy big time, this was a lot more than we had bargained for the day when we were all loose and happy sucking up beers in the cool forest a week before this thinking; we can do it, piece of cake dudes!
It was also butt cinching hairy to cross the center of a smooth section of lava to pick a better line because that was a sign of there being a lava tube under us and the roof of the tubes can be very thin, enough for a heavy bike and rider to break through the crust and crash to the bottom, I’ve seen holes on Mauna Loa where the roof crust was barely an inch thick and the bottom was 20 to 60 feet down in there, stupidly we carried no ropes with us.
As we got closer to the smoldering cone shaped vent the lava smoothed out and then it turned into gold colored fluff cinder that looked like fried pork rinds soft and porous like snow, enough to sink our bikes into it up to the axles.
Not having to put our kickstands down we just stepped off the bikes knee deep in this stuff and started to work our way to the huge hole at the end of a 20+ acre lava lake that was bubbling and boiling off a sulfur gas that would instantly take your breath away so fast one small whiff would drop us to the ground to breath clean air, this was some nasty fumes.
With my face near buried in the extra porous foamy crust for a breath of semi clean air I noticed that there were huge wide cracks going every direction with no visible bottom and this snow like crust was somewhat covering them over and dumb ass us are standing on it! I said H0! bruddah's this ain’t good, so we slowly back tracked out of there and were more cautious where we put a foot down from then on.
We worked our way to this huge rumbling hole that had live 2,000 degree lava swirling down it like a flushed toilet sending a diarrhea of molten rock down to the ocean building a new coast line, we went 30 feet down into this big hole and got within a few feet of this mesmerizing roaring rumbling spectacle tossing rocks into it not even thinking that the thin ledge we are standing on could break off and we would be fried turds going down Madam Pell's personal Lua never to wipe our okole's again. (We thought about this stupidity the next week as we slugged down beer’s talking about our near disaster adventure)
After that stupid daring move we gingerly worked our way to the huge lava lake that was feeding this hole in the fresh new earth and sat on the ledge eating our lunches dangling our legs over the side watching the bubble & boil show going on 80+ feet below us, every so often the wind would blow the heavy sulfur fumes our way instantly taking our breath away making it impossible to get up and run from it, we could have easily expired right there on the spot in less than 2 minutes, but the fumes passed by quickly.
It was getting past noon and almost out of water so we started the long super bumpy ride back down the lava flowing mountain, this turned out to be a bigger challenge than going up to the Pu’u 'O'o vent.
Just like going up to the vent, going back down we had to pull wheelies to float the front tire over all the nasty tire flatting obstacles just waiting for us to crash into, this was a maneuver we had not experienced in all of our Rock Island Rider miles of do or die Mauna Kea 200 trail making.
It was like running pell-mell down a steep hill on foot where after a certain speed you get out of control start stumbling and fall flat on your face, but on a dirt bike the speed would double every time a burst of speed was needed to launch over a bunch of piled up a'a' lava rocks or span a big cracks or 3 foot wide deep dip’s or holes, the method needed was to be hard on the gas to get air born over the obstacles and as we tagged down be instantly hard on the front and rear brakes, well this zapped the juice right out of us real quick plus slamming our manhood into the gas tank and cram packing the boxer shorts right up our okole's, it was very hard to get slowed down but going slow would just beat the s---t out of us also, we had miles of this body beating ahead of us trying to beat the fast setting Sun, we all got flat tires, ran out of water and had gagging dry heaves all the way down, at first it was funny to look over to see and hear Dave getting sick and dry heave gagging in his helmet but then I started doing it then all of us got the dry heaves from lack of water and getting pounded trying to hold yourself back from going over the bars every time you had to grab a big handful of front brake to stop the down hill runaway speeds that compounded from constantly throttling it to leap over the deep dips and chunky rocks.
We tried to follow the trail marker rocks we stacked and tied long blue ribbons to on the way up because if we took the wrong route it may lead us into an impossible crossable dead end.
Well we missed the blue ribbon check points early on because it if we took our eyes off what was coming up real fast, guarantee bruddah you were going to eat rocks and getting hurt badly way up there would not be fun.
A few times we got dead ended and had to turn back up and pick a new line down, it was getting late and we would be screwed trying to find our way down in the dark, even if it was on foot, so every minute counted and we had to stick together no matter what the ever changing plans called for.
At one time a tour helicopter flew real low along side us for 10 minutes> we must have looked like mountain goats leaping from rock to rock running in fear of a hunter, someone must have video taped this action that day, maybe I'll see it on youtube on of these days.
We finely made it to our trucks at sunset just beat to the max, man I was a happy dude to get back in one piece an pop open a ice cold beer.
