Preparing for Another Race to the Fort

I woke up before dawn yesterday  Saturday, a few millimeters before 5:30 in the morning.  I checked my phone to see if there is a last minute “I feel a little sick and will not ride” message from my friend–the message is my own “go back to sleep” pass.  Phone is clean.  Oh well, get out of bed.  Time for a carbo breakfast, maybe a half plate of plain pasta with just a little oil and salt.  If there is no pasta on the table, a bar of Trail Mix is good enough.  Consume two full-size glasses of water, drink my Norvasc (ahh.  blood pressure medicine before a long cycling ride is as important as gatorade!)

Click, click, click.  Quick shower.  Petroleum jelly.  get the handkerchief, ipod, ready.  Run to the freezer and take out the frozen twin water bottles of three-quarter strength gatorade (powder lemon lime is great).  Freezing the liquid is Donnie’s idea.  I tried it last night, now I have 2 rock-hard lemon gato bottles.  I hope (and pray) that they will be melted enough when I really need them; nothing is more frustrating than trying to suck Sno-Cone juice out of crushed ice on a thirsty moment.  My helmet ready, gloves inside.  I pulled the air pump from the cycling rags and tucked in the middle pocket of my jersey.  Two Trail Mix bars on the right pocket; I no longer go crazy with this energy stuff, I only bring 2 bars.  In my younger cycling days (4 months ago), I would load 3 bars, and then find an excuse to put in the 4th bar; not content, I had my own medicine-bottle home-made honey and molasses and raspberry jam with salt power shot which I thought would give me Popeye’s spinach-like energy boost.  And as a final safety net, I had a powder pack of Pocari Sweat which I bought in Cartimar–to be used in an emergency if I needed more potassium-infused fluid in places away from a gas station grocery outlet.  Now I am more California cool.  I only bring 2 bars; I ditched the ineffective power-shot; and 2 water bottles is enough.  Even with this lightened load, I feel that my back pockets have the same bulk and weight as my front carbon matter (my stomach).  At least, I am safely balanced.

I forgot.  I placed on my reading glasses, unhooked the home pump, and pumped in 110 psi on both tires.  For some reason or other, it takes me several attempts to hook on the pump nozzle to the presta valve.  But 110 psi done, I think I am ready.

Ipod switched on and music selected while I have my reading glasses on.  I no longer use the armband holder for the Ipod.  It is simpler to just load the player inside my right back pocket.  I decide:  today do I listen to a Harvard lecture on Game Theory, a Stanford tech speech on Google Ad Words, a repeat of Schiller’s macroeconomic class.  Heady.  No, today is a serious race between Ernie and myself, a race to Mckinley at The Fort.  I need power music.  Disco music.  From “YMCA” to “Gloria” to Dr. Jekyll’s “This is the Moment.”  I am ready, Ipod playing.  I unhook my reading glasses, tuck them inside my left back-pocket, together with my phone and handkerchief.

I turned the bike around to bring it out.  Wait, maybe just one last visit to the toilet.  Get read of that funny nagging bladder feeling.

I stand outside the gate.  It is now bright without the sun, 6:20 in the morning. Nice cool fresh wind.  Did I forget anything?  No.  I hook up my yellow-reflector shades, Tour-de-France looking, bought in Greenhills for half a song.  I am ready.  I climb on my the bike and go.

The wind feels great on my face.  Disco music is playing in my ears (one ear only, to be safe).  I have turned the corner and am now halfway out the gate of the subdivision.  I have the nagging feeling that I forgot something.  Click, click, click, my mind ticks off every piece of detached equipment tucked around my body.  Nothing seems missing.

I make it to our jump-off point in Caltex exactly at 6:30.  I cycle once inside, hmm, Ernie is not yet here.  For once I am early.  I cycle back to the front of the station.  ”Yo” I hear a shout.  Ernie in his orange and black jersey is across the street.  He is ready.

We do a slow start.  ”Easy ride only?” Ernie says.

“Race?” I smiled.

Off we go.  I pump hard at the start, standing up if necessary, as I always do.  I like a power start.  I like to feel the wind and the power.  It helps that there is a slight downhill grade to help my ego along.

Did I forget anything?  I asked myself as I hurtled down still uncrowded service road.  Oh sh__!  I forgot my money.  This means I must win the race to McKinley to get breakfast!  We do not take the race too seriously but it still remains fun to have a challenge.  I glance back, I do  not see Ernie’s orange jersey in sight.  I glance down at the handle-bar mirror; it is still pointed down (I have to fix this).  I will win this race, I told myself.  But just in case, I hope my last week plastic pack of money is still in the bike seat pack.

*    *    *

I lead the way as we crossed Villamor Bridge.   I worry a little because Ernie is not in sight, but well, he is a big boy and I need to keep the momentum for the base entrance hill climb.  My hand signals to the left to cross the lane into the center line–to be free of the traffic that will go down right into South Super Highway.  We are stopped by a Taguig traffic enforcer.  I still do not see Ernie.

