Bike Keychain

Thank you Ms. Clare for this awesome gift!

First (Dragonboat) Race of the Season

La Fleche Wallone

Last night, I couldn't find anything good on television. HBO was showing some Universal Soldier iteration that starred Goldberg. So I flipped the remote to EuroSports, and I was pleasantly surprised that they were showing a bike race. It was the 2012 edition of the La Fleche Wallone.

I'm not a big cycle racing fan but I watch whenever I catch one on television. Aside from the Schleck brothers, I'm not too familiar with the teams and riders in the Fleche Wallone. If I remember correctly, I tuned in with 45KM to go 'til the finish line. The riders were going uphill in the town of Huy (Belgium). I didn't know the cyclists who were in the breakaway pack nor those leading the peloton. But it's alright, bike races are entertaining. My favorite part is the sprint towards the finish line. Most of the time, the first one to cross the finish line isn't part of the break. Cyclists in teams have different roles - climbers, sprinters, domestiques, and all-rounders, to name a few. Usually, the sprinters are the ones that crosses finish line first for the teams. In last night's Fleche Wallone, the finish line was atop a climb. Actually, the last couple of kilometers (as seen below) of the race is uphill. The winner, Joaquim Rodriguez, is a climber and you'll see him pull away from the two leaders (Nordhaug and Hesjedal) at the 3:10 mark of the video.

It was an awesome finish for Rodriguez. I'm a big fan of sprinters (Mark Cavendish, most especially). But this big win by Rodriguez shows the impressive role climbing specialists have in any cyclist team on tour.

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If you're interested in knowing why I'm a fan of the Manx Missile, below are a couple of features on him.

P.S. I had no idea that there was already an electronic gear shifting system for bicycles until last night. Amazing!

Tour 700 Race for Charity

I saw this promo last week over Facebook.

There 2 distances - 40KM Fun Ride and 100KM Pro/Exec. The race is open for bike types other than roadies/racers, so mountain bikes and BMXs are welcome. I'll join the 40KM Fun Ride with my 16" folding bike. I have a racer but it would be difficult for me to commute to Clark with my road bike so I opted for the compact foldie instead.

 The sheer number of 711 stores makes the registration very convenient

Now all I need to do is log more kilometers on the weeks leading to May 13. I'm also planning on changing my bike's brakes and to replace my grips with those from Ergon.

Learning How to Ride a Bike

It's common to find out that your friends don't know how to ride a bike. Biking is not just for kids so it's never too late to learn how to ride a bike. Below is a video of a practical way to teach an adult to ride a bicycle.

Learning how to bike in a road (or a field) with a slight slope really accelerated the process, that's how I learned when I was young. The method shown in the video above uses the idea of a balance bike to teach adults how to ride a bicycle. I've tested the method a few weeks before when I (re)taught Pau how to ride a bicycle.

It worked!

Hardware Finds

Last week, I lost the rubber tip of my kickstand. I got a tip from my friend Diane that I could replace the rubber tip of my kickstand it with a stool cap. So earlier today, I passed by a hardware store after a short trip to the supermarket. I inquired about rubber stool caps and the I was glad to know that the store had those that fit my bike.

It's neat that they come in packs of four!

It's a perfect fit

Aside from the rubber tube cap, I was also able to purchase this reflectorized vest that I can wear when biking along busy roads at night. It took me a while to find the right vest because I didn't want those that come with an actual vest (which usually comes in a net-like mesh). I just wanted the actual reflector strip. I'd actually just go for a sash made of reflecting material but this is the best (i.e. minimalist) I could find.

Comes with a free hanger. Score!

After a Long Work Day

I always look forward to the bike ride home.

p.s. I apologize for beating 5 red lights on my way home

Paschal Triduum Biking

Last weekend offered a good opportunity to do a lot of biking. With the Paschal Triduum and the Araw ng Kagitingan, it was a long weekend in the Philippines.

Holy Thursday (April 5, 2012)

On Holy Thursday, I took my bike to San Pedro, Laguna.

View Larger Map

I based this route on the Dept. of Tourism's April 9 Bike Ride

Thanks to Google Maps, I was able to plot a viable route from Quezon City to San Pedro, Laguna. It's also a good thing that Google allows the saving of plotted routes via its My Maps feature and I can access this in my phone so I can check my route from time to time.

The 38KM route I plotted is a combination of familiar and unfamiliar roads. In the past, in order to bike southwards from Quezon City, I'd go through familiar routes. I'd either pass through Roxas Blvd. or through C5-SLEX Service Road, the former is lengthy while the latter is dangerous (I have a scar along my right forearm to show for it). This time around, I intended to bike through the unfamiliar M.L. Quezon street that runs through Taguig from Pateros.

I was fortunate to be able to get my Knog NERD 12 cycle computer the night before. Without it, tracking my distance and travel time is very difficult.

After some pre-ride checks, I left New Manila a little before 6:00AM.

My strap-on cycle computer

Since it was a holiday, there were only a few vehicles. I also saw a lot of bikers around the Ortigas area. I guess they'll go pedaling along the trails of Rizal. Below are some of the photos I took along the way.

16KM at 6:35AM. Pasig and Pateros have smooth roads for biking.

25KM at 7:05AM. Brgy. Sucat is the boundary of Muntinlupa & Taguig.

30KM at 7:25AM - Brgy. Alabang

SM Center Muntinlupa

37.17KM at 7:50AM - The roosters of St. Peter

38.89KM in 1:58:28 - Touchdown!

The sumptuous breakfast Pau prepared for me - perfect after 2hrs of pedaling

An unfortunate occurrence: I lost the rubber stump found at the end of my kickstand. I guess it got scraped while I was on my way to Laguna.

