Bicycle Diaries: it's not about the bike

My 1st Run: The 8McDo McHappy Fun Run

2009-12-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

I love fun runs. Nobody really cares if you can’t run well. You just have to get up and run. And so it was that I received my baptism of fire in running at 8McDo’s 1st McHappy Fun Run.

Organized by 8McDo as part of their World Children’s Day fundraising efforts, the race saw both adults and kids running together. There were 3K, 5K, and 10K races at the 8McDo Fun Run. I joined the 10K race and was satisfied at the fact that I was running a distance that is more prestigious than most people had that day :)

The race started with a short program. We were told that the race was part of a fundraising effort by 8McDo for their Bright Minds Read and Bahay Bulilit programs, how we’re helping lots of Filipino kids just by joining the 8McDo race.

It brought me nice feelings to hear all that. But I was there at the 8McDo race because I wanted to run, nothing more. I had no other recollection of the event, really, but the run (and the muscle pains afterwards). And, oh, I remember Charice Pempengco singing something. And Angel Locsin passing us by with a trail of dust. Man, she could run.

I finished my 10K run with a time of 1:20:56. I sucked, I know. I saw the Elite Team Bald Runner already cooling down when I crossed the finish line. I saw kids pass me by, really. But the 8McDo race was fun. I finally had 10K in me. And lots of burgers afterwards. Hehe

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2009 Tour de France Podium Girls

2009-07-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

It had been a great Tour. No better way to wrap it up than to make a compilation of the TdF Podium Girls. Now, the results:

Barring accidents and miracles, it looks like Alberto Contador of Astana will win this year's Tour de France. Contador, who's been wearing the Yellow Jersey for the past three stages of the Tour, solidified his lead after a great performance on Mont Vonteaux.

The guy had an answer every time Andy Schleck of Saxo Bank, who is second in the general classification and this year's Best Young Rider, tried to cut into his lead.

It was a terrific battle on the Big Bald Dome. Lance Armstrong held his ground to keep his standing in the GC. His closest rivals, Bradley Wiggins of Garmin and Frank Schleck of Saxo Bank, looked spent.

They cracked on the final push beyond the tree line of the mountain, when Mont Vonteaux showed its ugly face. There was a 25kph headwind and the vegetation disappeared. It was a harsh place to ride.

Contador (1st), Andy Schleck (2nd), and Armstrong (3rd) will cruise through Paris assured of podium finishes.

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Contador claims team lead. Armstrong takes back seat. Will he join list of sport's greatest sidekicks?

2009-06-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

From ESPN Page 2

MJ and Scottie. Shaq and Kobe (Penny, Wade, LeBron). Now cycling has Alberto and Lance.

Defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador will return to the 2009 Tour as the team leader of cycling powerhouse Astana, the team announced Thursday.

Contador, who threatened to quit the team after seven-time champion Lance Armstrong joined Astana for his comeback Tour, has aired his displeasure at having to race with Armstrong. “I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for it,” he said. “And with Armstrong, there could be difficult situations in which the team would put him first and that would harm me.”

The 2009 Tour, which will have its Grand Depart on July 4 at the Rock in Monaco, will put to test how this new team buildup will affect the performance of the elite Team Astana.

Team Astana will also have two big names in its roster that includes Armstrong’s fellow American Levi Leipheimer and German Andreas Kloeden. Leipheimer and Kloeden have both been podium finishers in last year’s Tour. With the addition of Armstrong, Team Astana will have probably the most star-studded domestiques to help the team leader.

Domestiques, or “support riders,” are traditionally team members who cannot be expected to win the Yellow Jersey, but can be relied on to “shield the team leader from the winds in the flats, escort him up mountain climbs, or even fetch water bottles from team cars trailing the racers.” Come July 4, this will be the new role that Lance Armstrong will have to play.

To be sure, it is an unfamiliar role for the American, who is now 37 and coming off a four-year retirement from professional cycling. Armstrong eased back to cycling beginning late last year, and competed in the Vuelta where he figured in a crash and suffered a collarbone injury. He came back from surgery to race in Giro and finished 12th.

Astana coach Johan Bruyneel, who has been with Armstrong in all his seven Tour de France championships, said he was very happy with the Texan's form in his comeback season after three years of retirement, the Associated Press reports. "I know he is extremely motivated for the Tour de France," he added.

However, it remains to be seen whether Armstrong is prepared to compromise his own chances of adding to his record seven victories. With Contador as the leader of the team, it would be interesting to watch how Team Astana will fare in the Tour de France.

Bruyneel said Contador "has worked very hard, earning the right to represent our team as the leader this July.” But although Armstrong will be given a supporting role at Team Astana, anything could happen.

Armstrong posted on his Twitter page Thursday that “This is not 2004 or 2005. I'm not the leader of the team.” And that he is not. We’ll find out for sure on July 4.

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Lance Armstrong Post-Op Reports

2009-03-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Armstrong is escorted by hospital staff in Austin, Texas, after surgery on a broken collarbone (Click image to watch video in ABC News)

After crashing out of the Vuelta, Lance Armstrong got a stainless steel plate and 12 screws from a broken collarbone surgery performed last Wednesday at a hospital in his hometown Austin, Texas.

Reports say Armstrong, who is now 37 years old, needs 8 to 12 weeks of rest for the injury to fully mend. No official word yet on how the surgery can affect Armstrong's timetable for his return to the Tour de France. Here's what Lance got to say so far:

Exclusive Post-Op Interview with Lance

Armstrong is scheduled to compete in the Giro d'Italia on May 9. Doug Elenz, the attending surgeon, said that Armstrong's injury turned out not to be just a simple fracture, but broken in four places.

"Lance is going to be a patient who is going to push the envelope," Elenz said. "This first week we're going to make Lance take it easy ... ask Lance not to do a whole lot." After taking a few days off, Armstrong will be allowed to ride a stationary bike.

The Associated Press reports that doctors will monitor his arm strength, range of motion in his shoulder, as well as his pain, to decide what kind of training he can do. Doctors don't want him to strain his upper body in any way for a while.

Lance crashes in Vuelta, to undergo surgery in US

2009-03-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

"I would have to doubt he would be able to start the Giro with the kinds of sensations he had hoped for, but maybe he'll use it to build up for the Tour now," Julich said. "This is Lance we're talking about. Anything is possible."

Lance Armstrong hit a bump on the road to his return to the Tour de France after he crashed during the first stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon on Monday. Armstrong suffered a broken collarbone and was scheduled to return to the United States for surgery, ESPN.Com reported.

Armstrong was with the main peloton toward the end of Stage 1 when the group got caught in a pileup as it chased a small breakaway that zoomed past the rough and dusty country road north of Madrid.

Armstrong, 37, landed heavily and was grimacing in pain as he sat on the ground and cradled his right arm. "Armstrong suffered a fracture of the third medio of the right clavicle," the race organizers said after he had an X-ray at a hospital in the Spanish city of Valladolid.

Armstrong remained with the Astana team Monday night and planned to fly back to the US on Tuesday. "Surgery in a couple of days," Armstrong wrote yesterday in a Twitter update. "Thanks for all the well wishes."

Most riders, the International Herald Tribune reports, need about four weeks off the bicycle to recover from a broken collarbone. That would restrict Armstrong's training for the three-week Giro d'Italia, which starts May 9, and for his main goal, the Tour de France, which starts July 4.

Bike Photo Contest Until March 15

2009-03-05T00:31:00.000-08:00

EcoVelo is holding a photo contest until March 15. Winners get cool prizes, from original Klunkerz DVD, to Acorn roll bag, and many others. Entries must have bike in the content, and that is pretty much all the rules of the contest. If you are one of those who bring a camera in your bike rides, it's time to dig out those photos and submit them here.

Submitted entries (Reprinted from EcoVelo):

Armstrong Returns to Europe

2009-03-03T00:09:00.000-08:00

After finishing seventh in the Tour of California this February, seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong moves ahead on his comeback trail with scheduled participation in the 2009 Tour of Ireland on Aug. 19. Armstrong will also compete in the Milan-San Remo one-day race on March 21, as well as the Tour of Castille and Leon from March 23 to 27.

After almost four years in retirement Armstrong goes back to competitive cycling and expects the Spanish races to bring him back in shape for the killer time trial and mountain stages of the Tour de France. His first two races this year have been slow start for Armstrong. He finished seventh in the Tour of California, won by his Astana teammate Levi Leipheimer, and 29th on the general classification of the Tour Down Under.

The Tour of Ireland also paves the way, aside from the Armstrong comeback trail, for the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Summit in Dublin on Aug. 24.

Darach McQuaid, project director for the Tour of Ireland, said, "The massive, positive public reaction to Lance Armstrong's comeback to the sport in Australia in January and California in February indicate that by the time Lance arrives in Ireland next August, the interest levels will be at fever pitch. I am confident that we can provide Lance with a challenging course and via our global broadcast, promote his cancer message in over 140 television markets around the world."

As the landmark event of the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Campaign, the Summit will make the case for acting urgently to address the global cancer burden and introduce new commitments to cancer control by bringing together world leaders, corporations, non-governmental organizations and advocates in an unprecedented show of solidarity.

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Cycling wallpapers, photos, and Tour of California

2009-03-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

We like being surrounded by the things we like. If it has a special place in our hearts, it has a special place in our room, in our work station, and any place else where we can be reminded easily. For those who spend most of the work day in front of a computer, here's a collection of cycling-themed wallpapers from Cycling Weekly.

Also, here is a collection of cycling photos from Ken Conley, a cycling photographer who took that famous shot of Michael Rogers sending a punch to the neck of a spectator during the Tour of California, won by Levi Leipheimer. His photos are simple, clean, and the colors are vibrant. I like his closeup cycling photos more than the crowd shots. You can visit his photo gallery for more choices.

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Pollution is closer than you think

2008-10-31T02:49:00.000-07:00

As any cyclist know, the environment is in a really bad shape. They should know. Urban cyclists, for example, have to deal with more than bad drivers, bad roads, and bad weather. They have to deal with bad air, too.

It used to be that air pollution is something seen only in the sky. It is so for me anyway. From distant factories. From big fires of burning tires and garbage that send a thick dark mass of noxious air.

When I started riding a bike, it came to me that pollution is closer than I have thought it is. Not that I think about it very seriously. I don’t. But riding a bike and all of a sudden you feel and taste bad air from cars, it begins to concern you. You feel the noxious exhaust on your face, really. And, yes, you get a taste of it.

Curiously, you get a taste of it at a time when you have to take in great amount of air because your tired body needs it. That is disgusting. And it must be stopped. Or maybe we have to evolve faster and develop state-of-the-art lungs. But there is a simpler solution.

We can campaign for regulation. Car manufacturers can improve the exhaust of their models. They just don’t because that will mean less power, which is not exactly what most people want.

Given a chance between what I want and what I need, I’d choose what I need. Maybe a nice car with a decent power output and clean exhaust is all that we need. And we need to let that be known.

Photo Credits:
Ad Agency: JWT, Hong Kong
Creative Directors: Steven Lee, Kwong Chi Kit, Barbara Fu
Art Directors: Fei Leung, Arthur Tse
Copywriters: Babara Fu, Jesse Wong

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Not convinced yet that bikes make you live longer?

2008-10-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

An old lady rides her bike on the streets of Vienna, Austria, where cyclists are reportedly giving a good match to car owners and their diesel-powered engines.

VIENNA—Austrian police say a 108-year-old woman has been hit by car while riding her bike across a busy city street in Vienna. Authorities refuse to identify the elderly woman, who is not related to Austrian-born strongman and incumbent California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Officials said the elderly cyclist was taken to the hospital and was found out to have suffered a few bruises. It was not clear what happened to the car, but going by the news reports that ran the story the car was apparently no match for the 108-year-old woman cyclist.

If a 108-year-old woman riding a bicycle is not amazing, that is.

With reports from AP

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Contador to Armstrong: I am Astana’s top rider

2008-09-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

Alberto Contador said he might leave the Astana cycling team if it would hire returning champion Lance Armstrong for the 2009 Tour de France. Contador, who won this year’s Vuelta a Espana to complete a rare grand slam win of all of the three Grand Tours, said Astana could be facing difficult situations if it would have him and Armstrong as the team’s top riders.

“It would be quite complicated (to have Armstrong in the team),” Contador said after reports came out that Astana was working to get Armstrong. “I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for it,” he said. “And with Armstrong, there could be difficult situations in which the team would put him first and that would harm me.”

Although without an official word yet from Astana, Armstrong’s possible comeback to professional cycling was believed to be through the Luxembourg-based Team Astana where his former manager Joahn Bruyneel is currently the team director.

Bruyneel, who served as director of the US Postal and Discovery Channel teams during the seven-feat Tour de France victories of Lance Armstrong, said he would “not allow” Armstrong to join another team if he were to return to professional cycling.

“Bruyneel believes I can deliver results,” Contador, who is only the fifth cyclist to win a cycling grand slam, said. “But it can’t be denied that he made his name because of his ties to Armstrong.”

“I will base my decision on what he says. I intend to stay because I am under contract until 2010, but I have received a good many offers from other teams,” Contador during Tuesday’s awarding ceremonies of the Vuelta.

Tuesday’s remarks were in contrast with what Contador had said in the week when Armstrong surprised the cycling world with his comeback announcement: “I would welcome [Armstrong] into the team with open arms because a cyclist like him would fit in anywhere. I have always had the highest regard for him and would be delighted to be in the same team as him.”

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How Lance Armstrong ended up unretired

2008-09-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

I AM A GOLDEN GOD! MY FLESH IS ETERNAL, MY THIRST IS UNQUENCHABLE, MY VENGEANCE IS SWIFT AND PAINFUL, AND I HAVE COME BACK TO CLAIM WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!!! (Click photo to read story)

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Armstrong will do it. Pro bono. Just like Bono

2008-09-09T21:18:00.001-07:00

Team Armstrong confirms rumors that Lance will return to professional cycling. In a press release posted on the website of his Livestrong Foundation, an organization that pushes for cancer research, Lance announced that he will come out of retirement and race in the Tours “in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden.”

"I am happy to announce that after talking with my children, my family and my closest friends, I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden. This year alone, nearly eight million people will die of cancer worldwide. Millions more will suffer in isolation, victims not only of the disease but of social stigma," the announcement read.

Though still without a confirmed professional cycling team to speak of and no go-ahead yet of his “asterisk athlete” (read: suspect) status from the Amaury Sport Organization which owns the Tour de France, Lance is expected to discuss his very own cycling program and the international Livestrong strategy on Sept. 24 in New York City at the Clinton Global Initiative.

In an interview with Douglas Brinkley of Vanity Fair that was published yesterday, Lance Armstrong said the impetus to come back sprang upon him quite unexpectedly over the summer in Colorado.