Go! the enforcer signals.  I jump on the pedal and push down hard.  I must get ahead of the cars.  My right hand is up again as I have to veer to the right so that I am free of the left-turning cars just at the entrance of the Fort.  I speed down the bridge ramp, hoping there are no tricycles or jeeps, cars or pedestrians, which will require me to tap the brakes.  There are none!  I am elated.  I ride on the pedals hard, wait until the last moment to down shift one by one.  Halfway up, I am back to the small crank; three-fourths up the hill, I am at the lowest gear.  I have nothing else in my gear to call on, except my muscles and my will.  I pump slowly; I do not have the energy to stand up.  After a few long seconds (maybe minutes), I am over the crest, just about to cross the gates of the Marine barracks.  Thankfully, there are no cars crossing.  I continue without slowing.  I drop down to the drop bars.  I look like a real cyclist, in my mind’s eye.  Maybe like Lance Armstrong?

Ernie is still not in sight.  Poor man.  I hope my friend is okay.  I cross the T-intersection along the main road.  I am now on the long painful uphill grade.  My muscles are starting to complain.  My dreams of a 40-kilometer slog are starting to fade.

All of a sudden, I see a blur of orange approaching fast, now beside me, and then swiftly moving ahead of me.  Sh__!  Ernie has overtaken me.

Oh well!  It is just an easy ride, right?  I am about to give up.

And then, pulling from my hidden reserves of energy, I decide to stand and give it a good fight.  I pump hard, ignore my screaming thighs.  My mouth is parched but there is no time to slow down to grab my bottle.  Ernie has gone ahead by a hundred meters or so.  He has to be tired now, I thought.  I cycle hard but am not able to catch him.  So this is how break-aways are made?

We are near Mckinley intersection.  I continue pumping hard, riding the washboard on the road  hard, not slowing down.  I am gaining a few meters, but Ernie is too far ahead.  One last burst of speed.  It is not enough.

I catch up past the intersection.  We slow down.

“You are fast!” I shouted.  ”It cannot be just the wheelset (his expensive wheelset).  It must be the muscles.”  But I now entertain thoughts that maybe my wheelset needs changing?

We make the circle in front of the American War Cemetery in good time.  Now we do the long grind of building up base miles.

Ernie likes the International School stretch; there are fewer cars and turns, the circuit is longer.  I like the Serendra rectangle.  There are a lot of cyclists, there are a lot of joggers.  There is a nice downhill stretch where I can dream of being Lance for a few seconds; there is a nice uphill grade where I can stand up and feel like a budding king of the mountain.  It is early enough and there are very few cars.  The bicycle is king on these roads early Saturday morning.  The security guards do not bother us.  We hog the road, taking wide high-speed turns.  I shout “Bike!  Bike” to warn the slower cyclists.  I know that after a few gut-wrenching rounds, I will join the ranks of the “slower cyclists.”  But just before I do so, I see a peloton.  I shout “let’s go” to Ernie and I jumped on the pedals to join the group.  They are moving fast but not that fast.  They stay at 31 kph, which is easy to do on the downhill grade.  We turn into the uphill side and it becomes a real battle.  I downshift and upshift just to keep up.  I make it through the first complete round with the peloton.  I follow them down the downhill incline; I feel like a respectable pro racing with the wind.  I follow their wide wide turns into the flat short leg.  We turn into the uphill leg and I pump hard to keep in place.  Halfway up I huff and puff and then slow down.  My peloton days are over, at least for this morning’s ride.  I now start my “watching the joggers” stage, cycling a more sedate, though still fat-burning pace:  33 on the downhill, 21 to 24 kph on the uphill.

I do not see Ernie.  I took a left into his spinning route.  I move fast on the empty road.  It does not seem to be that empty; there seems to be just a bit too many cars.  I do not mind.  I go the end, turn right on the road.  I see an intersection.  Funny, I do not recall this road cut being open.  At the last moment, I see a white Toyota moving down slowly.  The driver (an unnamed he or she) does not seem to be slowing, even at the last moment despite my waves.  Oh really shit!  This time, no underscores.  I squeezed the brakes hard.  I feel my rear wheel sliding sideways.  I am still moving forward.  This car is sh__! I swore and cursed, half from fear and panic.  I have slowed down enough and the car continues forward.  That was close, I told myself.  I do not like this circuit.  Just too many intersections.  Progress (and road completion) is not good for cyclists dreaming of barely open concrete roads.

I did a few cycles on this road.  On the return leg, I notice cars turning to the right.  I discovered just then that this was the street of International School.  I had to slow down, wave my hands to stay in the middle of the road.  I decide after a while to go back to my Serendra rectangle.

I catch Ernie chasing a pro-looking cyclist.  I try to catch him and i almost did, but a van got in the way so I slowed down.  When I make the turn into the uphill leg, I see Ernie and the pro cyclist almost at the other end of the leg.  Do I try to catch up?  Forget it, I thought.  I turned into the halfway street and wait for the 2-man peloton to come in sight.  I start as soon as I see them.

“You are fast!”  I shouted to Ernie when they came up to me.  ”Have you been doing this the whole time?” I asked.

“No!” he answered.  ”I was tired so I rested.  I just started again.”

A good breakfast after a nice fat-burning ride is a welcome break.  Coffee, good conversation.

