The Second Ride of 2012 - A Long Way To Go

Yesterday's ride in Maarat was another ride to regain form and fitness. Although I was riding better than the weekend before, it is still a far cry from where I need to be if I want to do more epic rides this year.

I am having some problems sleeping early. This started a few weeks ago. The eve of yesterday's ride, I was able to sleep at around two in the morning before being awoken by a call from a tipsy wife, asking if I could pick her up at the Fort. I'm not making excuses for my performance, but I think this is a possible reason.

For our leisurely ride on the main roads of Maarat, I was joined by King Bernas, Winston Chua, Deon James, and my ex-Urban Jungle teammate Gabby Severino. Although I was laboring up the climbs, it was generally a nice ride going to the Giant Store via Roxas Boulevard. Actually, we backtracked a bit and went to the Pestaño farm to get something to eat. I ordered Gatorade to go along my Sausage McMuffin with Egg, while the boys enjoyed their brewed coffee while munching on some trail bars.

Since Winston and Gab needed to go home early , we headed back to the parking area at the Timberland clubhouse.

Here's a map of our route:

Sole searching. More fun in the Philippines.

This was taken from our ride last Saturday afternoon at the blue trail in Timberland Heights. We stopped to rest and appreciate the view when King found the sole of a shoe at the side of the trail. When I was editing the pictures, I figured this would be a nice addition to the #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines meme. And so here you go!

My First Ride of 2012

My first ride of ride of 2012 almost didn't push through. We were supposed to ride Saturday morning, but I wasn't feeling up to it when I woke up at quarter to six. It was bed versus bike, and sadly the bed won. I texted everyone and said that I'm still too sleepy to pedal, and went back to sleep.

I woke up at 10 a.m. I received a text messaged, it seemed. I wasn't entirely sure. Maybe it was still part of a dream, I thought.

The text was from King. Apparently, they didn't push through with the morning's ride and he's asking if I'm interested in joining them in the afternoon instead. Perfect! I get to sleep in and ride, too. "Sure," I replied.

I picked up King at around 12:45 in the afternoon and drove to the Timberland clubhouse to meet up with Winston.


King had a hidden agenda. He's organizing an event in February so we're here to scout for the right trail for the race course.




The weather was wonderful. It was overcast and it rained for some time while we were in the blue trail, but when that was over, it was just perfect. Sadly I couldn't say the same for the trail. The main road was just OK, but the single track was slippery. It didn't help that there were several motocross riders in the trail, making the ruts even deeper.


After doing some plotting, we biked to the Giant Store for some refreshments before heading back home.

Check out our route:


Want to see the other pictures? You can view them here.

Celebrating the First Year Anniversary of the Mindoro Bikepackers

I am celebrating the first year anniversary of our four-day Mindoro bike tour in an airport lounge waiting for our flight to Hong Kong rather than doing another epic ride to who-knows-where.

If you ask me, I'd rather be awake at this time of day, pedaling to some remote place in this country where I haven't been before. I long for the uncertainty on where we'll get our next meal, or not knowing the actual distance is to the town where we're spending the night.

But there's 2012 for that.

To Domeng, Eric and Ed who joined in the epic adventure of my life that is Mindoro, happy anniversary and thank you for being there. I'm looking forward to more epic rides with you guys next year.

On our anniversary, I actually edited the Mindoro Bikepackers movie and added excerpts of Ed's interview plus some of the videos Domeng and Eric took. I havne't uploaded it though. In the meantime, you can reminisce again by watching the old video.

The Future is in Two Wheels

This entry is from our guest blogger, Missy Galang, of Buddybuilders. 

I have never been to an Auto Show in my life.

Yet this year, I was invited to go to the Manila Auto Salon 2011 held at the SMX Convention Center last November 24-27, 2011.

Having watched all The Fast and the Furious movies, I knew to expect crazy customized cars, booming stereos, out of this world paint jobs and skimpily clad girls.

Well, it was all that and more.

With this year’s theme as “Mad about styling and tuning”, the event promised to be a mind-blowing display of creatively customized cars. Indeed, the show exceeded all expectations with over 130 styled, modified, and tuned cars, trucks, and SUV's on display.