“Armstrong had an epiphany on August 9 after placing second at the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain-Bike Race—a 100-mile ‘Race Across the Sky,’ which climbs to more than 14,000 feet. That ascent, cycling upward in a crosscurrent, tripped something primal in him.

“‘It wasn’t a light bulb going off,’ he says, but a realization, combined with a gradual frustration ‘with the rhetoric coming out of the Tour de France. Not just the Tour on TV but the domestic press, the international press, the pace, the speeds at which participants rode. It’s not a secret. I mean, the pace was slow.’”

But unlike comebacks like that of Michael Jordan or Brett Favre, Lance return to cycling is more toward the direction of Bono. “I am essentially racing for free. No salary. No bonus. Nothing on the line.… This one’s on the house. And you know what? At the end of the day, I don’t need money.… Not only will I be fine, my kids will be fine, my grandkids will be fine,” Armstrong said in the interview.

Of course we know his return to cycling is beyond the paycheck. In 2005, Lance Armstrong appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 with his estimated annual income of $28 million, accrued mostly through endorsements and support from companies like Nike, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Trek Bicycles.

It wouldn't be too hard to imagine that this whole comeback thing is about “celebrity leveraging.” Just look what it did to Lance's friend Bono. Or that Lance is having an existential crisis right now that he's gone over the hump, which makes the comeback story really true and accurate because if there is anything Armstrong has a tender spot for it would be cancer research. After all, cancer is the very thing that Lance claims to have humbled him and turned him into a better person. Or it could be simply that Lance Armstrong will very soon be running for governor.

In any case we only have the "what." And, oh, these pictures:

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Scenes from the Tour and others...Enjoy

2008-09-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

Just testing some software. Hope you enjoy the video! :)

Bicycle Diaries | Philippine Bike Scene | Pinoy Bikes

Leryn Franco bows out of Beijing Olympics

2008-08-21T01:13:00.000-07:00

Speaking of the Olympics, could there be people out there who are not sports fans themselves? Be it a street basketball tournament, an inter-school athletic meet, or a nationwide sports competition, there is something about sports and the athletes that somehow catch our attention.

Not a few things have been said about sports and how they are able to touch lives, how many of life’s values are reflected when an athlete tries to do well and excel in his sport, even if the athlete falls short of a medal or the cash prize. For some, sports simply make witness of them to the thrill of victory.

In any case, sports are fun to watch. As fun to watch as it is to participate in any of them. Even for us with ordinary capabilities and mediocre talent who stand at longshot odds to qualify for a respectable tournament. It does not matter that Filipinos still have to earn respect in the world of international sports. The Olympics is still fun to watch.

But I repeat myself. My favorite Beijing Olympics sport is the athletics. No, make that the javelin throw event of the athletics. It involves throwing a javelin as far as one is capable of throwing it. That is pretty much all there is to know about javelin. Just go out there in the field, throw the javelin without hitting anybody, and the farthest one wins.

It sounds like a fairly easy sport, especially if someone like me explains it to you. It was only yesterday that I saw a javelin throw competition. It was only yesterday that I found out there was an athletic event called javelin throw.

But I like what I have seen. Javelin throw really puts to test the participants and to win it is like, I don’t know, besting a beauty pageant contestant to a game of strength. This Games got me hooked to javelin throw. I cheered for Paraguay because they look like Filipinos. Also they got Leryn Franco in their roster.

That is all her in the photo. But let in not fool you. Leryn Franco is a two-time Olympian for the national team of Paraguay. Her personal best throw is 56 meters, set in Fortaleza, Brazil, back in May 2007. At the 2004 Olympics, she placed 21^st in Group A and finished 42^nd overall. In this Games she finished second to last. Still, she can throw. A javelin.

That was a poor finish of course. But it was an Olympic-level competition and not many could do what Leryn Franco did. Especially if one has spent the time in between the two Olympics winning in a beauty pageant and jumpstarting a modeling career.

It was all right. I wish I could tell her this: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” Ms. Leryn, you captivated the hearts of sports fans across the globe. You won.

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"Champion" at 2008 Summer Games

2008-08-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

Two weeks into the Beijing Olympics we have been treated to a world-class display of sport performances. From the record-setting eight-gold haul of Michael Phelps in swimming, to the promising trajectory on the road to redemption that Team USA is showing in Men’s Basketball, the 2008 Beijing Olympics is beginning to look like a Games to remember.

Never mind that the Philippine team is likely to come home only with the “ennobling upshot of their losing experience” and their dirty uniforms (as of this writing Team Pilipinas is down to its last two athletes still in contention: taekwondo jin Mary Antoinette Rivero and diver Ryan Rexel Fabriga). That Team USA does not suck in basketball anymore somehow makes it all right. You may have a different opinion, why don’t you post a comment below.

Another athlete that stood out in this Summer Games is artistic gymnast Shawn Johnson. She won gold in the women’s balance beam, and silver in the all around classification. It is a sport I know nothing about. It has the word artistic on it and I can only suppose that it involves a whole range of emotions and is only fun to watch sometimes. An example is Shawn Johnson.

As it turned out, Johnson also writes poetry. You can see her poem collection at the Get To Know Shawn page of her website. Allow me to share you a poem called Champion. For all of the prejudices you have about artistic gymnasts, you should read the poem below. Take my word for it.

Champion

You fear the loss and pain of defeat
But still are able to stand on two feet
You crumble and cry as much as you want
But nothing can keep you away from the hunt

This is what you’ve been working for
The pride and honor as you take to the floor
You remember the struggles and pain you had

When all the good had turned to bad
When behind the scenes you crumbled and prayed
For it all to simply just go away

The doubt and regrets of what you went through
Sometimes just made you want to give it to
The next girl in line that had gave it her all
But always seemed to carry a fall

You remember the times when you thought to give up
But could never find a reason to disrupt
Anything and everything that you had given to the sport
The hearts desire and all the support

But when the pressure builds and tears you apart
How are you able to not depart
How are you able to still carry a smile
When everything inside is in a pile

You hold your head high and never look back
Because this is what keeps you all intact
It’s what runs in your veins, and it’s the key to your heart
And it’s only the beginning, only the start
It holds a future that could never be told
One that can shine with the brightest of gold

The sky is its limits
And with the mood as its guide
As no one could ever predict how high
One could travel with the hard work put in
To truly become a champion

Up next: "Winner" at 2008 Beijing Olympics

Click here to get a preview

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Spain takes road race gold at Beijing Olympics

2008-08-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”—Pierre de Coubertin

Prerace favorite Spain cycling team won the gold medal of the road race master class at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But it was not team stalwarts Carlos Sastre or Alejandro Valverde, both heavy favorites, who clinched the first gold for Spain in this year’s Olympics. Their inconspicuous teammate, 2008 Tour de France 7^th place finisher Samuel Sanchez did.

In the hot, humid race day that saw 53 of the 143 starters dropping out of contention, the five-man Spanish cycling team rode a dominating race from start to finish. There were constant aggressions from Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, Cadel Evans of Australia, and Davide Rebellin of Italy. But it was the formidable team effort of Spain that mattered in the end.

“My team was great,” said Sanchez, “I think I maybe had a little bit of a surprise because the rest of the riders weren't thinking that I was the strongest rider on the Spanish team. The entire Spanish team rode extremely strongly today.”

“The pressure was on Valverde and Sastre,” Sanchez explained, “so that gave me the opportunity. I saved my legs for the final lap and when I won it was a victory for all of us.”

“Most challenging course in modern Olympics”

The Beijing Olympics road race course combines climbs and flats to arduous effect. The first 80km was relatively flat. Heading into the 90^th km, the course rose 230m over the next 10km toward the circuit.

The circuit is a 24km loop which is ridden seven times by the men and two times by the women. The circuit is actually a flank of a mountain with no long flat sections. The decent headed straight into the prevailing wind, providing little relief to the riders.

The race flagged off near the Forbidden City and led northwest through Beijing toward the Great Wall of China. The weather had been expected to be 26C hot with 90 percent humidity, and pollution being the wild card in the race to the finish.

It was a course that offered an advantage to the Spanish team that worked together by protecting its strongest rider. With under 250m left in the final circuit, Sanchez produced a sudden turn of pace that saw him break away from the already searing pace set by Rebellin, who finished with the silver medal.

“Samuel Sánchez was the strongest today, I think the strongest were Sanchez and Andy Schleck, when they attacked it wasn't easy to go with them,” said Rebellin. “Sanchez passed me in the last meters and he was going so much stronger.”

Reports from CyclingNews.Com, VeloNoise

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Another forever in sports

2008-07-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre cruise through the final race of the Tour. Cadel Evans of the Beijing Olympics-bound Australian national cycling team wearing a Free Tibet base layer.

Forever has just happened in the world of sports last weekend, bringing integrity back to the words of former US chief justice Earl Warren: The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page nothing but man’s failures.

In boxing, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito gave fans of the sport 11 rounds of awesome boxing. Cotto put up a classic display of hand speed, agility, and power. While the underdog Margarito showed patience and strength until he got Cotto knocked down toward the end of the 11^th round of their welterweight fight.

Over at the 2008 Tour de France, Carlos Sastre of Team CSC Saxo Bank succeeded fellow Spaniard Alberto Conatador in winning the most prestigious race of cycling’s grand tours.

Serving as a domestique for most parts of his cycling career, first to Tyler Hamilton and then to Ivan Basso, Sastre finally had his moment at the podium and the chance to cruise through the bricked Champ Elysees with champagne in his hand.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said “a lot of good things” happened this year: “The faces of the riders, burnt out, exhausted, mouths wide open at the end. ... The fight against doping has made enormous progress.”

Officials looked relieved to see cyclists suffer after each day’s ride, like it was a proof that the cyclists did not take any of the illegal substances and other pick-me-ups to struggle through the 2,175 miles of the Tour de France.

Another standout in the 2008 Tour is Cadel Evans, who suffered a crash early in the race and held on to the yellow jersey toward the critical last parts of the race. He settled for second place, a respectable 58 seconds behind Sastre.Then, toward the end of the race, Evans made a statement that resonated more than his second place finish.

Looking tired after the race in the Alps, and knowing that he was about to surrender the yellow jersey to Frank Schleck, the Beijing Olympics-bound Evans unzipped the jersey and revealed the base layer he was wearing. It reads: Free Tibet.

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Hope and Dope in the 2008 Tour de France

2008-07-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

Another Tour highlight: Brothers Andy and Frank Schleck spirit away the yellow jersey from Cadel Evans

Hope is for people who do not already live in grace. And nowhere will you see a group of people with an abundance of hope in their eyes than in the 2008 Tour de France. Because the Tour is in a very bad shape, followers of the sport await hope at every stage of the 23-day race. Always they see it. And always they lose faith in that hope.

Clean Team

In the beginning there was the Team Garmin-Chipotle, a US team led by Christian Vandevelde of Lemont, Illinois. A domestique to Lance Armstrong in his younger days in the Tour, the US team skipper is one of the lesser known but efficient pro cyclists.

With Armstrong removed, though, the US captain remains in the background because of the mediocre performance he has so far dished out in the 2008 Tour de France. As of Stage 15, Garmin-Chipotle is in the middle of the pack and enthusiasm on the team was never really shared by cycling fans outside the US. Except, of course, by the sport’s aficionados.

The Cobra

Then there was Ricardo Ricco of Italy. Coming off a runner-up finish in the Giro d’Italia, Ricco had been sensational in the early stages of the Tour, winning two stages in a very impressive fashion.

The Cobra backed up his claim of sharing similarities with Marco Pantani when he won the 9th Stage of the Tour de France from Toulouse to Bagneres-de-Bigorre in the Pyrenees. Then came the allegations of doping, and the disenchanting arrest made by the French police when Ricco was about to start the race for the Saunier-Duval team.

Young 'Un

Then there was Mark Cavendish. He is a very good rider, he looks really strong, and the young British sprinter fits the bill of a very nice Tour poster boy. But let us not talk about him anymore because he has already quit the Tour de France.

Cadel Evans

And then there was Cadel Evans, the 2007 Tour de France runner-up. He held on to the Tour yellow jersey for as much as he could. Early in the race he had suffered a crash, went back to his saddle, and then won. The former mountain bike cyclist hung in there though.

The Australian looks tough and poised to win the Tour de France. Being second to last year’s Tour, and with its winner Alberto Contador out of the picture, this is his Tour. But he lost the yellow jersey Sunday to Frank Schleck of Luxemburg. He lost it by mere seconds, in a race that has been the most exhilarating so far.

Before we get lost in the exhilaration, though, we should probably remember the same excitement that Ricco put on display when he was racing, and the disenchantment that came when the impressive performance was tainted by EPO use.

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The secret of Armstrong's success

2008-05-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

Both in the Tour de France and in real life, Lance Armstrong holds nothing back. Followers of the sport know all too well the so-called Mask of Pain on Armstrong’s face each time he will negotiate a bike climb in pursuit of his Tour aspirations.

In real life it was with the same honest accounting of himself that Lance Armstrong kissed and danced to old Madonna songs at the Cannes’ Dolce and Gabanna party in pursuit of his new aspiration: Kate Hudson.

“They were just really into each other,” a witness told Us Weekly. “They would look at each other in the eyes and then kiss on the lips.”

According to the magazine, Armstrong and Hudson were first spotted together publicly on May 15 at Wildwood Barbeque in New York City after seeing a Kid Rock concert.

And there we have it. If being a winner means acting like a winner, it probably makes sense to train on your bike with the whole Madonna discography on your iPod. To some extent that may have nothing to do with Armstrong’s TdF success, but it certainly made him a success with the ladies.

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4 bike ride must-haves that I bet you don’t have

2008-05-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

Notes from Tanay, Rizal

Cycling is a team sport and it is best done in groups. Even though for most parts of every bike ride a cyclist finds himself alone—sweating one climb after another by himself, relying mostly on what’s inside him to finish the ride and make it home—there is always that time and place where he and his friends will regroup, share stories, and buy one another drinks.

It is during those times that a cyclist stops being alone. And during those times, somehow, the difficulty of 50 kilometers or so behind him and the ride back home do not matter much. Too bad, though, that he can’t have it all the time. He has only himself to rely on and is going to need these oft-neglected bike ride must-haves if he is to reach home all right.

1. Omega Pain Killer—Or any other rub-on pain killers. They reduce the stiffness of the leg muscles. They also feel warm on the skin and give some sort of comfort during the long and hard bike ride. Also, they smell good and are nice substitutes to the weird, manly smell that pedestrians get from you when you pass them by.

