It's a lazy rainy Saturday so I decided to start working on the 2013 bike tour I've been dreaming of. A few weeks ago, I've decided that my target for this tour would be Maira-ira Point in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. It is claimed to be the northernmost tip of mainland Luzon. Below is a map of the tour. This is still tentative mainly because of 3 factors:
I'm not yet sure about the Bulacan section of the tour. I need to consult friends about the best way through Bulacan on my return trip.
I want my tour to be not just about biking so I also need to consult friends who love to travel about the things I can do along the way. I'm willing to deviate from the main highways.
My ability to secure a leave from work. I need to look for long weekends during the summer months. If I can't take a leave for 3 weeks, then I'll just end the bike tour at Maira-ira, disassemble the bike, and ride the bus back to Manila.
So how did I come up with this idea of a "crazy" bike tour? I can't remember exactly when but this was about a year ago. I was browsing the internet and looking for stuff about biking and I came across this page of a guy name Dave Conroy. Basically in 2009, he got tired of the current state of his life so he decided to quit his job and sell his possessions to go on an epic bicycle tour around the world (read more about it here and here). I got excited with the idea so I tried to learn as much as I can about riding around the world on a bike. Apperently, a lot of people do this. I've also read about a couple who sold their house to go on this exciting adventure. Plus there's the amazing story of the Biciclown that tours around the world as well.
I knew I wanted my own world bike tour adventure but that would be in the future. But I knew that touring the Philippines on a bike is a more practical short-medium term target for me. I eventually found out that there's already a guy who has gone around the archipelago with just a bike.
Sir Gilbert Dizon (I call him sir when we talk via Facebook) is a guy from Cagayan de Oro. He has biked around the country not only once but twice! His minimalist (all he had was a hardtail mountain bike and his backpack) approach to touring is an inspiration. His adventures show that bike touring around the country doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. My route above is actually based on his second tour.
Now that I have a tentative route, I need to start training to ride 100-130km a day. It's rainy recently so I need to start using my indoor trainer again. I'm not really bothered with having to bike 100km a day. Last Holy Week, I was able to ride 38km using my folding bike. Last year, I joined a triathlon relay team wherein I biked 60km with my racer. My tour isn't a race so I don't need to pressure myself to riding 50 kph in a sustained way.
Below is an excellent article from Bicycling.com about why I choose to watch the Tour de France every night, over the Wimbledon.
And Now for Your Viewing Pleasure, the Tour de France Not into Wimbledon? Watching the world's greatest bike race is a pretty terrific option by Jen See [view the original article here]
Sunday’s Tour de France Stage 8 was broadcast on live television around the world at the same time as the last day of Wimbledon. Some said that more people in Britain watched the final match between local boy Andy Murray and Swiss star Roger Federer than watched the Tour stage featuring British race leader Bradley Wiggins pedaling his first day in yellow.
Asked after the stage what he thought about that, Wiggins was reported as saying, “Tennis is nothing; it only lasts one and a half hours.” Well, tennis may not be nothing, but Tour stages do last a lot longer than one and a half hours.
Watching cycling is a little different from watching most other sports, largely because fans thrive on anticipation. What’s going to happen when the race gets to the day’s final climb? Who’s going to win the field sprint? Wait five hours and find out. There’s time for lunch and coffee, and more coffee, and maybe a bottle of wine. Cycling is for savoring.
Some say bike racing is boring to watch, but of course the question we should ask is, why is cycling so much fun to watch? The races are long, and in the case of the Tour de France, it demands a three-week commitment. Cycling’s appeal comes in part from the landscapes it crosses, the weird and wonderful roadside attractions, the monkey wrench of unpredictability that weather and road conditions can throw at riders, and of course there's the humbling physical difficulty.
On the scenery front, cycling stands above other televised sports such as tennis and arena games like football. Watch a baseball game, and look forward to seeing the same green expanse of turf and an outlined diamond. The backdrop of a bicycle race is constantly moving. Riders pass by farmlands, medieval towns, even strip malls. They pedal up and over high mountains and through gorgeous valleys.
Then there are the spectators on the roadside, lots of them. Sometimes hundreds of thousands. And they often create things for the Tour, quite grand things. The French go all out, and although the flat stages of a race like the Tour may not yield scintillating racing, the farm art is highly recommended. Wheat fields play host to a dozen tractors driving around in the shape of a bicycle wheel, fans dance in cycling-themed shapes, and there are spray-painted cows. Who doesn’t appreciate a spray-painted cow?