Some people went for the cars, some people went for the girls, some people went out of curiosity, but I went to look at bikes.

Yes. bicycles.

These days, the newest “toy” people are going crazy over don’t have four wheels; they have two.

More and more, we see Filipinos on bikes weaving their way through the city roads. Racing in two wheels is kicking in in high gear and many have caught the bug for customizing their bikes.

If you think about it, these bikes fit the theme perfectly. Joining the event are Dan’s Bike Shop and Bike Town Cyclery who brought in an exhibit from the Terry Larazabal Bike Festival.

Amid the booming sounds, racing games, sexy girls and trophies is a quiet little corner displaying the Terry Larrazabal Bike Festival exhibit.

It featured a stunning display of multi-discipline bicycles with everything from Triathlon bikes, MTB, Road BMX and more. Needless to say, there was much to ogle at.

Everything was impressive, but my personal favorites are the clean white Parlee TT, the Ibis Mojo HD and the classic beauty—the Sycip Crossdresser.



One wouldn’t think a bike would belong at an Auto Show, yet the presence at the Auto Salon was a sign that the cycling community getting bigger and more active.

There are countless races and social bike meets, yet I wait for the day when we can hold a full-on bike show. At the rate we’re going, I think we don’t have to wait too long.

Recovering from Vertigo

I've been suffering from vertigo the past few days that there was a point when I was almost running on Serc. I was planning on racing the cross country course in Nuvali, but I had to turn it down so that I can let my body recover.

Today's ride was nothing great. As a recovery ride, I did a point A to point B and back thing -- a 20-kilometer ride from Pioneer in Mandaluyong to my in-law's place in La Vista, Quezon City. It was a bit overcast but a bit windier than usual.I was not my usual self when I was climbing up the Katipunan flyover. I think my speed was a shameful 13 kilometers per hour, but then again that was with a headwind. After resting in La Vista for about 30 minutes, I was feeling better on the ride back.

I won't post my ride map in this entry since it's uneventful anyway.

Hope your ride this weekend was better.

The Batangas City - Dao - Pinamucan Trail Ride

I think I have fully recovered from last week's bug based from how I felt in today's amazing trail ride with Onad, Eric and Melong.

We started the climb to Dao from Tabangao, similar to our ride with Davison last October 22, but instead of taking a left turn when we reached the Barangay Hall at the end of road, we took a right. After about a couple of kilometers of riding, we stopped by the corner by the Welcome Arc to Pinamucan and took a detour to the a very fun stretch of single track. In my opinion this is probably one of the best trails near the City. It was a good mix of singletracks, fireroads and backroads, and the view of the sea and the nearby mountains is spectacular. We rode next to a cliff with a magnificent view. This was all rolling terrain on farm lands and access roads. What made it so awesome is this downhill stretch going to Pinamucan proper. In a way I felt bad that I didn't bring the camera for this trip. The last part, when we were riding down near the houses, felt like we were riding in Brazil.

I can feel that I'm slowly getting fitter each time, and I think my bike buddies felt this as well. I was almost always climbing at the front of the group and I wasn't using my granny gear at all. I'm starting to practice what I learned during our Macabud via Pangarap ride -- that the smallest gear may not necessarily be the best one. Maybe those three climbs to Ultra in Pasig last Wednesday actually paid off.

I'm thinking of joining the cross country race in Nuvali next week just for fun. That is if my schedule permits it. We'll see.

Of Sore Throats and Pancit Guisados

Last weekend was another long one, but unfortunately I didn't get to ride much. I was supposed to join King and Winston for a Licao-Licao ride last Saturday, but I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before because of my sore throat. It was so painful despite gargling with oral antiseptics. Sunday was a bummer too because of the rain.


As for Monday, I was able to drive all the way to Batangas to join, Onad, Eric and Melong for a ride to Rosario, but it was cut short because I wasn't feeling that well. I had to stop on a silly short climb just to recover. So after doing a Gulod-Paharang ride, we headed back to the city but took a detour to the nearest panciteria - Mang Onad's (not related to my bike buddy).