We did the easy ride back but got slowed down by a massive traffic jam.  There was an accident.  At first, I tried to skirt the cars and the edge of the road or go in between cars.  But it was just not worth the risk of either sliding into the gutter and falling, or bumping into side mirrors.  I lifted my bike up the sidewalk and rode through cracked concrete and rock-hard earth.  I did not want to damage the wheels by jumping the 5 inches or so from the sidewalk to the road.   I stopped at every corner and  lovingly carry down the bike.

Arriving at the corner of the C5 extension, I decide to make a break for it and ride down the concrete road–even though it was technically not allowed.  I thought I heard a security guard’s whistle?  I played dumb and cycled hard.

I made 39 kilometers today.  Still a long way to go from the century.   But another good easy Saturday ride.

This is, as the movie title goes, as good as it gets.  Good weather, good ride, good friends.  Life is good.

5 Feb 2010

Preparing for Tagaytay

We will go up to Tagaytay on the 20th of February.  This is close to the stuff of bragging rights; not as serious as Manila to Baguio in March but serious enough for amateur carbon (life form) cyclists like us.

For this climb, we will be joining a group.  I don’t know most of the other cyclists in that group.  Hence, I need to do serious preparation.  13 days to go.

Starting tomorrow, I will do serious trainer time, build up the strength.

• Feb 7, 9, 11, 13 will be long one-hour trainer rides.
• Feb 8, 10, 12, 14 (maybe not 14 since that is Valentines) will be mix of 4-minute (1 song) standing up bursts and 8-minute (2 song) recoveries, total of 1 hour.
• Feb 14 morning is a distance ride to Daang Hari, aim for 75 km.  Feb 15, 17 is heavy 2-hour trainor times.
• Feb 16 and 18 will be 2-hour burst training.
• Feb 19 is rest day.

Feb 20 is fun biking day.

Over the next 7 days, I will keep this cycling log.  Wish us well and good riding.

The Race

With the music of American Flyer playing in my heart (for my iPod stayed at home with a drained battery), with the wind beating down my face (accompanied by the occasional whiff of a jeepney’s exhaust), Ernie and I raced down the forgiving slight downgrade of the service road from Merville to the Villamor overpass.  A race it was.

The service road was pleasantly sparsely occupied, I learned later that it was still one-way towards Villamor, we attacked the slight curves.  I pumped hard, racing with the jeep behind me into the narrow stretch where the only safe approach was to hog the road.  There was another reason why my speedometer flickered towards 38kph, why I flicked my gears up and down the highest level, and why I kept pushing hard even though my thigh muscles were starting to complain.  The flat road would start to climb up as we approached the bridge.   I needed all the momentum to get through the climb with manageable pain and publicly-acceptable pace.

Ernie was close behind me, oblivious to the uphill grade.  I really need to change my rear sprocket, I thought.  All the downhill elan goes to waste when I face even the slightest uphill grade, my tongue rolling out, lungs gasping.

Ernie and I navigated the chaotic multi-channel traffic of the bridge entrance.  Nice how the cars forgivingly slow down and give way to an half-outstretched hand of a cyclist.  Most cars at least.  We veer to the right to get to the right turn safely.

There is another road channel of cars coming from the South Luzon Expressway, their engines straining up the curve; this is a less than ideal section:  the vehicle drivers look to the left to avoid cars from the service road that deliberately eat into their channel, their eyes shift to their right to make sure the cars on their left are keeping a reasonable distance, eyeballs swing back and forth 180 degrees like bumblebee wings in this short stretch, like alert shoplifters watching both sides of the long aisle.  These drivers also keep constant mirror and peripheral vision watch for unpredictable motorcycles, the low-powered, loud-horned, motorbikes driven by fearless (sometimes stupid, sometime smooth) riders.  These motorbikes weave in and out of the traffic flow like oversized  flies; their reflexes are superb (most of the time) and the car driver gives up trying to avoid them.  Ernie and I are are cyclists, the lowest of the low in the order of driver priority.  We can do least damage to his vehicle hence he does not give way.  Yet, a humble hand signal or a desperate outstretched hand is all we need to do for most cars to slow down and allow us to get into the lane.

The first merging obstacle done, we now face the second one, the flow of cars coming fast, in seemingly resolute (but privately controlled) dash from the gate of Villamor to the bridge proper.  These cars cannot slow down or show sign of hesitation because the merging flow from the service road and the break from the highway do not show mercy either.  Even as the eyes flick left and right, the aut0-geared driver’s right foot whirls from accelerator to break many times a second.  They have to give the impression that they will not stop.  Both sides of the same lane, that is.  Read my eyes, see my speed, I will not slow down my friend, they intone.  It is only at the last moment that the faint-hearted taps the brakes lightly.  This intersection is a rite of passage for any new driver.  It is through this Italian macho stretch that we carbon-skinned bodies try to merge into, without stopping, because it is still uphill.  Our mirrors (for we are unusual, less than pro cyclists) are not turned in the right way for us to see incoming vehicles below the 0 degree angle.

