Aloha! from the Big Island of Hawaii
Being a Rock Island Rider meant you were a pro at riding an off road dirt bike in a constant controlled crash mode in root infested rain forest, vine over grown jungles or unforgiving lava rock conditions such as undulating nasty A’A and Pahoehoe from sea level to the top of 13,600+ foot Mauna Loa or Mauna Kea volcanoes in any weather with out crashing, Ya right dude.
One Sunday in March of 1987, after practice riding in the Kulani forest, me> Gasser Belanger, Darryl Vierra, David Hahn, and Dave Yap were cooling off sitting on the trucks tailgate BBQing steaks and sucking up Steinlager beers after spending all day riding over slippery muddy tree roots, 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 toughed up for the Mauna Kea 200 mile two day time keeping world class enduro event in May.
Darryl Vierra come up with the bright idea saying, hey dudes! Lets ride up to the smoldering Kilauea Pu’ u ‘O’ o volcano vent, we can follow the solidified lava rivers up to the vent and eat lunch.
Now all of us have accumulated lots of lava rock riding experience over the years and paid our due’s to mean old mister gravity plenty of times, being slightly inebriated we all macho said; shoots Brah! Lets go for it, agreeing to be at Verna’s drive inn at Kalapana the next weekend rain or shine!
It turned out to be a beautiful sunny hot day with coco palms swaying in the blue Hawaiian sky and a pristine Sun sparkling blue ocean, an absolute picture perfect postcard day.
We all had water and food stuffed into small back packs and fanny packs filled with tool’s to cover about any brake down 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 was all up hill riding right from the start> we stayed along the lava flow burned out forest line but soon found out that the scattered burned tree branches were tougher than hell and if we brushed against them they would not bend 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 on them to flap in the wind for trail markers as we went along finding the easiest route that didn’t have super chunky impassable rocky dead ends.
No fear committed speed was a factor because we had to have enough momentum to fan the clutch to bunny hop over the swallow you up lava dip’s 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 flat tires> it was extra hot out on the black lava that pristine day sapping our energy quickly> this was a lot more than we had bargained for> back to the day when were all loose and happy sucking up beers in the cool forest a week before this bad ass ride, thinking; no problem’O we can do it, piece of cake dudes!
As we went, we found it butt cinching hairy to cross the center of a smooth sections of lava to pick a better line because that was a sign of there being a lava tube under us and the roofs 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 where the crust was an inch thick and the bottom was 20 to 60 feet down in there> we carried no ropes with us, duh?
As we got closer to the smoldering cone shaped vent, the lava smoothed out and then it turned into golden colored cinder that looked like fried pork rinds being soft and porous like snow, our bikes sunk 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 spitting up 20 foot fountains of molten rock as it boiled off a sulfur gas fume that would instantly take your breath away> we would quickly drop to the ground to breath fresh air, this was some killer nasty stuff.
The wind blew a sulfur fume cloud over us, with my face near buried in the extra porous foamy crust for a breath of semi clean air I noticed that there were 2 foot wide cracks with no visible bottom going every witch away and this snow like crust was covering them up, dumb ass us are standing on it! I said holy shit dudes this ain’t good we can instantly drop into bottomless Hell, so we back tracked out of there and were more cautious where we put a foot down from then on.
We gingerly worked our way over to this huge rumbling hole that had live 2,000 degree lava swirling down it like a flushing 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 shaking roaring rumbling spectacle of cherry red lava> we were 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 Peli’s personal Lua never to wipe our ass’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 earth and sat on the ledge eating our lunches dangling our legs over the side watching the bubble & boil lava fountain 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 way past noon, were almost out of water so we started the long trek back down the lava flowing mountain> this turned out to be a bigger challenge than going up to the Pu’ u ‘O’ o vent.
On the way down we had to bunny hop and pull wheelies to float the front tire over all the nasty tire flatting obstacles just waiting to gobble us up, this down hill maneuver royally kicked our butts surpassing all of our Rock Island Rider miles of do or die radical trail making.
It was like running down a steep hill on foot, when past 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 rock or span big cracks and 3 foot wide dip’s> 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 slamming our ball’s into the gas tank and cram packing the boxer shorts right up our ass’s was not very comforting> it was very hard to get slowed down but going slow would just beat the shit out of us also.
We had 12 miles of this body beating ahead of us> we all got flat tires and ran out of water> I started laughing uncontrollably almost crashing several times as I heard and saw Dave Hahn gagging and dry heaving in his helmet> then I started to dry heave> soon we all had the gagging dry heaves all the way down from lack of water and trying to hold ourselves back from going over the handle bar’s because of lots of radical front brake usage to stop a down hill runaway dirt bike.
We tried to follow the blue ribbon tagged rocks we stacked on the way up> because if we took the wrong route down 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 danger was coming up real fast, guarantee dude you were going to eat rocks and getting badly hurt way up there would not be fun.
A few times we got dead ended and had to turn around to go way back up to 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 all stick together no matter how many times the plan changed.
Also the gasoline supply was beginning to be a problem because it was so bone jarring rough it would rattle the carburetor float spilling precious gas, this was not good.
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 on that day.
We finely made it to our trucks just at sunset> all of us beat to the stink’en living max, man we were happy puppy’s to get back in one piece an pop open a ice cold beer.
Would I ever ride up there again? Hell NO!
It is now the year 2007 and Pu’ u ‘O’ o vent is still putting out as much volume of lava today as it was 24 years ago when it first erupted in 1983, the flow reached the town of Kalapana wiping it off the face of the map, Verna’s drive inn is one of the few structures left in place.
Google> “current up date of the Kilauea eruption” for more details.
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 committed wrist> plus a Race Tech suspension set up to take the square edge hits.
I was the first person ever to ride a dirt 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 was being extra careful not to spin the rear tire that may cause molten lava to get on the bike and instantly melt the air filter box stalling the motor> half way across the lava finger I thought I was on fire from the intense 2,000 degree heat rising up into my riding gear.
Would I do that again? Absolutely NO!
~~~Gasser~~~
May 10, 2007