Minimum 5-7 years ago I read about Mauna Kea (Hawaii, Big island), the hardest climb of the Earth and that after reading travelogues about that, I knew I have to ride that ascent sometime in my life. The ascent starts at sealevel and after ascending 69 kms it ends at about 4200 m. The lower section to the altitude of ca. 2100 m it is not a hard climb; the average steepness is less than 4,5%, but the last ca. 20 km long section (2100 m heightdifference) is nearly 10% steep and contains a ca. 7 km long gravel / dirt road section and sometmes it’s 15-17% steep.
That was the most motivating cycling goal on my bucketlist. After I have done that (25th Aug, 2016), now I can say that there are no serious cycling goals that should be on my bucketlist.
After cycling to all of the paved summits, passes of the Alps, Pyrenées, and Canary islands that are situated above 2000 m and having enough financing sources for such a bicycle tour (at the end of the spring 2016) I decided to cycle a week in Colorado and another week in Hawaii where I could cycle up to Mauna Kea, the World’s toughest climb.
There are similar, volcanic climbs in the Hawaii islands than Mauna Kea, that’s why I decided I not to ride that ascents, but I preferred cycling a week on the high, paved roads, scenic byways of Colorado: there are several passes that are higher than 3000-3300 m so that seemed to be a perfect place for acclimatization. I’ve read great opinions about Trail Ridge Road, Mount Evans scenic byway, Pikes Peak’s hard ascent and I choose other passes too. I planned cycling 8.5 days in Colorado, in the Rocky Mountians and 6 days on the Big Island where I wanted to cycle it around (enjoying watching lava fields, rainforests, waterfalls) and cycle up to Mauna Kea in a day when I start early, before sunrise and could ride up before sunset. The eastern side of the island is one of the most rainiest part of the World, so I had to accept that I often could have rain.
After several long bicycle tours in Europe and cycling more than 500.000 meters in the Alps, Pyrenées and Canary islands, this tour was a new milestone when I think about organizing the tour. I will write about few interesting things that I had to do when I organized the tour. (permissions, entering the US, carrying the bicycle on airplanes, choosing the right tyre, how to change flights at airports, finding cheap accomodation or camp grounds, training, etc.

• Hungarians don’t need to have VISA, but have to get az ESTA permission / licence : this is for hungarians, that’s why I don’t write about it in English.

• Entering the US at the airport: when you arrive at the 1st airport in the US, after walking a little bit, there will be an automata which gets your fingerprints. After it You will meet the immigration officer to have a chat, short interview about your goals in the US, about the fact if you have enough money for the trip / holiday, etc. By a bicycle tour it’s good to have the plan of the tour by you and have the ticket of the black-flight by you.

• Carrying my bicycle on the aircraft or renting bike: it was a serious question and of course I preferred to take my bike with me, but I had to get informations about the costs. Carrying the bike on an aircraft in the US costs about 50-60 USD. For 7 flights it is ca. 350-420 USD, but it is cheaper than renting bike there and as I got the infos it seemed that I wouldn’t be able to rent a proper touring bike in Denver. I checked several bicycle rental websites. In Hawaii there are few bike rental shops and 1-2 of them could solce the problem to rent a touring bike, but in Denver I couldn’t found such bike rental. Renting a bike costs about 35-55 USD/ day, (by longer period it is cheaper a little bit, but renting a good racebike is more expensive) in Denver, while renting a bike in Hawaii costs about 20-35-45 USD/day. For a 14 day long period I calculated minimum 400 USD without setting the bike and by that situation the cyclist has to think if he / she could get used to the bike. Based the above mentioned reasons I decided to carry my bike with me, the bike that I like to ride.

• Choosing the proper tyre for the tour: in the last few years I use 28 mm wide Schwalbe Marathon tyres, but all of the travelogues, reports that I read about cycling Mauna Kea told to use wide, maybe MTB tyres because of the 7 kms long gravel / dirt road section. That 7 km long part of the ascent caused to use 32 mm wide tyres ! For me it was obvious that I would cycle up without walking along the bike or without changing the bike for MTB on that section. Two advice about sugegsted tyres for the grave part of Mauna Kea’s ascent:
  Advice (1):"I should have had even lower gears (perhaps by installing an MTB crank-set), and a thicker rear tire with knobbies (the Diverge supports up to 35mm, which I should have put on).
  
  Advice (2):"This gravel will likely be impossible to climb on a road bike. Even with mountain bike tyres most people will find it difficult to get enough traction to keep from walking at least parts of the road."
  

• Carrying the bike on aircrafts: Before that tour I always flew with low-cost airlines and several times I only had to wrap the bike. On the american airlines bike has to taken into a bikebox or cardbox. Lufthansa allowed to wrap the bike for the Munich – Denver flight too, but I decided to take the bike into a cardbox for that flight to try how to do it. Before the tour I asked 2-3 bike shops if the could give me cardbox(es) for the following flights: in denver I got a cardfox for free, in Hawaii I had to pay 10 USD for that. After packing the bike into the box I needed to travel only 1 km to the underground line that I used to travel to the airport. In Hawaii I took a taxi to travel to te airport. Note: after the american flights I found a tape (with text) that informed me that the cardbox was checked, controlled by an american security office.

• Transfers by the airport: I think you can find better places (in your first language) than my site to have informations about the airport-transfers, so I don’t write about it in English. For me it was an exciting thing, becasue before this tour I had never transferred at an airport.

• Accomodations, camp grounds, etc.: Because of the ESTA license and the chat with the immigration officer it is suggested to have a reserved accommodation for the 1st night of the tour. In Colorado I often found warnings because of the bears and wild camping is let only by the “official” wild camping places (find “dispersed camp grounds”), so I tried to find camp grounds and sometimes I had to reserve accommodation by using airbnb. In Hawaii there are not too many camp grounds and few of them offers shower, electricity, so on the island I only slept twice in tent. While in the US a night in a camp ground is about 20 USD, sometimes I could get an “airbnb room” for 50-60 USD. Sometimes I couldn’t find a camp ground close to the ascent that was planned, so I decided to sleep in a house.
  In Europe it’s very rare that there is no room for a small tent in a camp ground, but it’s not the same in the US. In the american camp grounds (that I used or experienced) there are sererated places with a table, 2 bences and a fire place, so there are only so many places that were established. It all of them were reserved that You have to find another camp ground! That was the reason why sometimes It was hard to find places for the night(s). Reservation is sometimes / often useful. Useful links
  About camp grounds and dispersed camp grounds - Colorado
  Wild camping - Colorado
  

• Weather and its effect for my packs, panniers: During the 14 long tour I got real rain (not only few drops) ca. 10-11 times, but I wasn’t angry because of this, because I had known that these regions often got rain. I had read that in Colorado in summer afternoon often have showers, while Hawaii, Big island’s east side is one of the most rainiest places of the Earth. I didn’t prepared for the rain too much: I took a pair of gaiters with me and rainjacket and raintrousers of course. In Colorado I spent a week above 2400 m so I had to take enough warm clothes with me. (sometimes 4-6 degrees celsius during the night; that’s why twice I changed sleeping in a camp ground for sleeping in a house.) The other thing I had to write about: it was important to take care about my skin because of the serious sunshine. By Punau’u beach in the morning the Sun was shining a little bit, sometimes it was partly cloudy and I didn’t feel to use suncream. It resulted that in the evening I experienced I was burnt by the Sun. In the following week it was hard for my skin.....  In Colorado where I cycled (because I was above 2400 m for nearly a week) the sunshine was serious too.)