2. Full-Face Bike Mask—You are going to need a full-face bike mask if you are a recreational cyclist who rides his bike only on weekends. It protects your face from the harsh sun rays. And, believe you me, a good tan on your face won’t put you on the good graces of your bosses. They hate it when you have fun. Also, a full-face bike mask hides all the gritting and gnashing and any other evidence of your suffering.

3. Digital Camera—Sure, it is too much to bring a digital camera if you are engaged in an strenuous activity like cycling. But it has its uses. You can sort of immortalize your bike ride, and brag about them via the Internet. If you think that is the only way you are going to make any friends, follow this advice. Just be sure that you have a decent bag to carry a digital camera, and that you are fast and strong enough to get ahead of the group, stop and take photos, and then give a chase to do the routine all over again.

4. Chocolates—Great instant source of energy. They are packaged in tin foil packs that bringing them along during bike rides reduces the risk of getting chocolate smudges on your jersey when the sun melts them down. More importantly, chocolates are well-liked, especially by kids who will tell you the right direction from Point A to Point B only when you give them chocolates.

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Valenzuela wins Manila-to-Baguio race

2008-05-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

By June Navarro

BAGUIO CITY – Oozing with vigor and energy, Irish Valenzuela conquered the punishing ascent to this city and arrived ahead of other cyclists at Burnham Park as he ruled the Liquigaz Race To The Lion's Head stage of the one-day Manila-Baguio race on Sunday.

Valenzuela bolted away from the lead pack composed of eight riders at the 38-kilometer mark on Kennon Road and pulled away for good at the Lion's Head marker to capture the individual crown of the 247-km Manila-Baguio race.

Valenzuela, who led the RP team to an unprecedented victory in the Tour of Thailand last year following a fourth-place finish in the Southeast Asian Games, also took the King of the Mountain award worth P5,000.

"I gave everything I had when we reached Kennon and made sure that nobody else would threaten me," said the 21-year-old Valenzuela, the youngest cyclist on the RP team roster.

Anticipating a challenge from the seasoned riders, Valenzuela summoned all his strength to sustain the breakaway and soloed it home in six hours, 47 minutes and 57 minutes. He pocketed the P10,000 individual winner's purse.

"I didn't want to engage the veterans in a tight race to the finish," said Valenzuela, the 2006 Padyak Pinoy Rookie of the Year who placed third overall last year.

Underdog Renier Clauna, a teammate of Valenzuela, salvaged second place in 6:49:30 while Joel Calderon wound up third in 6:49:43.

Dante Cagas (6:51.06) and Tomas Martinez (6:52.36) rounded out the Top 5 in the one-day race sponsored by Liquigaz Philippines Corp. and the Liquified Petroleum Gas Marketers Association.

Except for veteran rider Merculio Ramos, no one from among the respected names in the sport that included former Tour champions Warren Davadilla, Arnel Quirimit, Victor Espiritu and Santy Barnachea landed in the Top 10.

The 1-2 finish of Valenzuela and Clauna also rewarded their squad with the team crown worth P75,000. The other members of the champion team were Oscar Rendole, Allan Ricafort, Anthony Miranda, John Ricafort, Edward Nardo and Mark Montemayor.

The winning team was credited with a total clocking of 27:30:56.88 based on the times of the first four riders.

Joseph Millanes, who seized the Sprint King plum worth P5,000, checked in sixth at 6:53:06 followed by Renato Sambrano (6:55:08), Edward Nardo (6:55:20), Ericson Obosa (6:57:10) and Merculio Ramos (6:57:35).

Ramos, the heavy favorite from Tarlac City, led Team 7 to second place in 28:26.38.14 while Team 11 of skipper Emetilano Atilano was third in 29:29:34.36.

Victor Espiritu, who captured the Padyak Pinoy crown last year, landed 20th overall (7:10:31).

Davadilla, Quirimit and Barnachea failed to even make it to the top 20, all fading during the climb through Kennon.

"I feel rusty, I didn't practice for this race," said Davadilla, winner of the last Manila-Baguio race held in 2000. Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Armstrong's Mellow Johnny commuter bike

2008-05-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

First look at the Mellow Johnny commuter bike, courtesy of Bike Radar

Here’s a first look at the Mellow Johnny commuter bike designed by Trek. It’s not much to look at and unpretentious for a “first” to come out of a bike shop owned and operated by one of the most celebrated cyclists. Not Mellow Johnny, but Lance Armstrong. Scheduled to break cover on May 10, the Mellow Johnny commuter bike reminds us of the 90s-issue aluminum bikes: nothing fancy to divert one’s attention from its performance.

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10th Tour of the Fireflies

2008-04-22T04:47:00.001-07:00

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The sad saga of cycling great Floyd Landis

2008-01-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

One can’t help but feel for somebody like Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner. He tested positive for doping, lost the appeal, and is now headed toward total disgrace. But, he may have doped or not (most likely he did), that doesn’t write off his dramatic Tour de France finish. It sure does tarnish the accomplishment. But it’s there, in him. And in him, likewise, is a sad song, almost a lament, which cries for an audience. So let’s hear it from Floyd Landis. You can cry.

Bikin' Dirty, the Floyd landis Remix

From the Fearless Hyenas

They see me rollin’/They hate it
French council is tryin’ a catch me bikin’ dirty
Tryin a catch me bikin’ dirty (4x)
They want my urine/Cause i’m winnin’
They hopin’ that they gonna catch me bikin’ dirty
Tryin a catch me bikin’ dirty (3x)

Yo/Ever since I won the tour de france
They tryin’ a say dat i’m not the champ
They wanna take my yellow jersey man
They hate me like they hated Lance
They say I had hot testosterone
It was high then I smoked out Crazy Bone
I’m the strongest one out there racin’ yo
and I just don’t know why they hate me so

I’m just a humble Menonite
well we gotta have complications
maybe it’s my thyroid medication
now what about dehydration
I take cortisone shots for my bad hip see
the night before i’m drinkin’ beer n whiskey
me an these ho’s out getting’ typsy
now there’s French dudes out here tryin’ a get me

An my sponsor’s goin, no more team Phonak
That’s ok yo they can get da bozack
Crazy Bonez showed me where da do’z at
Trade my yellow jersey in for a throwback
Da raps on track, K bonez producin
My schwinn’s on 22’s an i’m cruisin
Let me say with no confusion
Fuck da French dawg i wasn’t usin'
Tryin’ a catch me ridin’ dirty (5x)

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The nearer the dawn, the darker the night

2008-01-16T02:08:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a problem. It’s not big, but very vital if I want to keep up with the cyclists of the local cycling group during their out-of-town bike rides. For the past few weeks I’ve never been in a serious bike ride. Sometimes because of commitments late in the night before. Most of the time because I had been plain lazy and snug to wake up early in the morning.

Two months into a bike-less way of life, I’m afraid, I’d sure get in the way the next time I rejoined the cycling group in another of their 100-miler bike ride. I need to ride a bike. And, of course, I want to. An indoor bicycle trainer is out of the question. It may be a great help and probably the best and most convenient solution to many cyclists who can’t ride a bike regularly.

And they are right. Only that, it is not without similarity with the hamster wheel and I don’t want to sweat and work indoors and have that depressing image of a hamster working out on his wheel.

Over the weekend I found a solution, and put it to motion by the middle of the week. At any convenient day I wake up early, way before work schedule, and go on an early morning bike ride to the Bay Area in Manila.

Because it is a dawn bike ride, I had to be ready. So there is a time interval between the planning and the execution. I got myself a decent Cat Eye taillight, bright cycling jersey, and stuffed the home fridge with cookies and food stuff.

Sure it is dangerous. Weird but it is in the morning when busses are aplenty. And they ride characteristically faster, because of the wide and almost empty roads. The Cat Eye bike taillight and cycling jersey give false security, if one thinks about it. But they are doable so they are better off done. In any case, you have at least done something you can do. That the vehicles see you and you are kept safe have nothing to do with them. They have with prayers.

But that is not a good story. At 6 in the morning, Manila is still yawning and it smells like a really good morning. More so at the Bay Area in Manila. There are the lights of the ripened moon and stars, and they cast a soft glow to everything that one can see. Then there is the sunrise after the darkest stage of the night has passed and it is something to see. That is why they do song about it.

But that, on the other hand, is not a macho story. Maybe you should just try riding a bike early in the morning and see it for yourself.

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Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, 1919-2008

2008-01-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Philippine Bicycle Diaries observes a moment of silence to pay respect to Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, 88, of Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1953, of the world’s highest mountain range called the Mt. Everest. Your blogger is not good at obits and has to stop here, hoping that the photos below make this obit better.

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Bike to work: Option for the rich

2007-12-31T01:23:00.000-08:00

My blood is too thick for Manila. And that, in part, explains why I don’t bike to work. I tried it once, for one day, and gave up on it the next because I only had one bag and it smelled funny already in the air-conditioned office at that time when the sweaty jersey had slept inside it the whole day. It isn’t my idea, and my office mates’ I’m sure, to work in a sweatshop.

Riding a bike to work may be the best solution to a good number of problems that the Philippines has right now, as some backer of the movement would have us believed. And it is welcomed by our resourceful government because, among other things, it helps cut down on fuel requirements; with the announcement on Thursday that the Metro Manila Development Authority would be opening a bike lane on either sides of Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. But it just isn’t for me.

Going to work on board a bike is an option for the rich. There are Filipinos who ride a bike to work but theirs is not a bike as Google has defined it for the Information Age. Bike is more than a mode of transportation. It has become a luxury item. In London the rich bike further than the poor. Overturning conventional wisdom that bike is a poor man’s mode of transport, a London Department of Transport survey reports that the richest fifth of the population ride a bike on average 2½ times as far in a year as the poorest fifth.

Pointing out the survey findings, the London Cycling Campaign said that people on higher incomes tended to be better educated about the health benefits of cycling and more concerned with maintaining a healthy lifestyle. “People on lower incomes may be more concerned with the need to earn money than worrying about what constitutes healthy living or about the issue of climate change and how cycling is the greenest option,” a campaign spokesman said.

And that makes riding a bike to work NOT for me. It is not for me to be concerned with ALL that. But, really, if riding a bike to work is worth doing at all, it must be done right. And to do it right requires more than just a bike.

To begin with, you need a great bike. Preferably a heavy-duty mountain bike with a tough, heavily threaded, and first-rate set of tires that can really make a dent on a car of a really obnoxious driver. Also our Congress should pass a bill that requires companies to furnish their offices with a shower room, and a masseuse if possible. Then you need iPod, and a library of dark hip hop music you can bob your head up and down to. That, my gangsta, is the way to do it.

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You’re an addict if 44-36-40 reminds you of the gear ratio of your bike and not of a big fat wench

2007-12-25T23:31:00.000-08:00

One thing about cycling that I often associate with addiction is the tendency to push it further. As with bike maintenance and cycling itself, the common practice is to push it to The Edge, even if we can’t honestly say what The Edge really is because nobody has yet come out of it alive.

In any case, any cyclist can start with an entry-level bike, like say a Shimano Sora drive train. He then finds out what a P5k difference between a Shimano Sora and Tiagra bike components can do to his cycling performance, so that he takes to upgrading his bike all the way to the DuraAce group set.

The same holds true in cycling. Almost always cycling has been about pain and misery, which most people easily recognize. But what they forget is the pleasure that a body gets from cycling. I don’t know about drug addiction but I’m pretty sure that cyclists are not all stupid to sweat and suffer for nothing. There must be something in it that is, at the very least, likeable.

But when do you say enough? I wouldn’t want to be caught alive saying that while in the middle of a harsh 100-mile bike push. But perhaps it is all right. After all, I am not into competitive cycling. Still it’s hard to think about it.

What is more disturbing is the change in lifestyle that cycling has brought upon me, and to friends I have known through cycling. If I learned anything from college, it is that there is a thin line that separates hobby from addiction. And we are walking that very thin line, finding truth in the following:

Your bike has more mileage that your car.

You got rid of your La-Z-Boy to accommodate the bike inside your room

You turn into a morning person.

And habitually make out before sunup, like it is night.

You see girl cyclists second, their bikes first.

You know what they mean when someone is being a “pain in the ass.”

You almost always need three extra servings of rice.

You know where the best places in your neighborhood are, to bike as well as to eat.

You don’t eat, you devour.

Your skin color is only a little fairer than the village idiot’s.

You think that 44-36-40 is not an overweight wench, but a desirably beautiful gear ratio you want to set up on your bike.

You ride less in the neighborhood, where the roads are bad and you can’t speed up, and more on designated bike tracks and highways.

You suddenly care for the environment, and develop huge disgust for tricycles.

You no longer need a handkerchief to blow your nose.

You accept crashes not only as a part of competitive cycling, but an opportunity as well to upgrade bike parts.

You empathize with road kills.

You shop for a car and consider not its engine or transmission capacities, but its room space and rack add-ons to fit your bike.

You have more bike jerseys than polo shirts.

You have trouble getting to work by 8 a.m., but you don’t have any problems waking up at 5 in the morning for a weekend bike push.

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Philippine Team wins Tour of Thailand

2007-12-23T04:23:00.000-08:00

Sustaining the momentum of a stellar performance at the 24th SEA Games in early December, the Philippine cycling team rode to victory on Friday to clinch the overall team championship of the Tour of Thailand.

Led by 20-year-old Filipino cyclist Irish Valenzuela, the Philippine team took the lead at Day 1 of the six-stage Tour, with Valenzuela clocking in a second-best in individual time standings of the road bike race.

The Day 1 advantage proved momentous for the Philippine cycling team, who at the succeeding days had to battle the December chill of northern Thailand and the stiff opposition from powerhouse Iran and the well-conditioned Japan cycling team.

Valenzuela finished fifth in the individual clocking, while teammates Lloyd Reynante was 9^th and SEA Games gold medalist Victor Espiritu was 16^thin the individual standings of the UC1-sanctioned Tour. Iranian Ahad Kazemi was the overall individual champion, followed by Indonesia’s Tonton Susanto who raced for the Danish team.

“The riders were at their peak,” said head coach Jomel Lorenzo. “The program for 2007 was to have the riders reach their peak in the SEA Games and it was timely that the Tour of Thailand came just two days after the Games ended.”

Cycling emerged as the second best performing sport for the Philippines in the 24^th SEA Games, bannered by the gold medal haul of Victor Espiritu in the road race, Baby Marites Bitbit in the women’s massed road start, Alfie Catalan in men’s individual track pursuit, and Joey Barba in men’s mountain bike downhill.

Rounding up the Top 10 of the UCI-sanctioned Tour sanctioned are Thailand in third, Iran in fourth, followed by Malaysia, the mixed team Giant Asia, Merida Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Vietnam.

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Move, move, move. To desperation.

