World's toughest climb? From Sea to Stars - Waikoloa Beach to Mauna Kea, Big Island, Haiwaii

Описание: When I was preparing to travel to Hawaii back in 2017 to support my friend racing the Ironman World Championship in Kona I read somewhere about a legendary climb up Mauna Kea - in many guides known a "The World's Hardest Climb" with the KOM set by ex-pro Phil Gaimon. Check out his channel ‪@worstretirementever‬ Of course I had no itention nor capability to take the KOM but just getting to the top seemed a worthy achievement. At that time there had only been 12 recorded Strava times up the segment, you wonder why? Let me give you some headline stats.

Ride length: 85km
Accent: 4300m
Highest point: 4205m
Length of gravel part: 8km starting at 3000m elevation
Max Gradient on Gravel: 23%
Last 11km avg gradient. 10% (from 2000-4200m elevation)
Temperature Top vs Bottom: 3°C vs 30°C

This climb seemed so out of this world that I had to give it a try. We rented a Jeep Wrangler, as you have to get a 4x4 to drive up facing an 8km segment of loose sand a gravel at crazy gradients after the visitor center at 2800m. At the Visitor center you were required to acclimatize for some time to see if you can deal with the elevation before heading to the top. I used this time to swap tires from my normal road tires to 30mm gravel tires as I promised myself not to walk on the offroad part but cycle all the way.

We were lucky with the weather, packed loads of food, spare parts and went to Waikoloa Beach early in the morning, dipping my feet and the bike into eth Ocean before heading off to the Volcano. I had a great dejavu seeing ‪@TheVCAdventures‬ doing the same few years after, highly recommend watching his "The Impossible Route" videos, the first one was a gravel ride up Mauna Kea.

This ride has to date been one of the craziest, most challenging things I have ever done on a bike and I can highly reommend to do it for anybody who is on the Big Island and has some days to spare maybe and the fitness to get to the top. Huge thanks go again to my friend Olga who drove the car, not an easy thing at that slow speeds, would have been impossible for me to get up there without that support.

The Video footage is already a few years old, so not the greatest quality and I didn't have a mic on me so sounds isn't great either but think it still give sa good impression of what that ride means.

If you plan the ride and have any questions drop it down below in the comments and if you liked the video, happy to give it a like and subscribe to the channel for more.