The helmet and the dark P100 Oakley shades make me look cool and relaxed, as Ernie’s make him–though his shades are serious multiples more expensive.  Tight black tights, thigh muscles glistening in the morning sun, the image of professional cyclists.  I deliberately skip describing the middle part of my body.

As we get on the lip of the bridge, we are  fortunate.  Few cars were driving out of Villamor.  We merged quickly, waving our left hand imperiously, half aspirational.

Less than 50 meters down we get into a real traffic-signal-less intersection.  The same machismo rules govern, though the design of the intersection allows reason to prevail.  It is a T-intersection but traffic flows from all 3 sides.  Today I am fortunate, I weaved a little and was able to get through without having to stop.  I cannot see Ernie behind me, but I hardly have time to turn my head for this is a busy stretch.  We are in a race so he must be just behind me.

The stretch in front of us, just behind the navy gate, is a steep uphill climb.

Summer of ‘69

The sun is barely out, it is freezing.  Like a warrior of old I prepare for the ride.  A half bowl of pasta, a half dose of hypertension medicine (I think I meant “like an old warrior”).  I pull on my tight tights (shorts) over my stomach knowing it will roll down as soon as I bend on the bike.  My one and only loosely fitting jersey (none of my bright yellow ones can fit me now) I hurriedly shake into.  I carry my socks and new Sebago hard-soled rubber shoes silently out of the room.  With my other hand I hold on to my phone, handkerchief, and a 4x year-old man’s reading glasses (both the x and the 4 are notional numbers, not meant to be accurate).  I am ready.

I woke up with a  pinch of ache on my neck.  Oh shoot!  is my blood pressure up.  Can’t be.  I waited all week and weekend for this ride.  No pressure, no fat food, no alcohol (well a little, these drat Christmas parties), so how can my blood pressure be up.  I pad silently out of the room clutching the Omron blood pressure device which has carried me through real hypertension nights in Hong Kong; the unit is almost a decade old, far beyond its rated life I think, but it still works.  The battery cover is gone, the case is falling apart, held together by repeated applications of Scotch Tape.  Before I dig into the pasta, I strap on the Omron unit and check my blood pressure.  Mm, it is slightly elevated, test it 3 times (maybe it will go down!).  Perhaps it is the incorrect dose of Norvasc I took the day before.  Without looking at the third reading, I take the half dose and start loading up on pasta.

The pasta tastes blank.  It should, because I only asked for plain pasta, no sauce.  Best prep for a bike ride, I was told.  Last night, I refilled my plastic medicine bottle of honey, molasses, raspberry jam, and salt.  This is my power shot, the energy boost of last resort.  I readied 6 bars of Trail Mix and the smaller, nicer bar whose name is too small to read.  The water bottles were clean and ready, still empty, beside the bicycle stand.  My helmet and gloves were positioned.  Even the clear plastic bag for money (and maybe my phone in case it rained) was laid out neatly.  Now you understand why my blood pressure was elevated.  I must have been just a little bit excited.

Side bar.  Months ago, I read about  powergel.  I made mine from scratch, figuring out what it would contain.  It should contain protein? so I added finely ground oatmeal into a half-cup of honey and molasses.  The closest thing to a ready-made, disposable, suck-into container is an ice-candy plastic bag, narrow, single-dose ready.   I poured the stick mixture into the bag, the whole half-cup, following the principle that one cannot have too much energy in a long bike ride.  Perhaps I imagined Popeye’s can of spinach and its explosive effect.  Yes, explosive burst of energy is what I always imagine the effect of a shot of this dangerously high-calorie goo.

Prototype test one was in an internal subdivision ride.  I stashed the sticky (yes, even the outside felt sticky) ice-candy plastic together with a back-up home-made power bar (another story, may next time), and a bottle of water.  After 5 kilometers, decent enough to want, need, a power shot, I paused, ceremoniously tore the plastic bottom with my teeth, much like Combat soldiers pulling off grenade pins with their steel-hard teeth.  I slurped the mixture, imagining the bolt of energy.

Man!  It tasted awful.  The ground oatmeal made my mouth extremely dry.  I looked at the half-eaten pack, shook my head, and then threw it away.

I bought 3 real powergels, still hoping for the explosion of power; I carefully rationed them (for they were Pxx per pack).  When I finally tore open (with my teeth again) a precious pack (banana-strawberry flavor), I was floored by its awful thick sugared fluid taste.  I imagined the burst of energy that I assumed would come from a store-bought pack.  Mmm.  As ineffectual as coffee to a caffeine-oblivous drinker.  But the experience made me realize that all powergels tasted like honey with some artificial flavoring.  Saved me money.  From then on, I created my own powershots.

Let me share the recipe:  half honey, a quarter molasses, and a quarter of one’s favorite jam, plus a largish pinch of salt, enough to feel its presence.  I like tart sour jam because it balances the sweetness of honey and plays with the heaviness of molasses.  Salt is good because it reduces further the cloying sweetness, plus it helps the body retain fluid.

A few weeks later, I saw a white 100-tablet plastic Vitamin C bottle and had a eureka moment.  It was and remains  the perfect re-usable, custom-dose (sip or gulp depending on one’s need) container for my powershot.