2007-12-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

For some reason this is written on my notebook. Probably in connection to the pursuit that Lance Armstrong staged at the Pyrenees to catch up with Jan Ullrich and the forward peloton. Recouping after a crash, Armstrong negotiated one climb after another of the killer mountain stage of the Tour de France, standing and with his butt out of the saddle.

But the cleat on the right bike pedal conked out from the crash and Armstrong once tripped and wrecked his balls onto the frame of his bike. To be sure, there was nothing dramatic about it. Armstrong had been impressive and extraordinary that day, see it for yourself here, but there was also the pain and the apparent idiocy of the moment.

That happened a long time ago, back in the 2003 Tour de France, or so the caption of the YouTube video says. By that time Armstrong had already won a trifecta. Still there was urgency in the way he raced with his bike and won that year’s Tour de France. He won and the idiocy turned into something glorified. It would probably take more than this blog to explain it, how an already accomplished man could have fought that hard and competed at such intensity.

Believe you me, faced with the same difficulties and prospect of an even greater pain, I would just have the injury to excuse myself. As I’m sure you would. And that is perhaps why that moment in cycling history was widely regarded as an uncommon display of willpower.

Up until now I feel a shiver when I watch it. That was a definitive performance by Lance Armstrong, and with that pursuit he became one of cycling’s greats. More than in terms of Tour de France won. Maybe for some Armstrong had become a symbol of strength and hope because of this, together with his fight against cancer.

The Livestrong wristband of Lance Armstrong shouts that out in all caps. Livestrong. Not anybody can say that to the world. Lance Armstrong is someone who can. But I don’t need to look far. For in my life there are those, as it turned out, who also can. Brave people with the same integrity and believability of one Lance Armstrong.

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Tour of Rizal on a cold Sunday morning

2007-12-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

In the early morning of that Sunday I woke up early and turned off the electric fan in the room. It was awfully cold and I wanted really very much to curl up in bed yet again. But, out of habit or something else probably, I remained awake and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I went to the window and looked out. The sky was grey and it smelled like quite a morning. I don’t know how to describe it but if you’ve smelled a morning in the countryside, you know. Manila is like that during the typhoon months and it is great.

But there was no typhoon that time, only the clean freshness of a really cold morning. I looked east and the part of the sky that I supposed was Rizal looked really nice. The sun was coming out from there and I could see the silhouette of the mountains and the glass-and-concrete buildings of Pasig.

That was all left for the bike push next year. Mainly because we’re in the typhoon months. And also because it’s December now and they’re handing out the 13^th month pay. Meaning extra cash that could easily be spent on a night out. I wouldn’t speak for other cyclists in the group, but I was pretty sure there’d be no more bike push in the morning of that Sunday.

In any case, I didn’t suit up, went on a Tour of Rizal in my dreams, and browsed the Web instead. By that last one I meant porn. What else could a PC be good for? Whether it was a good substitute for a bike push, I might be the wrong person to ask. You see, I got myself a laptop for porn. Maybe I could use it for something useful and revolutionize the way I blog here. But I got it, primarily, for porn.

The laptop, like my bike, was of the entry-level variety and it seemed to me to show the story of my life. Everything I have and can afford is not the best. Huhu. But I’m not complaining. I worked hard for them. It was beyond my means but I got it. And somehow that added to its luster, which is sad, if you think about it. I work hard and still can’t get the best. Huhu.

What the hell. I spent so much already for something that seemed so frivolous, unlike my bike if you asked me. I had second thoughts the moment I was about to get it, because of the consequences involved. Fortunately, like at other times when I had doubts, my loved ones were there for me. Push come to shove, they would have to lend me something. Anything.

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Victor Espiritu vs Lance Armstrong

2007-11-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

Both have the word “winner” written all over them. Both are cycling champions with solid performances to back up their achievements. And both of them have admirably lived up to their respective manly names.

Victor Espiritu and Lance Armstrong. It is impossible to say their names without wondering whether the mothers are some sort of gypsies who can see the future and have used that skill in naming their sons thus.

Their names stand in comparison to the creations of some crafty writer. Like Neo, also called The One, who bears the source code of The Matrix and is capable of controlling its programmed reality. Or Leon Guerrero, who fights as fierce as a lion to protect the good people from the bad guys.

It’s the same thing with Lance Armstrong and Victor Espiritu. To those into cycling, you probably know the realization of their names. The impressive battle with cancer and the similarly impressive Tour de France titles of Lance Armstrong makes him, in my book, a lance-hurling, strong-armed warrior worthy of respect.

Victor Espiritu, on the other hand, has just shown the Philippine cycling community a sight that can only be described as a triumph of the spirit. Back in 1996 Victor Espiritu was the top cyclist in the Philippines. Then injuries and misfortunes hit him. Then new guys came and he was cut short of his dominance. That must be something to take in. And took it in he did until he won the Padyak Pinoy in 2007 and reclaimed his place in the limelight of Philippine cycling.

Now, between these two, who is the more masculine? Their names certainly put them on equal footing. And both have proven their irresistibility to members of the opposite sex: Lance Armstrong to Ashley Olsen.

As for Victor Espiritu he is a family man. His attract-ability, though, is still there as proven when he was hit on by a middle-aged transgender (the account of which he blogged here but got erased somehow. Unfortunately. Technical glitch.).

This is a tough choice to make. Given a chance to be named again, I’d probably pick both of theirs. I know Lance Armstrong has gone through a lot, battling cancer and other things. And that speaks a lot of what he’s made of.

But, you know, I have always been told of the importance, above all, of the spiritual realm in the measure of a man, and one’s ability to master it after everything he’s gone through, so I have to pick Victor Espiritu. It also applies to Lance Armstrong, but Victor Espiritu has more claim to it. It’s his.

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Cars are better! No, bikes are better!

2007-11-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

That is, better on city traffic. And on those who have that uncanny ability to look fragrant in spite of riding a bike under the tropical-country sun and in the middle of third-world bad air from cars and other vehicles.

Nonetheless, better than cars or not, it must be said that bikes are really getting better. In a square-go, of course, bikes don’t stand a chance. Going around the city streets, however, is another thing, as this experiment from Top Gear shows.

It’s a race between Top Gear hosts James May on board a Mercedes GL, Richard Hammond on a Specialized Series Limited bike, Jeremy Clarkson on a Cougar sports racing boat, and The Stig (the show’s test driver) using London’s public transport system.

Now, Top Gear, as we all know, is a car show and probably everyone in the show wanted the Mercedes to win. But, hey, a race between a car, a bike, a boat, and public transport may not be a big race but it is relevant, especially now that most people are on the look-out for the quickest way to do things.

And the Top Gear experiment just proves what that is. Also it's funny.

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Let our reach exceed its grasp, or what heaven’s for

2007-11-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

Cursed with a dangerous fantasy that on my bike I could be more than who I really was, I set out to negotiate again the Bugarin bike climb in Pililia, Rizal, in the early morning of last Sunday. It was supposed to be an easier bike push, having made a decent bike climb of Bugarin already. But decent just wouldn’t be good enough that Sunday.

Normally, on our way east of Manila, we would rather course through traffic and intersections than climb flyovers. That Sunday we went express, as you might say, and climbed with our bikes the usually ignored flyovers that lead to the province of Rizal.

At that point of the bike push I knew the special treatment given to us by the grizzled cyclists in our bike group was finally over. We had to do it their way now. The cyclist’s way probably, which directs the attention to how your body is working and improving than on the countryside that I can’t help but gaze at. I wasn’t green anymore.

As was expected, the bike pace surprised me with the realization that I hadn’t made any progress on my cycling skills and resistance at all. You understand me? I had reached places by bike that I would normally commute to. I could ride the bike long all right. But cyclists in our group made it appear that it took more than that to ride with them.

I have to keep up with them. And to keep up with them I have to ride the bike like they do. Scientific. With the discipline of an athlete. The boring stuff that I don’t like in sports. But don’t let me impress you with this shit. I have no athletic pretensions. No athletic built either. I don’t know. I just want to be more than what I am.

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A crisis of confidence

2007-10-18T02:56:00.000-07:00

So much for restraint. Am not going to understate anything. The mountains of Baguio scare me. Last I heard, pro cyclists at the last Padyak Pinoy Tour negotiated Baguio at 10 kph on their bikes, while national team member Frederick Feliciano broke his collar bone in the runup to the Baguio leg, and gave up the lead to eventual winner Victor Espiritu. It isn’t for nothing that they call Baguio the killer lap of the tour.

I will not scale Baguio on board my bike. Even if it’s an all-expense paid trip prior to the Christmas break. With enough preparation, I supposed, I could handle it. And maybe I would handle it. Everyone has to, once there, but I fumbled on the invitation before I could even get excited at the prospect of getting to Baguio just with my bike.

Now, there’s a lot good cyclists out there who had breached the mountains of Baguio already, and it would be unfair to them to keep on yakking about the significance of a Baguio bike push in a cyclist’s life. They have way more integrity to do that, while I am just a weekend cyclist who gets to prepare to ride his bike only at night around the neighborhood. I could have done it during lunch breaks, but the air-conditioned office would not allow me to.

Bicycle Diaries | Philippine Bike Scene | Pinoy Bikes

Take me home country road

2007-10-14T20:16:00.002-07:00

Tanay is a town on the hills of Rizal, accessible from Manila via the hilltop Antipolo City, or from Taguig City through the flat lands of Binangonan, Morong, and Teresa.

It lies 40 km east of Manila, longer if you avoid the Antipolo bike climb and go through one Rizal town after the other. And much longer, if you think about it, via the shorter Antipolo route.

Being healthy jerks, about 15 of us, we negotiated the Antipolo bike climb to Tanay, Rizal. We climbed Tikling in the early morning of that Sunday and I could see the sun rising ahead of me over the hills and lighting up the road.

At the foot of the hill it was heavily wooded and cold. That’s about all the impression I got about Tikling. About five pedals into the bike climb I stopped looking around.

The Tikling rise in Antipolo City is composed of about four two-kilometer stretches of steep ascents, broken in between by three-meter flat portions. We went up the road on our bikes ever getting higher.

They say Tikling is harder to negotiate than the Sumulong route, although shorter, and I believe them now.

At the top of the hill was the city of Antipolo. We waited up for strugglers in a rotunda and, once there were 15 of us, headed toward the church. We attended mass and I said thank you that I did all right at the climb.

I prayed that He protect me during the day, and put together in one prayer those who were with me in the bike ride. Then I remembered the grey sky on our way up to Antipolo and I prayed about it, too, that it wouldn’t rain down on us.

After the mass we headed farther east. It was all downhill from Antipolo, the curves sharp and looking out to the cliff of the Rizal towns below. If you want a tourist account of Tanay, this is not it.

The curves were sharp, as I said, and after putting my legs to task during the bike climb, it was now the hands’ turn. I hang on to my brakes. My life depended on it, and those of the bikers in front of and behind me.

The foot of the hill beyond Antipolo forms a ridge, with the greens of Rizal lining up one side and the farms at the other.

The fields were green and there were stretches where the grains shone golden by the side of the road to dry. The road was white and the trees glittered. I breathe in and I knew we were in the country that we sweated hard for.

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Anyone can ride a bike in May, not in September

2007-09-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

In the late September of this year we had the rain and the draft and it rained harder and the wind blew harder in the mornings of the weekends at the time when it was customary for the general cycling public to ride their bikes. I don’t know why.

It was, I supposed, like those times I tried to avoid road bumps especially because of my then new Shimano R-550 wheel set, but encountered them with my bike all the same and in much greater frequency than I think I would notice in my former cranky Taiwan-made wheel set.

It was ill-timed that the weather had been crazy lately. Sun one minute, rain the next. In some days it had been rain all day long, which brought down the number of cyclists I saw on the road and increased that of bike crashes I saw and had one where I figured in.

While anyone can ride a bike in May, not all of them can in September. This sounds like it is going to be a kiss-in-the-ass post. And I’m aware that it is probably of no business to you how I survived a potentially dangerous bike ride and came out of it to tell the tale. So let’s skip that part.

We’d been to a place they called “Bugarin.” I had never heard about that place prior to my bike rides, and cyclists I knew who’d been there talked about it like it was some Emerald City east of Manila.

Bugarin, I don’t know what town it belongs to, leads up to the Rizal part of the Sierra Madre. It is steep, green, and impressive. I don’t mean “impressive” that saying it would make me sound like I was lifting my own chair.

It is impressive in the sense that, like most remarkable places I know, the bike ride was rattling at the same time that it was remarkable. For a long time before that bike ride, I’d been asked to go to Bugarin. But it would always get me rattled and my bike would automatically have some problem or another the night before the scheduled bike ride.

That was then. Now, Bugarin is one place I’ve been to in one day. And, somehow I hope that it would stay with me for a long time.

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We're here and it's now, all else is moonshine

2007-08-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday’s bike push brought us to Tagaytay City. We started the bike ride in the early morning and rode under grey skies all the way to Cavite. At the Aguinaldo Highway, a national road named after the war general that led the eight Philippine provinces against Spanish and American forces, we saw it get light and in the course of the bike ride the malls and business centers were replaced one by one by the greens of the trees and the makeshift roadside shops. It was a great road, long and can lead you to many places south of Manila.

By the time we reached Silang in Cavite our group of 10 cyclists was separated far apart. I was in the group at the front, rather tired and happy. It was the first time that my bike and I were able to and did keep up with a breakaway group. Around that time we were on the part of Cavite that climbs up to Tagaytay City and I was riding on the smaller crank set of the bike. It was nice and light to pedal the bike and keep up with the group. I never really did notice the Silang countryside as I supposed I would. I tried to answer every bike push of the lead cyclist, and while I was at it I though I could get used to that.

It was such a nice way to spend the weekend. Many people don’t understand it when I told them I’d get up from bed earlier on weekends than on weekdays, and spend my weekends exhausting myself on a bike push. They have their opinions, and it won’t make any difference to me. I’d gladly ride my bike any chance I get on a Sunday. Climbing up Tagaytay City, I felt tired and began to miss my bed. I thought of the good night sleep that the bike push would give me later in the night.

Then I thought of how my life on weekends revolved around getting on my bike and nothing more, and I felt sad that it was so but that it was something I could not do anything about immediately. It was now, I thought, and I was in Tagaytay City on board my bike. Everything else was moonshine. That sounded like nice words to live by. But, I supposed, it would just be like those other philosophies I’ve had and forgotten. What the hell, it sounded good. That’s one thing you get from cycling, you get to focus on what’s in front of you. And maybe, with luck, you get to reach your destination all safe and all right. Little by little you get there.

