Cycle to the Sun
A dawn-to-summit race up Haleakalā turns 36 miles of pure climb into a rite of passage – and a fundraiser for Maui’s next generation
story by Jen Murphy | photographs by Daniel Sullivan
Under a lavender dawn, Pā‘ia glows neon. Cyclists in skin-tight kits click through puddles of streetlight, shaking out nerves while a kahu offers a blessing to Haleakalā – House of the Sun – and to every rider bold enough to challenge it. The start horn snaps the hush at 6:30 a.m., and wheels leap forward, swallowing Baldwin Avenue’s first steep pitch toward the volcano that fills half Maui’s sky.
Cycle to the Sun is Hawai‘i’s most prestigious road race, challenging 200 riders to bike 36 grueling uphill miles from sea level to the summit crater of Haleakalā at 10,023 feet. The event’s entry fees raise money for the Pā‘ia Youth and Cultural Center.
The ritual scene unfolds each summer during Cycle to the Sun, Hawai‘i’s most prestigious road race and a major fundraiser for the Pā‘ia Youth and Cultural Center. Part endurance test, part community lūʻau, the event sends 200 riders from sea level to Haleakalā’s 10,023-foot summit in one unbroken, 36-mile ascent. Their entry fees help keep local kids safe, mentored and exploring their own limits – just as the racers do over the next four to six hours.
Haleakalā’s maximum grade is 15%. The temperature can swing 50 degrees between Pā‘ia’s scented breezes and the crater rim’s frosty moonscape, where snow occasionally dusts the cinder. For perspective, France’s storied Mont Ventoux gains barely half the elevation over just a third of the distance. “There’s nothing on Maui as extreme,” massage therapist and three-time finisher Noelle Manriquez says. Big-wave legend Ian Walsh likens the ride’s mental grind to surfing Peʻahi – when the body fades, grit decides.
Donnie Arnoult, a former pro racer and owner of Maui Cyclery and Go Cycling Maui in Pā‘ia, has organized Cycle to the Sun since 2008, backed by 20 volunteers, four police officers and a cadre of park staff. His son 3-D-prints the trophies; Arnoult himself has logged more than 500 summit rides. “Most climbs give you a breather,” he says. “This one gives you about 45 seconds – total.”
Three miles in, mountain-bike builder Justin Varaljay gets his first reality check. He joins a three-person relay on a whim, but the lead pack drops him near Lumeria, barely out of town. Humbled yet hooked, he comes back solo the next year, finishing in 4:21 without training. “There is no relief,” he says. “You’re literally climbing the whole time.” He is training for a top-10 spot in the race.
Around mile 12, Pete Dunne finds his calling. A Maui local, he only discovers road bikes just before the pandemic. At first, he feels ridiculous in Lycra, but soon he embraces the you-versus-gravity mindset. Fifth overall in 2022, second in 2023, he slashes past the elusive three-hour
barrier last year – 2:55 – to become the first Maui resident to win. “The wind flips on every switchback,” Dunne says. “You have to read it, then break anyone on
your wheel.”
Some ride to mark a personal milestone. Veterinarian Jennifer Bentley flies in from Oregon to celebrate her 40th birthday by seeing how fast she can climb. She has pedaled to the summit before but never raced. On race morning, she clocks the top women’s time at 3:38. “You start in lush tropical greens and end on what feels like the moon,” she says.
A little farther up the road, 75-year-old artist Deb Lynch pedals past her own Pā‘ia driveway and just keeps going. For years, she stands outside to cheer as the racers stream by. Then, during the pandemic, she dusts off her bike and decides to try it herself. “I nicknamed myself the turtle,” she laughs. “I’m slow, but I still get up that hill.” She usually finishes just after the official cut-off time, but Arnoult always waves her in. “Your legs are in pain,” she says, “but the honeycreepers are singing, and the sky is a blue no paint can match.”
Mother Nature is as much a participant as any rider. One year, gusting 77-mph winds pin racers against guardrails near the summit. Another, a hatch of tiny gnats forces everyone to breathe through clenched teeth for miles. Over the years, someone finishes on a unicycle, another on a stand-up ElliptiGO.
In addition to the steep, 15% road grade and 50 degree temperature swings, athletes must contend with high winds and a battle with endurance.
Cycle to the Sun began in the 1980s, slipped into dormancy, then was revived in 2001 by Kalima O Maui, a vocational-rehab nonprofit. Today, the race funds youth programs that teach leadership, ocean skills and civic engagement – the very qualities Haleakalā demands in miniature over its relentless grade. “You carry a piece of that crater with you,” global bike-tour operator Andy Levine says, who returns to Maui whenever he can.
For Manriquez, the payoff always arrives above 8,500 feet, where traffic thins and the planet curves away beneath her wheels. “At that point in the race I’m alone,” she says, “living in the moment of pain and appreciating the beauty around me, knowing I’m doing something epic.”
At the summit parking lot, Arnoult’s crew wraps finishers in fleece blankets and hands out medals shaped like the mountain itself. Down in Pā‘ia, the pizza party is already heating up – a celebration not just of victory or survival, but of a community that rallies around a road etched into paradise, and the belief that climbing together can lift everyone, especially the kids waiting to ride their own first miles.