I am ready a few minutes early because Ernie is a few minutes late.  Rare occurrence.  I try to lie down on the sofa but the short air-pump, 5 Trail Mix Bars, phone on the back pocket of my jersey feel uncomfortably in the way.  I stand up and update the air in my tires.  I try to get them a shade over 100psi to be as hard and energy efficient as safely possible.  Good thing I remembered.

We pulled out to the road a few minutes later, hypertension forgotten.  Two riders off to another adventure.  I don’t know about Ernie but I also forgot my healthy stomach riding over my shorts.  I am now a bike rider again, in the same genre as Lance Armstrong (I don’t know the name of any other rider), with as much right to the yellow jersey as he does.  I hook one earphone to my right ear, I tap on my 4 to 5 star cycling playlist on my iPod, and then swayed effortlessly to the tune of Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69!

Another cycling route, the fork on the left side of Daang Hari

Today the four of us rode up and down a new route.  From Alabang, we cycled through Daang Hari until we reached the big fork.  [We actually cycled past the fork  to Verdana, enjoyed the fresh country breeze on our faces, felt the sense of achievement at reaching the top of the hill where the copper-colored dome of the big church in Dasmarinas, and then turned around.]  We turned left on the fork (remember this is left where your your back is towards Alabang) into a smaller but still divided highway.

The road is well cemented, a divided one with 2 lanes on each side, safe for for cyclists, very friendly because there were few cars.  Cyclists of all denominations (by that I mean bike lineage and human body sizes, bike types, and muscle capability) eased down the road, occupying one full lane on each side.  This is as close to a bike lane that one can get in Manila.

Many like Donnie, Ernie, Fritz, and I were going slowly.  We were engaged in a 4-way conversation, good friends chatting, occasionally overtaking each other or the slower mountain biker.  I huffed a bit in the slight grade, Donnie slid back and forth, the natural sweeper, Fritz barreled down unwilling unable to slow down, and Ernie relaxing through the climbs with his 3rd crank.

Donnie explained that the road is a good one to bring one’s family on.  Forgiving because there are no cars, yet a good challenge to be able to talk about.  Maybe one day I can convince my children, before sickness or old age gets to me.  If one of them decides to take up the hobby, I will have my excuse to get another bike!

It was an easy 6 kilometer round-trip ride.  I could barely make out the small-type distance counter in my LCD speedometer because my 49-year-old eyes need glasses even to enjoy a good meal.  The 3rd kilometer one-way was enough for me to break a little sweat, enough to zoom fast in the slight downgrades, enough to professionally toggle up and down my gears in the fashionably slight upgrades.  We overtook the mountain bikers who have to work with smaller front cranks, a few of whom were just about the same bumble-bee physiqued as I am.   I did not look into the odometer lest the sight of a few kilometers above 10 would trigger subconscious flows of lactic acid.

I have the energy of a beginner road cyclist but I have a Tour de France yellow-jersey cyclist’s dreams.   Half the fun of the Saturday break-of-dawn (well, 6:30 a.m. really) ride is the Monday and Tuesday conversations about the high points of last Saturday’s ride, the Wednesday wishing for the weekend, and the Thursday and Friday lunches planning for the coming weekend ride.  We dream of climbing up Tagaytay.

As we neared what seemed the end of the highway, we saw many cyclists parked along the U-turn curve.  All bronzed by the sun it seemed, male bonding in groups.  One group was at the end corner of the road, another was on the left side, each group having an invisible yet friendly border.   As we neared them, we nodded up, they smiled.  Cyclists smile at each other because we know the pain.

We turned left into a steep downhill, still a nice concrete road but now narrower  two-way.    The downhill would have triggered an adrenaline rush in me and a flurry of upgearing flicks of my forefinger to keep the tension and to eke out as much acceleration to get as high up the inevitable energy-sapping, thigh-wrenching climb that follows every gift of effortless descent, but it did not.  Perched on top of a thin metal frame with meter high wheels, now in a barely-controlled 35 kilometer-per-hour slide down an unknown road  without the safety net of a seatbelt (amazing how thoughts of a seatbelt flashed in my mind), my forefingers autonomically tensed, reached out to the brake lever (a Shimano 105 groupset), pulled hard to keep the speed below 40 kilometers.  I was afraid to be splattered on the road.  Fritz on the other hand zoomed past all of us, as usual.

The downhill rush is short because there are just too many turns on this road, a pedestrian or three too many, all oblivious of moving carbon-fiber objects (our bodies) in barely controlled flight.  I watch the road intently because there are just too many cracks.

This two-lane road continues on, a back route to Muntinlupa Donnie said. There are nice intervals of heady downhills, some shallow long downgrades of the kind that makes one feel good about cycling and oneself, a moment of wind on one’s face, a champion’s ride. There were uphills that follow but they are muted.