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Calatagan bike push: Like nothing I’ve ever done

2007-08-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

In the early afternoon of that Saturday we were on the Tagaytay Ridge, riding our bikes at 20 to 30 kph and along the way we met cyclists on the road. It was a hot afternoon, windy, and silent. Without the bike, I supposed, the day would have been soporific. But, at the Tagaytay Ridge, we still had more than 50 km to cover on our way to Calatagan, Batangas by bike.

Every now and then I would pull out the canteen of the bike and squeezed water on the back of my head. I would do that each time I saw a wet spot on the road ahead, but was actually all dry and bright when I came near it. The water kept me up and on the alert in my bike, in addition to knowing that there were cliffs on either side of the road. Then we reached Nasugbu, Batangas and the road turned country-like, with trees and outgrowths rustling and leaning toward the road on account of the wind, and ahead was the mountain.

The mountain was green, wide, and small. I didn’t know a mountain in Batangas, probably it was Batangas itself, the parts of the province far from the sea, which one would likely to forget because they were far from the sea. Beyond the mountain were the bright clouds. From Nasugbu, Batangas it was all downhill by bike, the road shady and cool, and there were no roadside stores for about 5 km.

Cruising down the highway I thought of the bike push back to Manila the following day. It would be a bike climb on our way back, for sure. But I let it pass. Everything, aside from the sun and the road and the trees, was moonshine and I shouldn’t let it bother me in the day. On a rotunda they called “Circle” we made a right to Lian, Batangas. We pushed with our bikes on a roughly 3-km road and we passed by a schoolbuilding, church, a sugar mill, and a residential area.

The road then intersected with another and ahead was the sea. There were houses, actually, but you could smell the sea. It’s hard to explain how the sea smells like, but you know. Probably when I smell the sea again I would think of Calatagan, and that ridiculous bike push we got done. It was like nothing I’ve ever done. So there you have it. We reached Calatagan all right, and were greeted in Matabungkay by Jaime and Harriet and their surfer clique (Thanks guys for great food and hospitality). But, had I known that writing about the Calatagan bike push for my three readers would be this hard and take me two days, I would have gone on with my bike and pushed farther south.

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Breaching the century mark in 1 day

2007-08-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

Calatagan, Batangas is one of those tourism spots in the Philippines that have become famous for their proximity to a body of water, in Calatagan’s case, the South China Sea. It lies 120 km south of Manila, forming a peninsula that sits at the southwestern tip of the Luzon Island, Philippines. Known primarily for its beaches and ports, Calatagan, Batangas sounded hardly the bike destination that can present some really difficult terrain for Philippine cyclists.

Calatagan, Batangas may be on sea level, but it is bounded to the north by Tagaytay City, a Philippine city that provides a hillside view of the Taal Lake in Batangas. Overcoming the Tagaytay bike climb just recently, I knew I could handle a Batangas bike push. Tagaytay City is about 60 km from Manila and Calatagan is 120 km, which makes a Calatagan bike push similar to a roundtrip bike ride to Tagaytay City from Manila—something I have already done, only that I have to repeat the bike push on the following day.

We started in the early morning of Saturday, August 11, and planned to go home the next day. In the days before that it had been cloudy and there had been rains in Manila. That Saturday the sun came out and it was warm and bright. On board our bikes, we passed through Aguinaldo Highway, a major highway south of Manila that connects the province of Cavite to Batangas. Along the way we saw other cyclists, and see them leave us behind one by one. They were going only to Tagaytay or some parts of Cavite. We kept our pace under 30 kph, something I learned that veteran cyclists do on long rides.

When we reached the Tagaytay bike climb the difficulties started. The trip was not planned, so that although we were in August and the Philippines was then being visited by the habagat monsoon, we rode our bikes to the Matabungkay beach in Calatagan, Batangas. On the Tagaytay rise we faced a strong crosswind. It pushed us back, which made the bike climb doubly hard. Two cyclists on board a mountain bike passed us, they looked eager to reach the top. We caught up with them eventually, and overtook them. But Harry would not overtake the two. He was drafting so that he was behind the two bikers and being shielded from the winds.

We reached the top of the ridge around 10 in the morning, had lunch in a roadside restaurant, watched the local tourists, and prepared for the Batangas bike push. From that restaurant in Tagaytay City it had been new frontiers for us all the way to Calatagan, Batangas. Not merely was it a new frontier, the Calatagan bike push was like nothing I have ever done or experienced before. We were riding our bikes on Batangas, looking at the Taal Lake on the left-hand side of the road and being greeted by the sweet smell of the pineapples in the plantation on the right-hand side of the road. It was curious that although I have been to Batangas many times, it was only then when I was riding a bike that I had that feeling. (Next: Philippine Bicycle Diaries in Matabungkay)

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Ride, don't drift

2007-08-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been a struggle, if you want to know, to keep awake and focused during long bike rides. Not a few times did I find myself drifting while making a push with my bike. I found that out the hard way when I was staring at the ground for too long and missed a turn on our way up the mountains of Montalban, Rizal.

Chewing gum works. But it becomes a nuisance when you drink from the bike’s canteen and after some time you might wish to just spit it out. There’s also the iPod. I used to wear one in our bike rides, but had to stop using it when the earphones proved to be troublesome every time the wires got caught up in my legs.

To prevent drifting I thought of souping up my bike this way:

Then I found this: A rechargeable iPod speaker case that fits the water bottle holder of every bike. Called the iHome iH85B, the iPod speaker case comes with a mounting bracket for the bike and a billet for the iPod. Specs say the iH85B is made from polycarbonate materials, and is impact and water resistant—sounds good to use in the trails.

The iPod in the billet can be controlled by an RF remote control that can be mounted on the handlebars of the bike. It’s completely wireless, the manufacturer said, and weighs not more than a half-filled water bottle. That ought to keep your rhythm on the road.

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'Chedeng' to end bike season in Philippines

2007-08-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 7, tropical storm Chedeng heads toward the Basi Channel north of the Philippines, local weather authority PAGASA reports. Carrying a maximum sustained wind of 110 kph and gustiness of 140 kph, Chedeng moves west-northwest of the Philippines at 19 kph and is forecast to be 300 km north-northeast of Basco, Batanes by tomorrow, Wednesday.

Meanwhile an active low pressure area or LPA 385 km east-northeast of the Bicol Region in Southern Philippines is recorded. The LPA, in tandem with Chedeng, is expected to enhance the southwest monsoon the Philippines is experiencing, pulling in rain-filled clouds toward the Southern Luzon and western Visayas parts of the Philippines.

If the weather’s any indication, this may be the close of the bike season in the Philippines. It’s hard to imagine anyone who will dare ride his bike on a dim and dismal morning. First, it is unarguably the best morning weather in the Philippines to spend sleeping. Then, I supposed, it would probably be really chilling for any cyclist to take the road on that condition even if he will ride his bike past 40 kph. And, of course, there’s always the possibility of a flood in Metro Manila in this kind of climate.

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Great things happen when man & mountain meet

2007-08-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

Moses, it is said, received from his god the 10 Commandments in Mount Sinai. Tibetan monks, on the other hand, are believed to achieve enlightenment in the clandestine monasteries on top of select Tibetan mountains.

The list of great men finding greatness in the mountains goes on. And it’s up to you whether to include or not the guys from Brokeback Mountain.

Levity aside, mountains have often represented some sort of a defining moment. The great bike odysseys such as the Grand Tours and its Philippine counterpart called the Padyak Pinoy have enough proofs of that.

Until now, that day in Baguio City when Pinoy pro cyclist Renato Dolosa fell and broke his bike’s handle bar—and then went on with the bike push with his both hands on the left side of the bar—is still talked about among the older members of our bike group.

Across the world, in Europe, a man they referred to as Il Pirata was considered even by his fiercest opponents as the sport’s best asset. His name was Marco Pantani, one of the world’s best climbers to ever win a Tour de France.

Pantani’s determination to win a Tour stage set him apart from other great climbers. He was reported to make a bike push up steep mountains close to anoxia. In the face of an overwhelming bike climb, he completed the bike push. As Dolosa did. And in so doing they got the respect of cyclists and cycling fans long before they retired from the scene.

It is not my intention to line myself up with these two great cyclists. But, last Saturday during an Antipolo bike climb, I got a portent of things that I suppose they went through in bike climbs. You’ve got to give me that.

I finally have a road bike. It’s nothing fancy; just a Scott frame set with a Shimano Sora drivetrain—the lowest-rung parts series that Japanese company Shimano produces. It’s a month old and that Saturday it brought me to my first real bike climb to Antipolo.

You see, I used to ride a mountain bike. Though heavier, it was easier to ride up to the Antipolo ascent because it had bigger sprocket and smaller plate, meaning lighter steering during bike climbs. And I saw that myself before.

The road bike I got has a 52-teeth plate and a 27-teeth sprocket. The set is effective on flats, but hard to pedal on ascents even if I shifted to the second plate with 42 teeth. The Antipolo bike climb was the first real test of the bike. And, without realizing it, of myself too.

From the foot of the hill to the Padi’s Place somewhere in Sumulong, I was riding okay. It was the place where I sort of cheated on our first Antipolo bike climb. That Saturday I wanted to do the same and take a rest there. But I wouldn’t allow myself. I don’t know why.

I pedaled and gained more ground, and thought that it was a considerable improvement. But something in me just wouldn’t be silent. I wanted to bring my Scott bike up to Antipolo, and probably look at the members of our group in the eyes and say that it was all right. And, really, it was all right.

***

PS. To the three readers of this blog (that includes you mom) you’ve got to get used to reading about bike climbs here. Our bike group is planning to take on Antipolo, Bugarin, and other available bike climbs in that area on a weekly basis. That’s in preparation for a bike push down south in Batangas.

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Snap!

2007-07-17T00:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday's bike push brought our group face-to-face with Tagaytay—a city some 60 km south of Manila which, prior to that weekend, had been accessible to me only through pampered family excursions and team buildings.

I had never been anywhere near it on board a bike, so that we left Manila with my confidence that I could make it through the bike push soaring high. That confidence, as what happened many times when I tried something I didn't know, was never the same as soon as the difficulties started. We had been riding on flat roads for about 50 km, and then there were the climbs.

Tagaytay City is some 600 meters above sea level, with the boatmen on the Taal Lake still visible when you look down the hillside. To be sure it was less punishing than the Antipolo rise.

But the combination of long stretches of flat roads and the climbs drained the hell out of me. Composed of a series of long and low ascents, the bike climb to Tagaytay City looked pretty manageable.

It was only little by little that I saw the road in front of us rising, and that didn't disheartened me. I wouldn't let it. After a bike push of about 50 km, I had to do the climb. I shifted to low gears in anticipation of the climb, and rode my bike at around 20 kph. Then the bike's speed dropped, and the front group was gaining distance from me.

I looked back and saw a member of our group. He was riding a mountain bike and I a road bike, absolutely not something I should be proud of. He appeared to be taking his time, but dead tired I was sure. Then, I saw another mountain bike. Next thing I knew, the man on the other mountain bike passed us by, and in a little while he was about 50 meters away from us.

He was having an easy time, apparently, and I supposed that he must be from around the area to bike in a climb like that. But I didn't stop to think it over. I stood up and rode hard. If I had to finish the bike push, I thought, I had to end the difficulty immediately. I stood up and pushed and pushed, about 10 pedal revolutions at a time.

At that rate I was able to keep a sight of the, well, breakaway group if you could call it that. I was on a pursuit and gaining ground fast! Then something snapped on my left knee and seated me on the saddle.

For a moment there, while feeling a slight pain every time I would pedal with my left feet, I tried to guess how it happened. But that was a stupid thing to do. I thought about it and reminded myself that I might be pushing too hard, that I should take it easy. It only led me to think of taking a taxi back. (Continued next post)

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Looking at the sky I don't trust

2007-07-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

In the early morning of that Sunday the sky had been dismal and we went ahead with the planned bike push from Makati to Cavite with a number of cyclists in the group wearing their bike taillights on. We covered the already familiar bike route from the Aguinaldo Highway to Cavite, had second breakfast in a roadside restaurant in Kawit, and fought off the morning cold in the countryside with porridge and tea.

By the time we started from Kawit to Tanza no one had his bike taillight on anymore and the sky was lighting up all over. The bike pace was awfully relaxed there in the countryside, and had it not been for the intermittent buses streaking on the highway and the cows grazing on the side of the road in front of vast green fields, I would have liked it very much to pedal slowly and have a smoke.

Cavite is a fine country, at least those parts farthest from Manila. The province is famous historically and for nothing else. And it was that nothingness that has made it the country's primary suburb among the middle class. It lies in one of the extensive coastal areas of the Philippines, and is the source of much of the sea foods that reach the wet markets of Manila.

As much as I wanted to stop and look around, I could see those in our group just about to start. Little by little the bike pace quickened. It stayed well above 30 kph even when we reached an ascent toward Tanza. It was not steep anyway, just a slight rise that would more likely tell you that it was a rise more through the legs than the eyes.

A cyclist in the group, a short, thin, brown-faced man of about 30, led the group at that pace. He had with him a road bike with an MOB frame and a drivetrain composed of bike parts belonging to the Shimano 105 series. He could go really fast. And for long distances.

The short, thin, brown-faced man could ride really fast on his bike, and for long distances, as I said, that two other cyclists with him in the first group had to catch up on him to say that he had gone past the turn that we were supposed to make in Tanza.

It led to a beach. It consisted of rough roads lined by residential houses. As fast as the brown-faced man with a Shimano 105 drivetrain pushed with his bike in the highways, he went slow on the rough road. It was rocky, muddy, and there were pools of brown rainwater on the road.

It had rained all night in Manila, and in Cavite, too, I believed. We left Makati with some apprehensions if you wanted to know, and all morning I was looking at the sky I don't trust. I didn't want a repeat of that Ternate bike push where we were rained on our way home.

It was an awful bike trip. We had made a push under heavy rains and lightning, and night had caught up on us in the streets. It's hard to explain, but try to stand in the rain and darkness and you'll know how awful it could be.

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The Grand Depart of the '1st Tour de France'

2007-07-06T22:36:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Sunday in the Philippines, marks the start of the world's most popular bike race called the Tour de France. Going into the prologue without most of last year's top echelon cyclists, most notably its No.1 finisher Floyd Landis, the Tour flags off the three-week and 2,200-mile bike race in London bracing for the backlash of recent doping scandals.

As early as in the first quarter of the year, organizers of the 2007 Tour has started on a charm attack all aimed at coming out clean. They billed the bike race as the most open Tour de France, with the international media directing attention to lesser-known, dope-free Tour entrants and making a short list of who among pro cyclist's young guns can bring back the sport's luster.

