Haleiwa Metric Century: the first ride that felt long

A metric century is 100 kilometers, call it 62 miles. In April of 2023 that was the longest ride either of us had done in an organized event, and it came five weeks before a 70.3 with a 56-mile bike leg, so it wasn't a casual Saturday. It was the ride that was supposed to tell me whether the bike part of Honu was going to be a problem.

The ride starts out of Haleiwa on the North Shore, and the Hawaii Bicycling League has been putting on rides here for a long time, which shows in the details: a marked course, rest stops about every twenty miles, and people at every one of them who know what they're doing. Every long ride before this had been solo at dawn, so riding in a group with support felt like a different sport, and a nicer one.

The number I cared about was 56, because the Honu bike leg is 56 miles through lava with wind, and before this ride that was only an idea. After it, it was a number we'd already gone past somewhere friendly, which is the whole reason a bridge race exists. Sixty-two miles is also long enough for the other things to show up, the food running out, the spot where the bike fit is wrong, and the way the last fifteen miles of a long ride turn into a different ride than the first forty-seven, and it was better to find those out in April with a rest stop every twenty miles than in June in the lava. The fitness helps, but the fueling and the hours in the saddle are what a ride like this is really for, and you usually don't know which of those is your weak spot until the ride is long enough to show you.

I rode it on the bike I already had, not a triathlon bike, and the tri bike showed up in July, after the race it would've been bought for was already done.