Then there is the last valley.  We rode down what looked like a  mountain zigzag road.  It conjures up the image of Lance Armstrong in the King of the Mountain leg of the Pyrennees.  The downhills feel truly life-threatening, the two-lane road narrower still as the gravity and centrifugal forces of the turns compete to throw me off the bike.  I start to think about a replacement Giro helmet because surely the multi-thousand cost of such a beautiful protective gear must be more effective than my low hundreds piece.   I pray that my simple caliper brakes do not fail me, that the rubber would not slide off, for the effect is unimaginable.  I do not even know what gear I am on and keeping the chain tension is far from my mind. I am simply holding on to the bike as we swing left and right our way down, keeping the speed down as much as possible.   Thankfully there are a few cars on the road, few enough to let us enjoy the stretch, moving slow enough to glance up and enjoy the road, but not slow enough to converse.  It is each rider to his own now.

As we neared what felt the bottom of this road, the nagging thought came to me:  if this is a steep downhill, what will the return ride feel?  Before the thought developed into a nightmare, the road went into an unexpected climb.  It was not too steep but  I stood up on the bike.  I must look like professional cyclist pushing himself, I imagined.   The months in Fitness First’s spinning classes finally paid off, giving me the confidence to stand up and pump hard. It felt great, I was up on the bike letting gravity and my healthy weight do the work.  The slope was gentle; I did not need to call on my reserves yet; my thighs were not screaming.

All of a sudden, the road rose steeply.  I looked up and was floored to see the horizon shift halfway up the sky.  I was pumping hard for real now, really standing up, my gear at the lowest setting.  But I was hardly moving forward, like a trick-bike moving inch by inch, I was pushing down as hard as I could yet my forward movements could be counted in a feet or two each leg.  The road was just too steep on the right turn.  I am now in the right half of the road, hogging the road, each push down is barely successful.  Donnie and then Ernie whistled past me on the turn.  Donnie gave an encouraging “you can make it, very near now” message.  I thought with envy at Ernie’s 3-piece crankset; behind me he was and I could imagine him effortlessly pump, seated relaxed, using the smallest crank.

A few half-feet at a time I progressed.  Finally, the steep right turn starts to fall behind me, a van, a jeep overtake me.  I see a wide open entrance on the right side.  Donnie is there waiting.   He gave me a look that asked:  ”maybe we should not stop, the end of this climb is near.”

“No,” my look emphatically answered.  I whipped out my Gatorade-filled water bottle from the twin holders on the frame.  I sipped daintily but without stopping until I was near the bottom quarter of the contents.  ”I absolutely need my powershot,” I announced, and then reached behind me for my white medicine plastic bottle.  It contains a awful-tasting homemade brew of molasses, honey, calamansi and raspberry jam, with a dash of salt for useful minerals.  I took a big gulp and closed the bottle.  Whoosh, the energy blast of honey and molasses jolted me.  Or so I hoped and imagined.  Not content, I reached back again for a bar of Trail Mix.  I munched down.  This was not food for pleasure; it was for survival.  All these sweetness was not washed down well by an equally sweet grape-flavored Gatorade.  But I did not have water.  And I was running out of Gatorade so I allowed the gooey taste to stay in my mouth.

My breath slowing down, I was now nearly ready to continue.  Fritz had just reached us so we had the excuse to stay a few more minutes.

As we chatted, a geriatric and a second one on mountain bikes rose from the mountain bend of the road and continued on.  Ahh, they are not stopping to pause.  They looked barely winded, they even looked up and smiled.  They were not really geriatrics but they were older than us.  My eyes widened as the second one continued past us, the effort of the big climb hardly bothering him, it seemed.  Ernie guessed my thoughts and said:  ”they are using mountain bikes, it is easier.”  I smiled.  My pride saved.

The rest of the ride was anti-climactic after that.  A little grade up, a longer grade down.  We went into a busy town thoroughfare, jeeps overtaking us and stopping.   And then, serendipitously, motorcyle-riding local cops escorting what must have been a politician’s funeral procession stopped the traffic on the intersections.  We hogged the road, our road bikes moving faster than all vehicles in that empty road.  The four of us bunched up again.  Jeeps periodically stopped in front of us and deft maneuvering and body English allowed us to continue without stopping.

Before I figured out where we were, the road opened up and we were underneath the Southern Luzon Expressway overpass over Alabang intersections.  Now there was a spaghetti of roads and a convoluted mass of tricycles, jeepneys, and pedestrians.  I easily got on and off the bike, my feet still not using cleats; my friends, more professional, with cleats clicked their feet on and off the pedals.  The traffic light turned green, I jumped on the pedals and rode hard to get through ahead of the slower starting gasoline-powered pack.  A bicycle makes its way through heavy traffic with ease but at one’s peril.  But it is exhilarating to weave through, even slowly, an unmoving mass of vehicles, invisibly thumbing one’s nose at drivers who in other times would leave us in the dust.  No, we do not really thumb our nose.  But we gloat a little.

We reach the gas station that was our goal.  Refilled our water packs.  We made good time, it is only 9:30.  Most of us had errands to do, family commitments by noon.   Ernie, Fritz, and I prepare to go down Alabang-Zapote into BF’s entrance.  Donnie jumps off a few minutes earlier back into Daang Hari; our single professional rider, Donnie still looks fresh after this 30-kilometer ride.  Fritz breaks away in the middle of BF I think.  Ernie and I continue, sometimes at fast clip, each alone in his thoughts (or iPod), sometimes in conversation.  As we cross Sucat into Villanueva and Multinational, we feel at home.  We take an easy ride, chatting about projects, as we make our way through Multinational.  The kilometers go by without any effort it seems.