If the cyclists' profiles are any indication, this year's bike race is set to be the most competitive Tour to date (with the eventual winner being the first in close to a decade that is not named Lance Armstrong). It's going to be the 1^st Tour de France, and following are three of the hopes of international cycling expected to prevent the departure of the sport from the scene.

Alexandr Vinokourov

He’s tough and seems not to understand the concept of pain. The Kazakh cyclist used to be a support rider, aggressively defending his team leaders, but flowered into a Tour contender when he finished third to Lance Armstrong in 2003.

He might have won in 2005 but for a devastating day in the Alps, during which his German T-Mobile teammates Jan Ullrich and Andreas Klöden refused to let him pull ahead, sparking speculation that only a German rider could lead the team. Dissension, however, could be an issue again this year.

Alejandro Valverde

A sprinter who climbs, which in cycling makes him the ultimate multitasker. Nicknamed “The Unbeatable,” the Valverde is virtually impossible to outrun in a sprint up any hill. Since this year’s Tour includes several mountaintop finishes, he is set to dominate not a few stages.

His weakness, though, remains that of his propensity for crashing. He has yet to make the finish in Paris, though early struggles aren’t necessarily a bad sign: It took Lance Armstrong five Tours — three of which he didn’t finish — to finally win.

Oscar Pereiro

Known as a strong climber, Pereiro has twice finished in the Top 10. Last year in the Pyrenees, he swapped the yellow jersey four times with Floyd Landis until losing it for good during Landis’s now infamous comeback in the Alps.

He is supposed to come into the bike race as No.1, after Landis was stripped of the title, but Pereiro refused and said he would rather earn it.

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'EPO, I Love You'

2007-07-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

EPO, TE QUIERO

EPO I love you. Because of you I will be number one. Because of you I will get to wear the nicest jersey. I’m riding my bike in the country side, without much effort and no complex. When I feel a little tired, I stop by the road and use an old remedy to get me going again. And when I reach the end of the stage, I’m acclaimed as a hero. I don’t drink the champagne, I prefer my EPO. “Attention everyone, every morning, with EPO, be one step ahead.” I’ll be prettier than Laurent Fignon, stronger than Polidor, crazier than Virenque and much nicer than Bernard Hinault. Thanks to you my EEEEEEEPO. (Translation courtesy of VeloNews)

In the runup to the Grand Depart on Saturday of the 2007 Le Tour de France here is the official unofficial theme song of the world's most prestigious bike odyssey.

The song titled EPO, Te Quiero (EPO, I Love You) alludes to the doping agent called erythropoietin (EPO), allegedly used by not a few pro cyclists to boost their endurance.

Sung in French and in Spanish, EPO, Te Quiero is composed by Franck Lascombes, dressed in the video as a Mexican musician riding a bike as he sings:

EPO te quiero, grace a toi je serai numero uno (EPO I love you, thanks to you I will be number one.)

Strange that I find it funny though I don't understand most parts of the song.

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Funds denied to RP cyclists in Olympics qualifier

2007-07-03T01:21:00.000-07:00

(The following is an article by Julius Manicad published in a Philippine newspaper called The Daily Tribune.)

Filipino cyclists gave up their bids to compete in next year’s Olympics in Beijing after they failed to take part in 10 qualifying events due to lack of financial assistance from the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).

National coach Jomel Lorenzo yesterday said their request to send a seven-man squad to the World B Cycling Championship in Cape Town, South Africa, was turned down by the PSC. The tournament set this weekend would have served as their gateway to Beijing.

“We already submitted the request months before, but now they denied it because they have no funds for it,” Lorenzo said. “They should have told us earlier, so we could have looked for an alternative source of funding.”

Lorenzo said the contingent, spearheaded by Asian Games bronze medalist and reigning Padyak Pinoy titlist Victor Espiritu and Lloyd Reynante, has a great chance of winning since the top six in every event will automatically qualify for the Summer Games.

According to Lorenzo, however, PSC commissioner Ritchie Garcia denied their request at the last minute. The PSC has been scraping from the bottom of its coffers as it no longer receives its shares from different financial sources in full.

Aside from being an Olympic qualifier, the event is also aimed at preparing the national riders for the tough grind ahead in the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Thailand. The nucleus of the squad won three gold medals in the 2005 Manila SEA Games.

“Unlike in the Continental qualifying where you have to earn points in every leg, here in the World Championship, you’re automatically qualified in the Olympics once you emerge at the top 6 of your event. And it is cheaper here than the Continental qualifying,” Lorenzo added.

Completing the line-up are Baler Ravina and Irish Valenzuela for road race and Alfie Catalan Carlo Jasul, Paterno Curtan and John Paul Morales for track events.

PSC, however, admitted having difficulty in dealing with the financial requests of other national sports associations (NSAs), like cycling, due to delays in the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. remittance.

Pagcor is supposed to chip in 5 percent of its total earnings to PSC’s National Sports Development Fund for NSA training and foreign exposures.

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60 km on flat roads, then the rise to Tagaytay

2007-07-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

Bikers don't get to use peloton formations very often on Philippine highways. After all, it's not for bike rides that Philippine highways are made. But, riding on a bike south of Manila for 60 km can be a drain of energy, and then there's the slow rise to Tagaytay City and the winding roads to the province of Batangas. And then the ride back home. It's not easy, and believe me it can seem like it's endless. Not a few bikers, though, have an easy time crossing Philippine provinces.

Especially now that the monsoon is coming, I found out that bike rides are getting harder. In the summer one has to battle heat. Now it is the wind. While cyclists can't do many things about the heat, they can about the wind. They can turn to his fellow cyclists and ride as a group, probably not during the entire bike ride but whenever the road situation permits it.

Riding in a peloton is valuable. It is very rare that I get to ride in one, but I had seen enough to notice that one's staying capability during bike rides is improved when he rides in a group. Here are some textbook tactics used in a peloton. The pros have proven them really valuable, at least those who had not taken to doping. :) But, really, a Batangas push from Manila would be nothing if you had other cyclists around. Of course, there's no substitute to endurance.

Riding the wind. A peloton adopts distinct shapes depending on wind conditions. If there is no appreciable wind, or motorized vehicles, from any direction, the peloton occupies the whole road and is moving at an even and steady pace.

Headwind. The peloton adopts a wedge formation, like a group of pigeons in flight, with one rider leading the pack from the middle of the road. The flanking cyclists ride in the slipstream of the rider in front. The lead rider drops back as a fresher rider replaces him.

Crosswind. The peloton forms into what the pros call "echelon"--a defensive formation seeking cover from the wind. The peloton has to break up when it occupies the full width of the roads so that the riders disperse into several separate echelons.

Indian file. A typical small group formation

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Marikina bike push

2007-06-26T21:23:00.001-07:00

Marikina is a 15-km bike push east of Manila. It consists of a few climbs up flyovers, but is mostly flat and at some parts rough. On board a mountain bike with tires about the size of those used on motorcycles, a friend had a hard time sprinting and he was sweating all over his face during the bike ride. But we finished it anyway, and reached the Loyola Memorial after 1 hour and 15 minutes.

At the cemetery we went to see his girlfriend. He placed the flowers on the memorial stone and lit the candles he had bought at the store outside. He looked all right, it was a short ride anyway. He's all right. If he wasn't, he made no show of it. I had known him as a stayer, to use a term often used and seen in bike races. He would hang on longer than most folks around.

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Tougher than Tour de France

2007-06-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

In the prologue to the 2002 Tour de France a tall brown-faced Colombian called Santiago Botero stood at centerstage to claim top honors for setting the best clocking at the individual time trial. At the press conference with the winners a member of the international media covering the sporting event asked who they thought would win the Grand Tours' most renowned stage.

On Botero's right, who had the second best clocking in the time trial, named the skipper Alejandro Valverde of the Spanish team Kelme. The two other cyclists at the press conference answered unanimously and pointed to the man on Botero's right. His name was Lance Armstrong. The American then elaborated on his choice of Valverde and here is what I thought I had heard from him:

“Alejandro's got Santiago. That makes [Valverde] even more stronger.”

Working as a “domestique” for team Kelme, Santiago was asked to front the team's skipper in the races and bear the brunt of the wind drag to spare Valverde, who at that time was 27 years old and set to replace Miguel Indurain as Spain's main man in the Grand Tours.

Los Escarabajos of Colombia

The role seemed tailor-fitted for Botero. At 30 years old Botero had been a veteran in lesser-known bike circuits across the world, and in his formative years he had competed in his native Colombia among cyclists known as the Los Escarabajos. That day in the Tour, Botero came into the race as a relative unknown, while the world already knew who Lance Armstrong was.

Translated “the beetles” in English, Los Escarabajo cyclists hailed from peasant families in the heavily Indian, mountainous regions of Colombia. They were hardened riders whose gaunt-like and stringy physiques proved conducive to aerodynamics, and had been known to haul themselves up and climb mountains with the same determination as that of the beetles.

Toughest bike race the int'l cycling has yet to see

Stretching 15 days, the Tour of Colombia traverses the length, width, and height of the mountainous landscape in the country. It takes cyclists to head-piercing altitudes thousands of feet beyond anything found in the Tour de France.

The hardest stage of the so-called suffer fest is a 10,875-foot pass known as “La Linea.” “It's the toughest race course in the world,” said Botero, in which riders starting off in a lush, tropical valley grind their way 13 miles up to the freezing, oxygen-starved Andean plateau before embarking on a treacherous, winding descent back into the jungle heat. And it's the race course that produced one of the few pros who had ever outpaced Armstrong in a Tour time trial.

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Fantasy Tour de France

2007-06-23T01:23:00.000-07:00

Great things happen when man and mountain meet. In a bike race the mountain stage typically produces the eventual winner. I have heard pro cyclists confess that they keep a lookout on a renowned climber, never the sprinter who breaks away from the peloton and energizes the crowd by going at 50 kph on board his bike.

In a mountain stage the pace is slow and one often sees the riders wearing a “mask of pain.” I should think that a tour will be merely a fun race without the mountain stage. A climb is pivotal and it provides a fitting climax to a bike race. This may be why most of us remembers the Padyak Pinoy 2^nd placer Baler Ravina, who won the tour's Baguio-to-Baguio stage but lost the overall title to Victor Espiritu.

Be it the Baguio mountain stage of the Padyak Pinoy tour or the Pyrenees in France, there is something there that brings out the best in the cyclists. In the Tour de France, the vertical distance of famous mountain stages Pyrenees and the Alps is reported to be equivalent to climbing the Mt. Everest three times.

How these athletes measure up against the mountain gives the winner not only a King of the Mountain title, or the red and white jersey, or a serious case of muscle fatigue. It gives them the admiration of cycling fans across the world and, at some instances, the admiration of the entire Europe.

Watching men put to a test, physically and another, probably explains why the Grand Tours, especially the Tour de France, attract fans. Even though it remains merely a dream for most of us to participate in a cycling event at that level, we still follow them with varying levels of fanaticism, and in spite of the scandals that have scarred the sport.

And while I don't think I can push my bike past 50 kph, even if that means saving my life, I follow cycling tours on the newspapers. Translation: Because I can't keep up with other members of our local group, I sit down and read the papers, which made me more authoritative on cycling stats than on cycling.

For this year's Tour de France I have also signed up on a Fantasy Tour de France at CyclingNews. It sounds similar to the idea of Yahoo's Fantasy NBA, the only fantasy game I have played so far. You pick a team, manage your players and, using the stats they accumulate throughout the Tour, compete online against other fantasy teams.

The only difference is, it isn't free. And, unlike the Fantasy NBA, it's got prizes for the winning fantasy team. Prizes range from bikes to bike stuff I guess. In order that your fantasy Tour team can compete you have to finance its campaign using credits sold online at 0.50 euros each. I feel I can win this thing more than I can win a race. Too bad it isn't free.

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10 commandments for motorists

2007-06-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

They say there is no atheist in a foxhole. It's hard to explain why. But if you take to the city streets on an out-of-town bike push, at some point being brushed aside by the hot gas from streaking buses, or negotiate turns on a downhill ride at 80 kph, you know why. I don't mean to sound religious or anything, because I'm not. Really. But on every bike push I am. Shit, I really am.

Here is the “10 Commandments” that the Vatican has released for motorists. Called Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road, the document aims to guide motorists on the moral aspects of driving. It takes time to memorize them all, and I must admit that I still don't. Probably by posting the list here others will.

Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness, and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

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Dismal Sunday

2007-06-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

It's hard to imagine that a bike ride to downtown Manila could be as hard as that to Antipolo. No matter how stretched that claim might sound, it really could. It was roughly a mere 5km push all right. And, now that I think about it, there's nothing about my bike that I can blame.

I used a mountain bike with a set of 26x1 tires and a frame that was as light as not a few road bikes. That bike had carried me through many out-of-town rides. But when we reached King's bike shop in the Quiapo district I wanted to go home and sleep.

We were supposed to go with a group mate when he had his bike fitted with a new set of plate that they called compact. In between minutes we did a canvass of the bike parts we planned to buy, waited for the bike to be fixed, then waited some more. Meanwhile I had emptied my pack of smoke.

That ride to the Quiapo district was telling me something if you wanted to know. It was short and easy and I had a decent bike. After close to a year of being a Sunday cyclist I was probably still my former self who had very little endurance. I mean no disrespect but the capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be really greater than that of any other animal.

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Victor! Victor! Victor!

2007-06-16T00:44:00.001-07:00

Before the plunge this weekend to our respective bike itineraries, some great news first. As neighboring China plays host to next year's Olympics, Philippine cycling authorities pin its hopes on 2007 Padyak Pinoy winner Victor Espiritu to get one of the 15 available spots in a cycling category of the quadrennial sporting event.

No official word yet on whether the 31-year-old Espiritu will compete in road cycling or in velodrome racing. There are talks that, 10 days after winning the Tour, Espiritu has started on a velodrome training. His training week has been divided into doing laps in the velodrome and doing bike climbs on the outskirts of Manila.

Unconfirmed reports say the training is in preparation for Espiritu's campaign at the World B Championship in Cape Town, Africa. Set on June 29 to July 1, at stake at the World B Championship is an Olympics berth.

Regional powerhouse Malaysia, likewise, is looking at the Cape Town races to squeeze in one of their own to the Olympics. Reigning Sea Games titlist Suhardi Hassan, 25, leads Malaysia's national team in the runup to the qualifying round.

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Little by little one travels far

2007-06-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

There is no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. After close to a year of making a bike push with a local cycling club in Makati, I found myself now looking back to the rides we've made. The list is beginning to get respectable if you asked me. One may not go very fast on board a bike, but he can go far.

Anyway, if you wanted to know, my attempt at mapping our rides is all for good reason. I have done not a few things that unintentionally fouled up those bike rides, like being wimpy and delaying the group in our first Antipolo climb, etc. Let's not get into details. Please.

