clarification

I don't mean that those guide books were wrong about much else at all. The restaurants they suggest were excellent.  And the beaches where they said turtles could be found had turtles.  

I am just saying: there is biking on those islands. 

The place we stopped for shaved ice was just down the street from that other place, and the nice people behind the counter were precisely that.

The Big Island Revealed and Oahu Revealed were wrong about something

Biking specifically.

The only roads that did not have bike lanes, or share the road signs that I noticed were H1 and H3.  

I would venture that the islands are very bike friendly.  But then, were are getting used to more urban biking and the authors prolly expected people looking for island biking to have off road mountain biking in mind.  

But all day and on every road we saw cyclists.

We watched a guy bike up to the Pali lookout on the old highway (which is now a paved trail for pedestrians since the road goes through the mountain now rather than over it) and then go screaming back down. Not Tarzan screaming, but his knobby tires made that TIE fighter "CHWHAAAAAAAAAA" sound.

So don't forget to bring your Travelers Checks with you.  There is beautiful biking in Hawaii, though most of it is going to be on a bike lane.