It is another Saturday ride.  Next time we make a try for Tagaytay again, we promise to each other.  Maybe next time.

Turning 50, Mortally Immortal

I am turning 50!  There are so many things I want to do.

Cycle up Tagaytay, ride down to Batangas feeling the mid-afternoon sun, legs spinning, feeling the touch of strain, the pleasant tightening of slightly tired muscles, feeling the smooth asphalted road rushing by, smiling at school children in their afternoon recess, enjoying the clean air of farmland, celebrating the arrival at the Calatagan welcome arch, refreshed now though still pumping away, anticipating the  cool sweet buko welcome drink of the still unnamed unselected cozy and friendly resort where we would spend the night.  I arrive tired, perspiration dried up now, forearms dark from the day in the sun, face sticky.  But exhilarated and talkative, recounting the deeper bumps of the road, the nicely banked corners of Batangas roads.  Today we hit another hundred kilometers.  Not too long.  Just enough.  I was about to say “not bad for a man of …” but I knock on wood.

Today I talked to a colleague who said that her husband also road biked.  I was excited to hear of a fellow cyclist.  But no, she said, he no longer bikes, ever since his heart operation.

Friday night I was scared.  I felt a little lump at the base of my balls.  Shit!  I said.  Lance Armstrong and his testicular cancer.  Why cancer?  Because a good friend of mine is going through his fourth round of chemo.  A few months ago I told him about my new love for cycling.  He told me that his doctor said not to exercise yet for six months.  What would I do for six months if I cannot exercise, I asked myself, appalled.  I am not a buff or exercise freak, far from it, but to not walk or bike at all made me afraid of being that sick.  Do I want to go to the doctor?  In the shower I shook my head no.  I would like to bike to Tagaytay first, to go to the beach at the end of this month, before I face the reality of test after test.  All of a sudden, the real stories of my friends and relatives who live or lived through cancer became even more real.  Would I try every cure in the land, would I fight it out eating when I would not feel like it, try to live a normal life?  Would I madly rush to write my goodbyes to the world or just live quietly with my kids until the end comes.   But Lance Armstrong fought his cancer and won 3 or 4 more Tour de France championships.   Banish the thought of cancer at least for this weekend, I decided.  We rode up the mountain, did not get to Tagaytay ridge, but we made the effort.  I forgot about the lump.  Today in the shower again I remembered.  I did not feel it anymore!  Praise God.  Maybe I did not try to look for it too hard.

How long will I be able to ride the bike?  Will I ever get to a hundred kilometers or a hundred and sixty?  Half of me wonders with a little sadness.  The other half, the mortally immortal half says:  ”does not matter man, enjoy it while it lasts.”

Tagaytay Hill Climb

It is good to have a goal.  Ours is to cycle to Tagaytay this 2009.  Another goal is to make  the 100 kilometer ride.

It started with two friends cycling on barely SM-variety mountain bikes (actually, a bit beyond SM bikes because we were on our 2nd or 3rd bikes when we started cycling together), cycling around Merville.  The 5-kilometer ride that first time was a celebrated victory.  The biggest climb was the rise in the road to the church, a distance of 100 meters or so, a climb of maybe 5 meters.

Ernie was the more adventurous one, cycling around the outskirts of the village, into the next village and further on.  The rides became serious.  We had twin water bottles that were truly used.  Thirty kilometers to and from BF Paranaque was the achievement.  Coffee and pancakes at Pancake House of course was the reward at the end of the tiring ride, the sun beating down already.

With two more friends, Fritz and Donnie, to make a peloton of 4, our peak distance was 60 kilometers (59 for me, 67 for Ernie), when we biked from Merville to the end of Daang Hari and back.  The ride back was brutal.  Pain in head, in thighs, all ignored because I just wanted to get back home away from the awfully hot sun.  Still in the long tree-less shadeless Daang Hari road, meter after undulating meter, I pumped hard just to get to the end of this frigging endless road.  I attacked the road, pushed ahead, taking advantage of each dip to accumulate just a few more meters of acceleration for the next rise.   I paused at the  edge of Alabang-Zapote road, it was raining hard, and munched a bar of Trail Mix with Ernie before proceeding.   The last 15 kilometers through BF taught me how a cyclist lives with pain.  My view narrowed to the 30 degrees of frontal vision, down on the road to avoid cracks and puddles.  I ran out of water halfway and my thighs started to really cramp a kilometer and a half before home.  But we got home, and bragged and bragged for weeks.

We rode in the rain with yellow jerseys on (all we had were yellow, so it helped) in the morning of Cory’s funeral.  We met with Nelson.  It was raining on and off, there were a lot of people crowding the gate, and cops too.  But all were friendly.  It was not as though we were in a funeral.  It was as though we were saying goodbye to a friend and saying hello to our new-found meaning.  It was a good ride; would have been worth getting sick.  