Before I find myself clipped in our little peloton (who knows, that could happen) and turn up dead on the side of the road very soon, I looked up a travel meter and mapped the bike rides I've done so far with the group. It's originally intended for travelers on all kinds of motorized vehicles. I took the test all the same and hope that it will do, I'm that anxious these days.

My Lakbayan grade is D!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Because the program, created by Eugene Villar, rates one's travel experiences, and my trips to some parts in the Visayas and a very small portion of Mindanao will not count as a bike ride, I scored a dismal D! (Either that or I'm just really and stupidly lazy.) God, help me. I hope the score doesn't mean Dead. And I hope those in the local cycling club will allow some leeway on account of my being relatively new, compared to them, to doing long rides on a bike. They should. Should they?

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The 'Dream Bike'

2007-06-13T03:41:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: Am not trying to sell you a bike. It's just too much to resist writing about true beauty. This one here is billed as the Dream Bike, made by an upscale New York shop called SBR Multisport. And it isn't for nothing that they call it the Dream Bike. Priced at $10,000 it holds the record for the most expensive production bike and is likely to remain a dream to most of us. At far second is the $8,000 Bernard Hinault bikes, named after the five-time Tour de France winner. And the Dream Bike doesn't even have some one popular to ride on.

The Dream Bike is built on a Cervelo soloist carbon super light frame and weighs less than 1kg. If I remember it right the Dream Bike frame is actually similar in weight specs to Lance Armstrong's 2006 Trek Madone. But while Armstrong's bike is fully fitted with the Shimano DuraAce series, the Dream Bike has its components made by the main competitor of Shimano: Campagnolo's Record Skeleton brake calipers and carbon drivetrain.

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Antipolo climb II: Can sleep well now

2007-06-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

My first try at the Antipolo bike route took our group about four hours. We left Manila around 5:30 in the morning, rode nonstop at 30 kph to Sumulong Highway in Marikina, and reached the Antipolo church in time for the 9 a.m. mass. It was a 25-km push, with an 8-km climb to the church in the city. By any account these details of the climb are best left unsaid if you asked me. And I would have kept it to myself had I not gotten back at that bastard.

You see, on my first Antipolo climb there were parts where I unmounted my bike. I feigned a faulty bike part or another (in spite of the oxygen insufficiency on my brains I came up with what I thought to be a decent lie), but it got back at me all too soon when members of our group stopped on the shoulder in the road and tried to help me. I never thought that a well-intentioned help could be more unwelcome than that.

(I would not advice walking. There may be some who think it is romantic. But, really, that's plain stupid. And that feeling will come to you from the looks of the riders at the other side of the road who have just gotten to the top.)

I delayed the group and later in the church I tried to be any fun to offset that fact. Fortunately they still ask me to ride with them. They were really nice. And this Sunday, with talks in Philippine Cycling Network about a biker who died of heart attack in Antipolo, I got back at that pestilential bike route.

We took the same itinerary. When we reached the Caltex gas station at the foot of the climb I knew what to expect, and promised to myself that I would give my bike to the first person I'd see if I would fail myself again. I didn't think about that purported death in the climb.

I made it all right. We got to the church with the street hawkers and the churchgoers looking fresh from bed and bath, and the church building not yet casting any shadow. The climb was still hard, to tell you the truth. But something must have changed because after the Manggahan portion of the hill the road would go up and down and those parts got me smiling and I started to enjoy the bike ride to Antipolo.

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The best of times, the worst of times for int'l cycling

2007-06-07T22:32:00.001-07:00

It's the best of times, it's the worst of times for international cycling as Tour de France sets the stage for the 94^th edition of the world's most grueling race.

In the run-up to the 2007 Tour de France, a Spanish investigation called Operation Puerto uncovered a cache of 223 blood bags from over 100 top riders, in addition to the coded notes tracking their “treatments.” The US Anti-Doping Agency, meanwhile, is set to decide next month on whether or not to strip Floyd Landis of the 2006 Tour crown. And 1996 Tour winner Bjarne Riis admitting that he had used banned drugs while competing in the '90s.

Joining Landis under the shadow of the doping scandal are the Tour's top echelon riders: Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, and Jan Ullrich. Except for Basso, all of them have been cleared by their respective teams to race. With the Tour's house clearing on one side and the top pro riders on the other, this year's Tour de France gets set to climb and sprint harder than it ever did if only to bring back the integrity of the sport.

But I, for one, intend to follow the races all the same, although only in the newspapers I must add. There's something about the Tour that one doesn't get to see every day. That time in 1995, say, when Miguel Indurain became the first cyclist to win the Tour five consecutive times, and still said in an interview that he had “never felt superior to any one.” Or that time in 2005 when Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour and replaced Indurain in the all-time best list. They were triumphs of the human spirit. In the same league as that of Armstrong's victory over cancer.

Probably the London-to-Paris route of the 94^th Tour de France is a very appropriate fortuity. This year's Tour de France is going to tell the tale of the two Tours: the one peopled by athletes of the Indurain line, and the other Tour that has become ridden by scandal.

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No place for wimps!

2007-06-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

One can't wimped out in an out-of-town bike ride and take a taxi. There's just no place for wimps in cycling. Had I known that before I would probably not get into the sport. It's all hard work and trouble. And not everybody tends to like that very much.

You understand me, a person doesn't usually give up. He takes on all the hard work and trouble, and sometimes feels it's all for a very little thing, until hopefully he gets to the finish.

Technology has likewise no place for wimps. I'm not a man of science myself, but it's hard to imagine there's a person in that field who have invented X and just leave it at that. But the new electronic shift system from bike parts manufacturers Shimano and Campagnolo may just be too much for some.

The front derailleur of Shimano (above) and Campagnolo electronic shift system

Installing a battery-operated device on a bike does not excite most cyclists I know. They have this romantic idea of feeling satisfied with their cycling only when they have already felt pain. Not that the Shimano and Campagnolo electronic shift system takes away the stress of cycling. It does not. It has been used by the pros in major bike tours, among them is Ronny Scholz of Gerolsteiner, who used it in the 2007 Paris-Nice. But it gives not a little help to cyclists.

“[The electronic shift system is] very efficient,” his manager quoted him as saying, “and even when your brain is out of it in the effort, and your fingers stiff from the cold, you don't have to worry about getting something wrong when shifting,”

Now the technology is on the production line and it is likely that in a little time it will trickle down to the rest of the cycling public. In the meantime we can only look at its pictures and obvious press releases. You can read about them at the technology section of the Cycling News website. Stay in the loop!

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Botched bike ride. Huhu

2007-06-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to go to Antipolo last Sunday and have our new bike jerseys blessed (you know how cyclists can be really religious). But the draft and the dark clouds of the early morning discouraged every idea of an out-of-town ride. After all, Antipolo was on top of a steep hill some 30 km east of Manila.

That's an unacceptable excuse if you ask me. And for a moment there in the Bay Area in Manila where our group was scheduled to meet, I felt very much like a coward who after all the preparations had been made look distrustfully at the sky. And I didn't like that feeling to tell you the truth.

But we didn't stop to get ourselves all worked up on that. We started to do some rounds in the Bay Area instead. We were on a brisk pace at the side of the road, with one group member sharing a laugh with his former group mates. Then little by little folk we didn't know were riding with us and by the time we knew it we were riding at the rate they were going.

It was a trick that lacked courtesy, upping the pace all of a sudden, trangko in local parlance. But I might be really frustrated at the botched bike ride that I stayed in the peloton. Ordinarily I would slip out of the group and ride at my own pace. But in a little while I checked on my speedometer and noticed that I was going at 40 kph.

I completed only four rounds. We would go at 40 on the straight road. Then slow down at the turn and put speed on the crank and pedal all over again. It was tiring physically. And I got tired of it inside as well. After four rounds I left the group, went to the breakwater, and had a smoke.

PS. That Sunday we also let slip an opportunity to make a push out of town with a cycling group at PinoyRoadies forum. Last I heard they went on with their push, and posted nice pictures of their ride. Next time guys. I hope.

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Into each life some rain must fall

2007-05-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

But one doesn't usually meet it head on, as we did that Saturday on our way back home from Ternate in Cavite. It was a 65-km push one way, with farms and greens lining either flanks of the road, and then a church, school, and string of houses. In the morning the bike ride had been fast and nice, with the sun stirring the dust that the dews had settled the night before. In the afternoon we had the rain and things started to go slow and the ordinarily two-hour ride lengthened and became a real pain in the ass.

Not that we were left with no other choice. We knew that it could rain hard. We were rained in the beach where we had our lunch, and we saw the color of the sea turn from brown to blue and then to the color of wet sands. That and the sea having in some parts a cool current and we knew that it would rain harder. But how would going home with our bikes on board a taxi be, wearing as we were a cycling jersey?

We waited for the sun to come out behind the clouds. In the meantime the group finished the bottle of Fundador and the oysters. In the early afternoon the sun did come out. We washed in turns in the shower room that the beach operator was letting out, filled our canteens with cold water from his house, and dusted off the sands on the tires of our bikes.

On our way out of Ternate the afternoon had been fine. The farms, green and bright in the morning, was then set against a gray sky and the road empty and wide. There was a slight draft and we rode close to one another. Then there were flat tires. We stopped and helped change the tires. Going home from Ternate we were forced to stop about five times. We reached Kawit with the sky getting darker, and made a brief stop at a church there.

After we had our prayers said we had goto and bibingka at a nearby diner. While we're at our merienda it began to rain and the cottage trickled down with rainwater. By that time it was around 3 p.m., but the lights in the diner was already turned on. We lounged for a while, still hoping probably that behind those clouds and rain the sun was still shining. How could it not be? But if it did we didn't get to see it and in a little while boredom got into us and we wanted to go home.

The night settled on us while we were under the rain. We went slow, with the rain falling on our eyes and the man in front only a shadow. I couldn't remember getting thirsty on that ride. But, now that I think about it, I doubt if it was all rainwater that I had taken, considering that we rode close to one another and the wheel of the man in front tending to spray floodwater on the man behind him.

But I didn't stop to worry about it. There was always in my attention the man in front of me, the road under the floodwater, and the cars that for a moment seemed to be going toward me. There was no other time that I had put my life in danger more than I did during that Saturday. Nor there was other time that I missed my bed more than I did during that bike push back home.

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Espiritu outraces '07's “Boys of Summer”

2007-05-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

Malabon pro cyclist Victor Espiritu won the 2007 Padyak Pinoy tour over closest rival Baler Ravina. Clocking in an aggregate time of 33 hours, 2 minutes and 38 seconds in the 10-stage bike odyssey, Espiritu edged out the Baguio-to-Baguio stage winner Ravina by 30 seconds, outracing the “boys of summer” peloton twice in his racing career.

The WOW Magic Sing team skipper came into the final stage of the race at the Roxas Boulevard in Manila with more than a two-minute lead. Espiritu's lead slowly trickled down as he got wind up in a 36-cyclist group. With close runner-up Ravina hot on his heels, Espiritu rounded up the 90-km criterium race with hardly a letdown on his pace and preserved his overall lead.

The 1996 rookie champion of the tour became the 10^th pro cyclist to win the summer bike fest more than once. Espiritu's clocking likewise secured a team championship win for WOW Magic Sing, toppling defending champion Cossack Vodka.

Team Vellum member Michael John David claimed stage honors with a clocking of 1 hour, 49 minutes and 54.96 seconds, 3 minutes faster than the 36-member peloton that included the race leaders. Claiming the Rookie of the Year title was the 23-year-old Caltex skipper Carlos Nadyahan, while Cool Pap's Bernard Luzon was named this year's Sprint King.

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Tour cream going up now

2007-05-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

With this year's Padyak Pinoy tour up in the Mountain Province, the cream of the bike odyssey was likewise already going up as perennial national team members Lloyd Reynante and Victor Espiritu ruled the seventh stage of the bike fest and put to the dustbin their dismal finishes in the accident-ridden Laoag-San Fernando stage.

Coming off the municipality of Agoo in La Union, the peloton broke into Baguio City early Thursday, negotiating the treacherous Marcos Highway at 10kph. Air21 team skipper Lloyd Reynante, however, wouldn't be delayed. Leading a six-man wave, Reynante went pedal-to-the-metal in the climb and led the surge toward the finish line at Burnham Park.

Reynante was getting nearer to becoming the King of the Mountain, with one by one those in his group falling off, until Espiritu crashed into the front echelon of the race and stuck it out with Reynante.

The 1996 rookie-champion of the Tour was reported to have been deep in the middle of the peloton left behind by Reynante. Espiritu let go of the attack put up by Reynante and with about 15km going to Burnham Park, Espiritu apparently had preserved enough energy to stage a chase until he was riding side by side with Reynante.

Both renowned climbers tested each other's stamina and lung power all the way to the finish line. They clocked in identical records of 2 hours, 30 minutes and 32 seconds, with Reynante edging out Espiritu by a front wheel. The second-place finish was enough for Espiritu to reclaim the yellow jersey.

Last year's Padyak Pinoy champion Santy Barnachea, meanwhile, crossed the finish line third, some 3 minutes after the winner. He was said to be hot on the heels of Espiritu during the Reynante chase, but got wind up in the peloton and left the two stage leaders unguarded.

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The pros are different from you and me

2007-05-23T02:42:00.000-07:00

This is the first summer that I have taken to riding a bike and I hardly know when a typical bike calendar here in the Philippines is supposed to end. It is probably different for the pros, for although the rainy season is closing in, judging by the dark clouds and intermittent rain here in Manila, there is no stopping the Padyak Pinoy 2007.

Last I heard the cyclists had battled draft, rain, and slippery roads during the Vigan-Laoag stage of the Tour. In that leg Allan Ricafort of WOW-MagicSing slammed into a wall due to a strong gust of wind, and teammate Harvey Sicam figured in a slip.

But, with the onset of the rains and the Tour inching toward La Union and then to Baguio City, it isn't hard to imagine why another team called Bacchus spent a portion of the break going to a Laoag City church prior to the push up to the Mountain Province.

It's not about the bike. Is it?

2007-05-22T02:41:00.000-07:00

Members of Team Vellum battle draft and rain at the Vigan-Laoag leg of the Padyak Pinoy 2007

Team Vellum's win Monday at the team time trial of the Padyak Pinoy 2007 goes not against reason. Having the best bike technology in the Tour, Team Vellum clocked in 1:48 and took first place of the rain-soaked 83-km Vigan-Laoag stage. But it goes against popular sentiments.

Pushing hard under a downpour, the tall, thin, brown-faced Team Vellum members showed the purported capabilities of the vaunted Vellum bikes. Both draft and rain revealed the best-in-class bikes Vellum's got, right after it dampened not a few spirits when Vellum snatched the overall lead in the team standings from last year's champion Cossack Vodka.

