Night biking to Lanikai Beach – June 24, 2012

Before I could drive, I used to “ride bike” quite frequently with friends, terrorizing our neighborhood. After donating my old mountain-bike to Goodwill many years ago, I never revisited the idea of biking recreationally until just recently. Since none of us hiked today, Reanne impulsively brought up an awesome idea, to investigate the new experimental shared-biking program has recently been introduced into Kailua. Using the conveniently placed kiosks, the public can inexpensively rent bicycles both for exercise or just to explore the town. Troy, Seth and I were all enthusiastic to check out what the hype was about, and proposed to ride to Lanikai Beach from Kailua town… of course, with a few beers in tow. hehe.

The new pilot bike sharing program in Kailua, Hawaii B-cycle, is a proof of concept meant to determine if shared biking can be successful in Hawaii. Similar programs have alleviated traffic congestion and improved public health in many cities. The two local rental locations, next to “Muu Muu Heaven” and “Formaggio Grill (we used this one)” on Kailua Rd, provide 12 bikes each for the public to use.

Using a credit card, we purchased $5 24-hour memberships from the kiosk, and all had our bikes within a few minutes. The first 30 minutes of riding are free with membership, but is $2.50 per every 30 minutes afterwards.

After skimming over the safety instructions and loading up the beers, we were off to Lanikai Beach.

Riding again took a few minutes to get used to, especially shifting between gears… Though it wasn’t so bad after getting the hang of it. There wasn’t much traffic in Kailua, mid-evening, so we had no problem riding on the road.

Within 15 minutes, we were circling the Aalapapa/Mokulua Dr Loop, and finding our way down one of the beach accesses in Lanikai.

We didn’t really feel like locking up our bikes on the street, so we parked them on the grass nearby to where we were sitting…

I usually plan these types of nocturnal/outdoor activities with such events, but this one was just conveniently timed with the moonset over the Koolaus. Almost perfect… with the exception of “well-known” Lanikai fine-grained sand blowing into our eye-balls and drinks every time the wind picked up. haha.

Since we were paying to ride bikes, and not drink Boddingtons on the beach, we decided to ride back to Kailua and return our bikes.

Keeping the night affordable, we headed back to town to hit up Sanoya Ramen for a hot meal. Awesome change of scenery for an adventure, and it brought back a whole lotta memories of growing up in Hawaii. 🙂

For more adventures of the Lost Trailblazers, either look at my other blogposts and “Adventures with the Lost Trailblazers” photo gallery. Thanks for visiting and come back again soon!

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