Aside from the steaming hot pancit guisado, probably the good side to this ride was our visit to the new bike shop along Pastor Avenue near Days Hotel. It's a branch of Lipa Bike Shop from Lipa City and they're calling it Lipa Bikes. I know it sounds weird at first, but just imagine how it was when they first opened Makati Supermarket in Alabang.


They don't have that much stuff yet, but I can see a lot of promise. Truth be told, I was actually thinking of setting up a bike shop in that same area, but I just didn't have the funds to make it happen. Now that they're there, I wish them all the best and hope they'll take care of the Batangas City cyclists.

I was back in Manila by twelve noon. It was that fast. It's so anti-climactic. I wished I rode some more but I didn't want to push my body further. Now I'm hoping that I can fully recover for more biking action next week.

Thanks for reading.

Here's te map of our ride:

Oakley Jawbone Addict

What you're seeing is my third Oakley Jawbone, which I customized from their site and ordered from Benji of Joven Bike Shop. I know it's not right. Some people can't afford to buy one, let alone three. But isn't she a beauty? And don't you think she works well with my new color theme?

I can hear crickets.

And yet I don't care. I love their fit. I love their lenses. And I love how they're so freakin' cool.

Vanity will be the death of me.

Almost Licao-Licao

It's November 1 and I finished my cemetery duties yesterday. So today is a day for riding again.

The plan kept changing until the last minute. First it was Maarat, but none of us wanted to brave the traffic caused by the cemetery along the highway. Next we thought of riding at the Camp Aguinaldo trail, but we weren't sure if it was open. And so finally we decided that we'd go to Licao-Licao, but there's a slight twist. Instead of taking the Litex road and risk passing by a cemetery and get stuck, we would park our cars somewhere along Quirino Highway near La Mesa Nature Reserve and bike our way to Licao-Licao via the Pangarap Village. Now that's new for me!

Jonats was already at McDonald's when King and I arrived. After having breakfast, we sat off for La Mesa. I think this was already around 8:00 in the morning.

We parked the car at the Shell Station near the old entrance to La Mesa and pedaled to Pangarap. Basically, the whole trail was parallel to the walls of the nature reserve.

This is a ride I enjoyed a lot, except for the part where we chose the wrong way and entered a private road and got chased by about six dogs. It had a bit of everything - fireroads, climbs, downhills and singletracks. I'm thankful I installed the Nevegals last night because I never had any problems losing traction today. Those tires were amazing.

My chain broke on one of the climbs. This hasn't happened to me in a decade. Thankfully I had a lifesaver with me in the form of the Missing Link. After removing the broken chain link, installing this was such a breeze. I bought it at Trail Warriors Cyclery at Loyola Heights when we were doing our bike shop hopping last Holy Week with Domeng and Eric. It was a novelty for me then. Now, after the experience, I think I'm going buy a couple more.

Because we left late, we only biked till Macabud before we had to stop at a sari-sari store for some soda, turn back and ride to the parking area. We were a few meters away from reaching Licao-Licao and her wonderful network of trails, but that's OK. In a weird way, I was actually looking forward to the ride back. It was that fun.

We arrived at the Shell station at a little past 12 noon and had lunch at the nearby Chowking restaurant. Not a bad ride for the last day of the four-day break.

Check out the map of our ride:

Tubeless Conversion Fail

I have a bottle of Stan's tire sealant that's gathering dust in my storage area. I also have a wheelset with Mavic X819 rims that's tubeless ready and a pair of Kenda Nevegals to go with them. I figured I should go for gold and do the tubeless conversion.

I've been trying to flirt with the conversion several times but this time was the first time I was serious. Because this time I had a pail of soapy water. And according to the Stan's site, that's the way to go.

Well, so how did it go? If you're reading the title, you'd know I failed. After pouring about two cups of sealant to the tire and getting the side all wet with the soapy water, I still couldn't get it to hold air. I was pumping like a madman, but I achieved nothing.

Maybe I really need an air compressor to make this happen.

Or maybe I can just take it to the shop and have it converted there.