For more than 2 months, rain, sickness, and flood prevented us from doing the next really long ride together.  Our goal was Tagaytay by Nov 2.  That date passed, our dream wavered, but I guess we kept the fire burning (!).  Our Eatwell lunch conversations still drifted to cycling and long rides; but we did not talk much about Tagaytay because getting back up to the energy level needed for an 80  kilometer uphill ride from our sedentary state seemed an difficult star to aim for.

Yet, the best things are sometimes left better unplanned.  Last week or the week before, we decided to do a long ride–Fritz, Ernie, and I.  Long meant going though Daang Hari.  With a SAG (support vehicle) behind us, we braved the rumors of Daang Hari, dared to cross the SM road towards the 2-lane road bounded on both sides by rice paddies.  We reached the fork of a wide multi-lane road.  The beginning of the ascent to Tagaytay, we were told.  Only 10 kilometers to go, our support vehicle driver said–but that was too optimistic.  We stopped because I had the cramps.  We rode the van back happy and full of stories.  The Hill was not an unreachable dream now.  We discovered the secret:  just start nearer and nearer.

Today’s ride, 7 November 2009, did not have well prepared provenance.  Little planning except on the evening of Friday.  But Fritz said  he was sick, only to change his mind (he was sick all right, but wanted to ride) at 9 in the evening.  My blood pressure went up the afternoon and did not seem to go down to the right level even mid-evening.  The ride was still uncertain but we made plans.  Early morning at 6 when I checked, my blood pressure was still high.  But the ride depended on me somewhat because our rendezvous point was  Donnie’s house and my van was the carrier.  So I dressed up and left.  My wife did not know that I brought the  Omron blood pressure cuff to do a final check at the last moment.  (A stupid way to start a ride, but maybe some cyclists like me are pretty dumb).

We left the SAG (support vehicle) in Verdana–because it would be tempting to give up if the SAG was following.  We cycled to the end of Daang Hari, took the turn along Aguinaldo, past the traffic around SM.  We turned right to the real open highway where only real cyclists rode.  The wind on our open jerseys was cool, the downhills tempting and early uphills bearable.  It started to drizzle, the lens of my dark glasses were spattered, and it became a little chilly.

Donnie sweeped the peloton, encouraging the stragglers, pushing the gasping neophytes (me) literally.  Ernie checked his six every so often, checking for the whereabouts of Fritz and myself.  His Kinesis bike had the mountain-biker’s 3-plate front (he said this was a road cyclists beginner plate) which meant he had that extra lowest gear to attack the steep hills.  Donnie had a very light “lift with your  little-finger”  Look carbon-aluminum bicycle well–matched by  his steel-belted thighs.  Fritz rode his re-engineered road bike with Campagnolo groupset and sticky brand new red Look Keo clipless pedals.   I rode my frisky Pinarello Montello, the bike of Tour de France champions (alas before I was born ha ha).

We pumped continuously in managed cadence as our road bikes slowly ate each kilometer.  We thought we  looked the part–four grown (healthy) men in full cycling regalia, bravely trying not to look like we were dying.  Across the road, as we started the main hill climb, a fast peloton of hard-core unsmiling cyclists zipped by.   Wow they are fast, I thought, forgetting that they were zooming downhill.

It rained on an off and on again.  We stopped several times, not from the rain but to gather energy again, to drink gatorade, and I to take a shot of my home-brewed “powershot.”  It was supposed to give me a lift, like spinach to Popeye, but I cannot help suspect that powershots are overrated.  Hills and kilometers can only be conquered by gritted teeth, aching thighs, and rain-spattered faces.  Gatorade helps.  I ran out.  Donnie generously poured his entire second bottle into my empty one.  That too ran out.  I was guzzling the liquid in an effort to keep away or keep at bay the lactic acid in my calves.  I saw a sari-sari store, signalled a water break, and eased my bike across the sandy soil.  Water?  I asked.  No???  (for who would buy bottled water in the midst of safe drinking water in the mountains!  oh well).  Gatorade perhaps?  I asked, with a little bit less confidence.  No.  Take Coke for the sugar, Ernie said.  So we shared a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke Zero.  I can tell you that Coke, no matter how ice cold, is not refreshing to a cyclist.  I ended up pouring the nearly full remains of the drink down the sink when I got home.  No wonder one does not see advertisements of Coke beside Lance A. in Tour de France.

After the water break, technology prevailed and a text message appeared on Ernie’s phone:  Fritz had cramps all over.  We knew this was going to happen because Fritz was already going very slowly.  I don’t know about Ernie and Donnie but heck I was truly relieved that we were turning back.  My head was aching and I was scared that it was my blood pressure bursting the dikes (it turned out a benign coffee-caffeine withdrawal, as I had not had coffee the whole day, thank God).

Here we are taking the long break at Unioil.  It rained heavily shortly after this picture was taken.  Just before that we made the decision to call the SAG up rather than cycle down.  The rain made the decision easier.

Today we did not reach the edge of the volcano.  But we finally reached halfway up the hills.  The next time, we will make it.

And next time, I will bring a jacket for the mountain wind at 35 kilometers per hour can be really chilly.