Unfortunately, there's no replacement avaialable

Good Friday

I intended to spend Good Friday with my family in Paranaque so I woke up early to bike from San Pedro to Sucat. I didn't make a route map since I'll just need to backtrack using the route from the day before.

The bike ride was 16.06KM long. It took me 46 minutes. It could have been a shorter ride if not for the 11 sinakulo re-enactments that I passed along the way.

Black Saturday (April 6, 2012)

For my bike ride back to New Manila, I decided to try the C6 route.

View Sucat to Acacia in a larger map

My Dutch friend Mau told me that the C6 is a better, more scenic route. Biking is in the Dutch's DNA so I knew I had no choice but to believe him. And boy was he right! The C6 runs along the west bank of the Laguna bay. It was refreshing to bike along nature instead of the usual traffic and the buildings of concrete.

C6 at 7:00AM - Aside from a motorcycle caravan, there few vehicle sightings

A view of the Laguna de Bay

Taken on a bridge in Pateros: Where a Pasig River tributary meets the Bay

The ride was generally a smooth one except for a couple of things. First, after crossing Pateros, my phone couldn't get any data signal so I had to stop for a few minutes so that my Google Maps app can load. There were several intersections and the delay in the loading of the map resulted to a couple of wrong turns. Second, before I got to Ortigas, the magnet that my cycle computer uses to track the speed of my wheels rotation got misaligned. When that happens, the cycle computer cannot read the speed and the distance traveled by the bike. So I had to stop for a couple of minutes to fix it.

After 30KM of biking, going up Temple Drive can be tiring, so I decided to have an ice coffee break in UCC near Corinthian Hills.

Refreshing indeed!

While I was drinking my coffee, a woman came arrived while carrying a folding bike. Her GoGoBike's front wheel got punctured with a stray wire. I approached her to see if I can  do anything to help her. Unfortunately, she didn't bring any spare inner tube for her bike. Fortunately, she lives in Corinthian Hills. So she ordered breakfast while she wait for whoever she talked to over the phone to come and pick her up. The incident was quite serendipitous because the night before, I was quite wary to go through the C6 route because I was afraid that if I get a flat tire, I won't be able to ride any public transportation to continue on my journey. I too didn't have a spare inner so a puncture that cannot be patched with my kit will be end of my bike ride home. Little did I know that it would be another person who would have to suffer through a punctured tire.

This 14-incher is small but surprisingly swift

I arrived in New Manila at 9:10AM. I pedaled 36.22KM for 1:35:52. The route was longer but it does seem to be faster.

In the afternoon, I went to Ateneo to bike around campus with a couple of my friends - Cands and Josh. Cands was on a Peerless Crescent and Josh was on a Giant Revel mountain bike. After about 5 trips around campus, we ventured outside. We were supposed to go to Camp Aguinaldo but the U-Turn in the Katipunan-Aurora Blvd. intersection proved to be challenging for us so we just went straight for Riverbanks then we went to Libis, and then up Greenmeadows and up to Temple Drive. We took a short coffee break in Starbacks-Corinthian Hills (do you see the pattern here?) then up Katipunan flyover before entering Ateneo again.

So how was the biking experience during those three days?

Obviously, I wanted more.

The Joy of Biking

Biking is a simple joy that I simply cannot live without. My first bicycle was a red/black BMX fix gear that my Dad gave me when I was still in elementary school. I used to ride it with training wheels back then but it didn't matter because being on a bike was the best! I remember racing with other kids around our block. If my memory serves me correctly, my younger brother will win sometimes even if he had a smaller bike. 

Eventually, I learned to ride it on my own. I actually remember that cloudy afternoon when I turned my training wheels upside-down (so they won't touch the ground) and I ventured outside of our house. I really didn't know how to balance the bike but I guess the downward slope from our house to the nearest corner helped me learn. When the afternoon ended, I was able to pedal my bike without the help of training wheels. I rode my bike throughout my grade school years. I rode it a lot to go to my classmates, most of whom live in the other village, adjacent to our subdivision.

I eventually stopped biking when I got into high school. Studying in a public science high school in Manila and with a 7am-6am schedule, it was difficult to continue biking.

I was able to get back on the saddle back in college when I decided to get an orange mountain bike that I'd ride to Ateneo from my dormitory near Katipunan. It was the first mountain bike I ever rode and it felt faster and sturdier than my old BMX. It's just unfortunate that I've never ridden that bike on a trip that was longer than 5 kilometers. Now, that mountain bike is used at home in Paranaque.

I got back into biking last year when I got a carbon fiber racing bike (FUJI SST 3.0). I wanted to get in to competitive cycling or triathlon races so I got this lightweight racer.

Unfortunately, it's hard for me to bring this road bike to the short trips that I routinely make (e.g. to a sari-sari store, to the office, to a friend's house). I've been thinking of getting myself a folding bike. I've been trolling the pages of Tiklop Society of the Philippines for a year and I've been itching to get my hands on a Brompton.

Unfortunately, Bromptons are expensive. People buy it either in Singapore or in Hong Kong for about 60,000 to 70,000 pesos. I simply can't afford to shell that much money (right now). So, I settled for a Brompton clone, a Flamingo.

My Flamingo has the same compact fold that the Brompton is known for. Although it's heavier (because of the internal gear hub system) and bulkier, it's cheaper than a Brompton. Now I take my foldie everywhere. It's so convenient.

With my foldie, I've started to re-discover the joy of biking. I bike to work. I've been bringing it to dragonboat training at the Manila Bay. And I go to nearby friends' houses with it.

I definitely recommend a folding bike to anyone who wants to (re)discover the joy of biking.