As the years passed I built a custom dirt bike designed after the Pu’u 'O'o adventure, I named it the Suck-Bang-Go Lava Rocket> it’s light weight with plenty of power to span the killer holes and cracks at the quick twist of the wrist, having a Race Tech suspension set up to take the square edge hits.
I once rode this bike through a six foot wide live moving lava flow, the tires smoked like a hundred red road flair’s burning the moment they touched the lava and the bike felt real slippery under me, I thought I was on fire from the intense 2,000 degree heat rising up into my riding gear, when I got off the Kawasaki and inspected the tires they showed no damage.
~~~Gasser~~~
FYI> As of January I sold my HPP property just in time before the tragic East rift zone erupted, I bought a Ram dually truck/camper unit and mounted my KTM motorcycle on the front bumper to go full time RVing and off road riding across the USA until I go boots up maki...Glad I'm gone, the none stop Vog would be to much to live with...good luck my friends, that eruption will never stop...sorry to say.
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 05-28-2018
bunny hop over the swallow you up lava tube holes and super chunky a'a'
...
enough for a heavy bike and rider to break through the crust and crash to the bottom
...
we all got flat tires, ran out of water and had gagging dry heaves all the way down
...
once rode this bike through a six foot wide live moving lava flow, the tires smoked
...
sold my HPP property just in time... Glad I'm gone, the none stop Vog would be to much to live with...
Punarain -
I live in HPP, and so far it's been a whole lot easier that most of what you mentioned in your volcano adventure! Good story!
Portion of Hawaii’s drinking water that comes from underground wells : 9/10
Gallons of raw sewage that leak into the ground from Hawaii cesspools each day : 53,000,000 - Harper's Index
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - birdmove - 05-29-2018
I wonder if a good trials motorcycle wouldn't be a good choice for lava riding? Most have tiny gas tanks though. They have pretty large tires that run at low air pressures and are made for stand up riding. I'd think riding on lava, you'd be standing most of the time anyway. A good trials rider can do unreal things.
Jon in Keaau/HPP
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - Punarain - 05-29-2018
Jon, any dirt bike will work out on the lava flows, you gotta know when to gas it, know when to clutch it, know when chance'um and know how to crash…singing Kenny Rodgers "Gambler" helps also…lol.
I use a TuBLISS tire setup F/R at 6 psi for max traction along with $1200 RaceTech Suspension.
https://www.thefoat.com/Gasser/video/Going+with+the+lava+flow/video_id-CGL6BOmY3XFrrG92o457gQ%3D%3D/
quote:
Originally posted by birdmove
I wonder if a good trials motorcycle wouldn't be a good choice for lava riding? Most have tiny gas tanks though. They have pretty large tires that run at low air pressures and are made for stand up riding. I'd think riding on lava, you'd be standing most of the time anyway. A good trials rider can do unreal things.
Jon in Keaau/HPP
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - birdmove - 05-29-2018
The wheels must take a heck of a pounding too? The good thing about most of the trials bikes, is that they don't give a hoot about peak horsepower. It's all on the torque.
Jon in Keaau/HPP
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - Punarain - 05-29-2018
I've never bent a rim or got a flat with the TuBliss tire setup, I'm a long distance off road rider, you can't do that on a trials bike with no seat and only 1 gallon of gas.
This is a Pahoehoe section of my Hell's Dual Sport Trail 100 mi loop along the rugged Kau coastline, it's an all day gnarly hard on the gas ride, try that when your 75 years old…ride now die happy latter you did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIK-Ww9HEsU
quote:
Originally posted by birdmove
The wheels must take a heck of a pounding too? The good thing about most of the trials bikes, is that they don't give a hoot about peak horsepower. It's all on the torque.
Jon in Keaau/HPP
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - ElysianWort - 05-29-2018
Could be true.
Could very well also be a crock of...
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - Punarain - 05-30-2018
quote:
Originally posted by ElysianWort
Could be true.
Could very well also be a crock of...
Hey ElysianWort, no flats no bent rims crock ride.
~Go fast take chances~
https://www.thefoat.com/movies/146982928254711734.mp4
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - Kapoho Joe - 05-30-2018
Wow.
RE: Pu’u ‘O'o volcano adventure - My 2 cents - 05-30-2018
Hey Gasser, nice story and videos. It's understandable that some might doubt some of it because it's pretty wild. I know that it's all true. I admit that I was questioning your decision to move away at the time, but I'm quite sure that you have no regrets that you aren't having to deal with the stress of living here now. Wishing you good luck on your new adventure. Happy trails, Bud.