Honolulu Century Ride 2023: 79 miles of it

The Honolulu Century is the big organized ride on the island. It's late September, out of Kapiolani Park, over the east side and up the windward coast and back, with turnarounds at 25, 50, 75, and 100 miles so you can pick the distance that fits where you are in the season. We took the 100, and I'll come back to that.

The route goes out through Hawaii Kai, around the southeast tip, and then north with the mountains on your left and the ocean on your right for as long as you care to keep going. It's the same coast the Kailua 10-Miler and the Windward Half use, and it comes with the same wind, behind you in one direction and in your face in the other, and the ride is long enough that you get both. The way home is into the trades, so the people who go out fast with the wind at their back are usually the people you pass on the return leg, and occasionally they're you.

The Hawaii Bicycling League has run this for decades, and the rest stops are real rest stops with real food instead of a folding table with a jug of water on it. A month after the Dick Evans, where 112 miles was a race, a hundred miles with support and a better view felt almost like a day off. The 25 and the 50 are real rides with real hills too, and nobody at the finish asks which turnaround you took.

September 2023 had the Runner's HI 20K and the Waikiki swim earlier in the month, so the running series was carrying the marathon and the long rides were carrying the question of the full distance, and September was the month both of those were loudest. The following weekend was the Hybrid Design 25K, which we ran easy, because we'd just ridden a hundred miles.

That hundred needs a correction, though. Our watches say 79 miles, so this was the 75-mile turnaround and not the full hundred, seven hours door to door with the rest stops, and my Strava title for the day is "Century'ish Ride," which is honest.