The win easily raises suggestions of it being a triumph of equipment. At the individual time trial on the opening stage of the Tour, Vellum skipper Frederick Feliciano outclassed other riders and finished first. Team Vellum just looked intimidating in their aerodynamics wears and million-peso, carbon fiber bikes, it made the other team wish rather than reason that the Tour was not really about the bike.

Vellum coach Cesar Lobramonte admitted to having the advantage on downpours due to the Vellum equipment. “Pero siyempre hindi mo rin pwedeng alisin 'yung magandang teamwork na ipinakita ng mga riders ko,” said the 50-year-old former world-class cyclist. “Sinabi ko sa kanila na dapat kunin namin ‘yung halfway ng 53 or 54 minutes, at wala silang karapatan na bumitaw hanggang sa last 15 kilometers. Nagawa nila ‘yun.”

Team Champion, led by reigning Padyak Pinoy king Santy Barnachea, emerged second with the time of 1:49:52.28, followed by the Victor Espiritu-led Wow Magic Sing (1:50:29.30), Cool Pap (1:50:56.01), and Caltex (1:50:58.85). Cossack Vodka is at sixth with 1:51:45.10, or almost 3 minutes behind Vellum.

The real dope

2007-05-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Got home yesterday with this waiting for me: The first day of the Padyak Pinoy tour saw favored bets take the backseat, with some Feliciano being handed the yellow jersey for today's scheduled Quezon City-Cabanatuan massed start. It may sound like a news item, but it is actually how my cousin related to me Thursday's individual time trial.

He wanted to let the news out immediately, I supposed, that he was able to tell it directly. Together with our neighbor, the cousin followed it up with how good the bikes were, especially Vellum bikes, some anecdotes, and more anecdotes.

Later I went online and saw the results of the initial stage, through a post by Manila Standard Today sportswriter Peter Atencio at the Philippine Cycling Network. Neither Victor Espiritu nor defending champion Santy Barnachea would be wearing the yellow jersey at the second stage of the tour.

Clocking in 3'55”, Vellum's Frederick Feliciano, a perennial fixture on the Philippine national cycling team and runner-up to last year's bike tour, took first place. But of course hardly anyone remembers the runner-up.

Anyway, I should have taken a leave from work and watched the time trial. I didn't and only the list of Thursday's results is what I can write here. But I wouldn't write it here. Tomorrow it would not be important and interesting. My cousin's anecdotes still would, I supposed, because they sounded like the real dope.

Larga!!!

2007-05-21T21:18:00.001-07:00

One thing I used to look for in a neighborhood was a basketball court. It's only now that I stay on the lookout for a group of cyclists, and although I'm looking for it now there is very little that I can say about it because outside of the bay area in Manila cycling remains unpopular in the Philippines.

What makes a sporting event popular? Maybe not if you open it on a weekday. As is the case of this year's Padyak Pinoy tour. Today, Thursday, at the bay area in Manila, the tour is scheduled to hit the road. The route seems impressive and very much makes my feet itch. When the peloton kicks off only the mediamen and the tour organizer probably will know what has happened in the following stages, except of course to the participants and those in the circle. It's that something that stays with the person.

I hardly know why the sport is unpopular, and let us not try to examine it and spoil the magic of the tour. Yes, the Tour is magical if you ask me. I only follow it in the newspapers, but the hard work and endurance of Arnel Quirimit and Jun Ricafort at the past Padyak Pinoy tours and its predecessors, the Tour Pilipinas and the Marlboro Tour, are incredible. It's hard to explain, but it was something edifying.

What heat?

2007-05-21T21:17:00.001-07:00

The house was low and small and welcoming in nine full-grown men, together with their bikes, was more than being hospitable. We reached the house late in the morning, were greeted in pidgin English by an old woman, and I had a feeling I could be in her house without having to keep a watch of myself. The old woman, called Mama Jing, small and brown-faced and very good-humored, seated us at the backyard. Later she offered us slippers and I thanked her and called her Mama Jing.

We huddled around the table at the center of the yard and in turns ladled arrozcaldo into a china bowl. I sat on a pile of firewood and started to eat. Mama Jing came back from the house with tin plates, put them on the table, and the host family joined us in breakfast. The arrozcaldo had native chicken, we were told. It was good chicken, and I ate the chicken part last and made sure the bones would stay in the bowl and away from the chickens loitering in the yard.

After breakfast we helped prepare lunch. Others cut the vegetables and they helped grill the tilapia and the pork chops. The makeshift cottage, where the grill was, brimmed with smoke and the trees rustling. I looked out into the woods and could see a cool glare. It smelled nice there in the backyard, and I felt refreshed out of cycling our way to Cavite like I had just took in a bottlefull of ice water.

Then Mama Jing's sister, a younger woman with light skin, loud and confident voice, called out and informed us that the Ray “Boom-Boom” Bautista fight against Rocky Medina was about to start. It was sort of a big event, with the 20-year-old Boom-Boom being poised as the next Manny Pacquiao. The host family told us to leave the lunch preparations to them. Nobody brushed off the invitation and we, nine of us, huddled around the TV set and watched Boom-Boom.

It was Boom-Boom that we watched. After he won by a unanimous decision, a couple of Mexican fighters got into the ring and we watched two of our companions play chess and it was generally silent and soporific there in the living room. We started back outside the house on the sixth round of the boxing match between the two young Mexicans and we had lunch. It was still outside and movements seemed to come only from the wind and the leaves and the yard animals and us.

After lunch the Dela Hoya-Mayweather fight brought back the happy loafing inside the house. It wasn't an exciting matchup if you asked me. Mayweather was just too good for Dela Hoya. But it was between a great fighter at the end of his boxing career and a black American billed as the best pound-for-pound fighter today. It was youth versus greatness, the overbearing young Mayweather against the composed and determined Dela Hoya. The older man lost by a split decision and there was no happy ending.

Then it was time to go home. It was hot that early afternoon, as in the past afternoons of the summer of this year. We geared up, checked our bikes, refilled our bottles, and said goodbyes. We started outside and in the street in front of the house it was bright and really hot and I came to a realization why the others were applying sunblock on their skins and took to wearing bonnets down to their faces.

Anyway, the heat was nothing. Or so it seemed. We said goodbye again and started the push back home. From Cavite we retraced the road back to Makati. Our first stop was under the bridge at the Zapote road. It was dark there and rather refreshing. I ate peanuts and squirted water into the roof of my mouth and it felt hot and acrid.

By the time we reached Manila I could not drink the water, but had to. The first thing I did when I reached home was to drink some more. I drank until I felt heavy and cool and when I felt it I was awfully tired and I looked back at the morning and the early afternoon and thought to myself that I wanted to do it all over again.

My bike got 60 km in 1 day

2007-05-21T21:16:00.001-07:00

Antipolo is some 25 kilometers from Manila. It sits on top of a hill and the roads that lead to the city are uphill and heavily wooded. The Tikling route is about two kilometers shorter than the Sumulong, but has steeper rises and sharper curves. If you take to Antipolo on a good car you are likely to take the Tikling route. That Tuesday, May 1, sort of an end to a long weekend, nine of us made a push to Antipolo on our bikes via the Sumulong. It was longer, but on a rise it was a good thing.

As in all the bike trips I had so far, which unfortunately is confined to the Manila area until that Tuesday, I had this expectation that it ought to make me feel light and nice. But the ride must have pushed me too hard, that one day later my legs are sore stiff and my long weekend from work isn't over yet. But I don't want to talk about it. I feel like I have just come out of a fraternity's initiation rites, and probably I can now really say that I'm a member of some exclusive thing you don't talk about outside the circle.

Not that it was really that hard. A tall, brown-faced man of about forty, called Rene, of medium build and had protruding lips, who would go down the rise and fetch whoever lagged behind, and then go back up again with them, seemed to have not a hard time with the Antipolo climb. As did the other. Of the nine, three of us had it for the first time. And it was the three of us who would unmount our bikes and walk uphill. It was pathetic.

But we didn't let Rene had the satisfaction of seeing us walk uphill. Don't get me wrong, he was a good man, with an easy humor and he would talk to every one like they were longtime friends. He had a red racer, with a drivetrain composed of motley brands and a manual gear shift. It was not the best racer, and you can just imagine how decent he was at climbing the Antipolo.

We reached the Antipolo church late in the morning and the courtyard was white in the sun and the parishioners all in the shade cast by the church. It was a white stone building, with many entrances and was surrounded by little buildings that housed some church administrative office or the other. We took turns going inside the church, on account of the bikes, signed a cross with fingers soaked in holy water, then waited outside for the start of a new mass. It had been agreed to have our jerseys blessed by the priest. Cyclists might be the most religious hobbyists you'd see.

We sat on the stone steps that led to a closed door. The church kept the sun from us, and there was a breeze. Across the courtyard there was a powwow at the main street in front of the church. It was the start of the city's fiesta. There were marching bands and rockets and these while the priest was saying something. From outside I heard him acknowledged the fireworks and the bands.

Since when is winning not enough?

2007-05-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Manny Pacquiao knocked out Mexican challenger Jorge Solis in the eighth round of their boxing match Sunday. On the ring he was simply incredible. Billed as “Blaze of Glory,” the fight reminded me of the fact that I had cleaned out of my memory the last time Pacquiao lost.

Pacquiao is on an impressive winning streak, and for sure the world already knows who he is. While it seemed that there was nothing more that could be added to his boxing skills, Pacquiao came out with what I supposed to be the champion's heart.

It was the stuff only seen in movies, unless one has the eye for it. And even that I didn't think I have an eye for it, I saw it because Pacquiao showed it very simply. He got a cut from an accidental head butt during the sixth round. But he knew what the cut could do. He steeped up his attack before the bleeding could do its damage. And before the end of the eighth round Solis got what those before him had received.

Not all wins might be great, but Pacquiao's was, to a considerable extent. Now he is stepping into politics. And he is banking on his boxing victories to carry him to the Philippine Congress. Probably it is true that great fighters don't just die.

Nights can be all right sometimes

2007-05-21T21:11:00.001-07:00

While the title of this post can probably lead me here into letting out an inferior emotion, I don't mind saying it. You see, I have a problem sleeping. The nearest to medication I tried was beer. It works sometimes. But I have had nights drunk but take to thinking in bed all the same, until I get a headache and blame it on the sun just rising and I can then really go to sleep. With cycling it is different. I ride in the morning on weekdays, before I go to work, and on weekends I ride in the morning but it can last up to noon and really leave me all exhausted and all right well into the night. I don't know how to explain it, but try staying out of your house for most part of the day then you'll see.

This is about last week's bike push to Manila and it took me only now to put some sense to it, if any. It was the Holy Week but, as was the usual, we rode to the bay area in Manila. Nothing much there, that day being Easter and most folk just coming back from the provinces and all. I wasn't merely with the local cycling club that day, but also with the relations of one of its members. They were some sort of headed not by the club member, who took to riding his bike in full cycling regalia, but by a rich relative who took a redeye flight back to Manila for the Lent.

Downtown Manila

After a few rides around the bay area, on a rather slow and tiresome pace, about four of us found out that each of us needed to buy some bike parts and then decided to make a push to Quiapo in Manila that morning. Around 10 a.m. we were on our way to Quiapo. We took Roxas Boulevard and then turned right to T.M Kalaw. It was what I have long been afraid of, riding in the highways of Manila. That day being a holiday didn't help very much, there were still many jeepneys, buses and cars that made the road difficult. But somehow I was able to hang on.

The hard part was the bridge over the Pasig River. It led to downtown Manila and probably it was not only me who got it hard. One cyclist, a tall and wide-set man of about 30, rounded a bus outside the curb, rode with no hands afterwards and stretched his leg and arm muscles. I supposed he thought the bridge was hard for a bike, and showing off that he was relaxed proved that I was right. Under the bridge was the Pasig River, and at the end were the strings of stores selling practically anything that a person wants. And I mean that exactly. There is nothing you want that you can't find at Quiapo.

Lousy Sunday

By that time the sun was high and folk were really pouring in around the busy Quiapo district. I replaced the sprocket on my bike with an eight-speed Shimano, and also got a new handlebar. My neighbor got a new pair of tires. The whole thing took around two hours probably and I witnessed that part of manila coming alive. By the time we were ready to go back to Makati it was like an ordinary lousy weekday there in Quiapo, not like a Sunday I supposed.

On our way back to Makati the sun was high over us and the streets were white in the sun. We met cyclists on their way home probably, and generally the day was soporific. I chewed gum, in place of having a smoke. I tried to stay alert, I knew I was getting tired but I didn't want to get in the way of the other bikers. We reached Makati all right, dispersed, and my neighbor fitted the new set of tires on his bike. There was something wrong with the tires. It was larger than what he wanted. He felt crossed. It would fit on his racer, for sure, but it was two sizes larger and would mitigate the benefits of his bike's lightweight build.

Back to Quiapo and the rest of the day

He told me that he would go back and get a replacement. That time I felt tired again. I knew I had to come with him, I didn't know why. He didn't ask that I come with him, and he said that he would go back to Quiapo by himself. But I could just not leave him on his own. We mounted our bikes again. I left my bag in the house and rode as light as it could. We retraced our road, he and I, and when we got back home it was early in the afternoon. I washed, had my lunch, and took a nap. Afterward the rest of the day seemed to be nothing, or probably just an extension of the day before. I never had a sleep as good as what I had that night.

Am riding with the big boys now

2007-05-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

His bike is of the type known as racer. It is red in the body, light and lean, and it has been watered down for speed. The only thing that may be considered unnecessary in the assembly is a speedometer on the handlebar. It has a white rosary next to the gauge.

We rode in tandem Sunday at the bay area in Manila and tried to breach the 30 kph mark. That was his idea. Having no speedometer, I knew I could take on 30. And, anyway, I could not think of anything to prevent me from slowing down on the side of the road and just leave him on his pace.

He was on the lead and I tried to stick as close to him as possible. Almost immediately my feet could not quite keep up with the pedal. I shifted to the high gears. But that was the easy part. Next came catching my breath, then the stiffness on the legs, and at that time I wished that we had already breached the 30.

It was generally a straight course. And going 30 would be easy, I supposed, if not for the length of the road. I thought of Cartimar in Pasay City and that there were muggers around waiting for an easy dupe, or that I could get in the way of other bikers, and anything that could make me want to push at the rate he was going.

Toward the end of the road there was a slight rise. I allowed my bike to slow down for the U-turn. At the turn he again started on the pace. But I had enough already. I rode with what’s left of me unto the area of the Macapagal Avenue where the other bikers are, and had a smoke.