Fans and their costumes are amusing and embarrassing, but mostly happily embarrassing. Some will do just about anything to get on TV. Who will run into the camera’s view next? Could be a sumo warrior, Borat look-alikes in fluorescent mankinis, or a six-foot fuzzy bunny (I do admit I’d like to un-see some of those dudes in thongs running up mountain passes). But this is part of the spectacle, colorful and unexpected.
As we see all too often, match-ups between unequal teams in the NBA result in blow-outs, and so too bike racing sometimes fails to deliver in the suspense department. One reason is that some riders are so perfectly suited to a particular race that their victory can feel predetermined. Think Fabian Cancellara in a time trial. World champion Mark Cavendish in a field sprint.
But in bicycle racing the monkey wrench is always at play. Even a moderate crosswind can unravel a team’s best-laid plans. Flat tires can throw favorites out of contention instantly. Crashes create chaos and carnage. On Wednesday, a crash took Cavendish out of the sprint and André Greipel snagged the victory. That’s bike racing.
In a baseball game, the runs add up one after the other. A team gets a lead, and it’s clear just what the opposing team needs to do to catch up. Though cycling must follow a set route, the racing’s anything but linear. Cycling has no scoreboard. There’s no running up the score and leaving the other team behind. And races can change fast. A breakaway rider goes up the road and hours later the lone soul looks like he’s going to win the day—that is, until he’s swept up meters from the line by a pack of 190 riders. Yes, just like that, a different rider pops out of the field to steal the win. The would-be victor goes from nearly first to last place in seconds.
Those tiny time gaps make for riveting viewing, and there are hardly greater moments in sport than cycling’s man-against-men run-in to the finish. On Sunday, the youngest rider in the Tour de France, Thibaut Pinot of the Français des Jeux team, held off a desperate chase from the world’s best cyclists, including yellow jersey Bradley Wiggins and defending champion Cadel Evans. The stage ended with a drag race into Porrentrury with seconds, not minutes, separating the surprise winner and his pursuers. Pinot, riding his first Tour, was visibly overwhelmed. His proud team manager, Marc Madiot, flailed his arm and shouted wildly from the team car following behind.
The suffering required for an effort like Pinot’s, followed by the joyous victory, well, that’s cycling, too. The cameras often capture all these emotions, each twist of the road, and all the odd distractions. Through the lens of a TV camera, cycling offers fans a feast of landscape and human emotion. We don’t ask for a better way to spend three weeks in July.
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Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) egged on by team manager Marc Madiot
Finally, a Frenchman has won a stage in this year's Tour de France. The 22-year old Thibaut Pinot won in the hilly 8th stage after a successful breakaway in the last kilometers, with top cyclists Cadel Evans (BMC) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) at his heels.
Watch the highlights of stage 8 via The Guardian and the video below.
Sagan does the Incredible Hulk while Greipel looks on
I was out last night so I wasn't able to watch Stage 6. It was another horrible stage finish for Cavendish after suffering a major crash at the 26km mark.
Kudos to Sagan for bagging his 3rd stage victory on his Tour de France debut. I wish he could be great at the mountains as well.
Watch the highlights of Stage 6 via The Guardian and the videos below.
Cav suffered through the final meters. Zero acceleration.
Greipel bagged Stage 5. His second win of the tour. Cav finishes 5th.
I go BV crazy.
Congratulations to Fabian Cancellara for making history. He is now the rider who has held the yellow jersey the longest (27 days), without actually winning the Tour de France. Such a bittersweet achievement!
Andre Greipel celebrates as he outsprinted Alessandro Petacchi
Andre Greipel, after falling short in the 2nd stage of the Tour de France, finally bagged his first stage win in sprint fashion. But the big news of the day was the crash that may have ended Mark Cavendish's defense of the green jersey (currently being held by Tourminator, Peter Sagan).
In the close-packed bunch, Robbie Hunter (Garmin-Sharp) pectacularly tumbled over his handlebars fracturing the peloton with around 2.7 kilometres to go of the 214.5km route from Abbeville.
Cavendish (Team Sky) was seeking to draw level with Lance Armstrong and Andre Darrigade by adding to his 21 Tour stage wins, but was seen gingerly picking himself up off the tarmac, his world champion's jersey in tatters and ripped across the back. [via The Guardian]
Seeing him crash breaks my heart
After Stage 3, Cav was on 73 points, trailing Peter Sagan, by 43 points. After Stage 4, Cav has 86, while Sagan is 61 points ahead. Cav is now in 4th place in the green jersey classification. This is not an insurmountable deficit but with 2 key factors in play - Team Sky's focus on the yellow jersey and the upcoming Olympic cycling event - Cav may not push himself hard enough to wear the green jersey after the Tour's end in Champs-Élysées. As a die-hard fan of the World Champion, this is really heartbreaking. But Stage 5 later will have a flat course over 196.5km from Rouen to Saint-Quentin. I'm hoping that Cav bags his 2nd stage win later!
