World's hardest, toughest climb by bike : Hilo (0 m)- Mauna Kea (4205 m) - my video

gyorgyigabor

Hello !
In August I cycled the World's hardest climb and now I've just finished editing a trailer video about it.
Mauna Kea is the most difficult road bike cycling climb of the World based on the data of salite.ch and climbbybike.com, the two most serious cycling climbs's collections. It's an epic climb, a monster !
Mauna Kea has 2 ascents: the Hilo side is harder than the Kona side ! Both starts by the Pacific Ocean (Big island, Hawaii) and ends just at the top of the 4205 m high peak. The 1st 50 km long section is not too hard: the average steepness is below 5% (for more than 2000 m heightdifference), but the last 20 kms has 2000 m heightdifference that means 10% steepness; the maximum grade is 17-20%. Other difficulty is the thin air above ca. 3300-3500 m (at the top there is 40% less oxygen than by the ocean) and a 7 km long gravel-sandy section above 2800 m.
At last there is another thing to made it tough: there is only one place to get water, buy some snack, drink: the Visitor Center after ca. 55 kms at the height of 2800 m. That's why that when I left the ocean, at sunrise I carried ca. 5 liters of water.
In the last hour of the daylight several cars go up to the summit to enjoy the sunset.
Because I cycled all of the paved climbs finishing above 2000m in the Alps, Pyrenées and Canary islands and cycled up to Pico Veleta, I had to say that it is really the toughest (road) cycling climb of the Earth; it was harder than any other climbs that I cycled before, much harder than Monte Zoncolan, Grosser Oscheniksee, Speikkogel, Angliru, etc.
Have pleasure with it !
Video can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOIHwZ_6bx4

This is the coverphoto of it:)

sloppyschleckonds

csb

ayjaycee

gyorgyigabor wrote:

At last there is another thing to made it tough: there is only one place to get water, buy some snack, drink: the Visitor Center after ca. 55 kms at the height of 2800 m. That's why that when I left the ocean, at sunrise I carried ca. 5 liters of water.

You mean to say that you actually stopped for a break at that place? What a lightweight!

Great video by the way.

dhungerf

What was the most difficult part? I would think that the thinning air would have had a big impact on your climbing.

Nice video, thank you.

motogull

Superb.

bondurant

Amazing

How did you get down after sunset? Surely not riding?

laurentian

Brilliant video . . . and well done.

gubber12345

Awesome job....i take my hat off to you...class video

LegBurn

Impressive!

gyorgyigabor

Thanks !
Yes, few times I stopped : for eating or for tooking photos, or for recording video when I descended back and cycled up to record myself that way... At the Visitor Center everybody should stop for min. 30 minutes because of the thin air above that place. There is a sign, warning about that!

ayjaycee wrote:

gyorgyigabor wrote:

At last there is another thing to made it tough: there is only one place to get water, buy some snack, drink: the Visitor Center after ca. 55 kms at the height of 2800 m. That's why that when I left the ocean, at sunrise I carried ca. 5 liters of water.

You mean to say that you actually stopped for a break at that place? What a lightweight!

Great video by the way.

gyorgyigabor

Thanks, dhungerf,
above ca. 3300 m I felt it difficult, when I got the headwind. originally it wsn' easy there, but the headwind made it much harder and the thinner air as I cycled up and up.... . Maybe between 3600 - 3900 m I had to stop after each ca. 50 m heightdiff. Because of the steepness, thin air and the headwind (and touringbike with there ca. 4-5 kgs weighted pack. But I knew that I was OK; I accepted that that there it was very hard.

dhungerf wrote:

What was the most difficult part? I would think that the thinning air would have had a big impact on your climbing.

Nice video, thank you.

gyorgyigabor

Thank you and the others too !

When I reached the summit, I met with a ranger (he had a car that can you see in the video) and he asked me if I needed help. Because I lost my wallett and passport at the Visitor Center (I realised that an ahour after that happened and thought that I lost there) I was motivated to be back in time to ask if they found I accpedted the opportunity that he could bring me down to the Visitor Center (ca. 7 kms paved and 7 kms dirt road). We went down by the car, then I entered the Visitor center (they didn't found the passport and wallett then) wrote down my personal data and the description of the passport " wallett) and descended back to Hilo (under 2000 m in rain). At about midnight I got the email that they found the lost passport and wallett and in the following day I could go back

Bondurant wrote:

Amazing

How did you get down after sunset? Surely not riding?

Thick Mike

gyorgyigabor wrote:

Thank you and the others too !

When I reached the summit, I met with a ranger (he had a car that can you see in the video) and he asked me if I needed help. Because I lost my wallett and passport at the Visitor Center (I realised that an ahour after that happened and thought that I lost there) I was motivated to be back in time to ask if they found I accpedted the opportunity that he could bring me down to the Visitor Center (ca. 7 kms paved and 7 kms dirt road). We went down by the car, then I entered the Visitor center (they didn't found the passport and wallett then) wrote down my personal data and the description of the passport " wallett) and descended back to Hilo (under 2000 m in rain). At about midnight I got the email that they found the lost passport and wallett and in the following day I could go back

Bondurant wrote:

Amazing

How did you get down after sunset? Surely not riding?

Did you cycle back up for your passport?!?!