For more Stage 4 video highlights, visit this site or watch the one over at The Guardian.
Sagan with a massive lead before crossing the finish line
The 197km route started from the northern town of Orchies and finished in Boulogne-Sur-Me. As usual, the countryside scenery is spectacular. This beautiful scenery masks the technicality of the route devised by the organizers of this year's tour and the numerous crashes yesterday can attest to this. One of these crashes has forced Team Sky rider Kanstantsn Siutsou to exit early from the Tour.
But the big story of the day is the second stage win by Tour rookie Peter Sagan.
Sagan’s victory was his 15th of the season and the Slovak became the first rider since Tom Boonen in 2004 to pick up multiple stage wins in a debut Tour.
Sagan also extended his lead in the green jersey competition, in which he now holds 116 points to Cancellara’s 74. Cavendish is currently third, on 73. [via Eurosport]
The Stage 1 victory and a strong Stage 2 finish (he finished 6th) definitely boosted Sagan's confidence, so much so that he (or Rory Mason, Cannondale Sports Marketing Director) has decided to take on the nickname "Tourminator".
Is Peter Sagan getting cocky? Well, watch his victory pose and judge for yourself.
In fairness to Sagan, this wasn't entirely his idea.
After that it was a display of pure power by Sagan, as the young Slovak pulled enough of a gap up the hill to do a little victory dance while pedaling to the line.
“The other evening my teammates and I decided that if I won again, I’d do it like Forrest Gump: when they told him to run, he ran; when they tell me to win, I win,” Sagan explained. “I like doing something that makes people smile. When I watch sport on the TV, I’ve always liked it when someone adds a touch of fun to their victories, like [motorcycle racer] Valentino Rossi does. Now that I’m winning, I try to do the same thing.” [via The Epoch Times]
I don't care if Peter Sagan gets cocky, as long as he wins stages. With Mark Cavendish being part of a team that is focused on getting the yellow jersey, Sagan is my bet to get the green jersey. But don't get me wrong. Stage 4 will have another sprint finish and I'm still rooting for Cav to bag this one.
Watch some Stage 3 highlights via The Guardian and the video below.
My favorite local bike shop, Extreme Bikeshop (Panay Ave., QC) just told me that their supplier has a couple of assembled Surly Long Haul Truckers in stock. I've been eyeing this bike for so long. This is the bike that I'll take to my much dreamed about Tour of Luzon. I just wish I have the money right now.
Finally I've seen Mark Cavendish work his magic! Entering the 1km mark, Cav was more than 20 riders behind the head of the pack. With no lead out team to support his sprint finish, Cav showed that even though Team Sky has its eye on putting the yellow jersey on Bradley Wiggins, he is still in the running for more stage wins and maybe even the green jersey.
Sorry Greipel but Cavendish outsmarted you
Analysts from The Guardian and Eurosport picked Andre Greipel to win the sprint finish especially because of the news that Cav lost 3 kilograms to start the Tour. But Cav showed them that the Manx Missile can beat the odds, with or without his own lead out team.
With 21 Tour de France stage wins, he's now in 6th on the all-time list, and a win behind Lance Armstrong.
*UPDATE* Watch the highlights of Stage 2 via The Guardian.
This is his weird pose after crossing the finish line
Wow, what a victory for the 22 year old Peter Sagan! I first saw his excellent form in the 2012 Tour de Suisse. He's a great sprinter and can even excel in the climbs. This incredible combination of talent has made him a top contender for the white jersey. His incredible sprint finishes today and in earlier tours of 2012 have made him a contender for the green jersey against my favorite Mark Cavendish.
I give props to the 31 year old Fabian Cancellara for an unbelievably strong showing today, placing 2nd to Sagan. Currently, Cancellara is wearing the much coveted yellow jersey after leading in the time trial prologue against top contender Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky. A replay of the prologue can be seen here.
*UPDATE* Watch highlights of the Stage 1 of the 2012 Tour de France via The Guardian.
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If you want to learn more about the 2012 Tour de France, The Guardian has a short interactive guide on their website that displays the teams' jerseys and the tactics commonly employed in team cycling tours.
Watching this 2-hour long preview from NBC Sports would also keep you up to speed on the various storylines surrounding the 99th edition of the Tour de France.
