Epic Ride

You have heard about the Transcentral Highway. You may have seen it while you're on a plane. You may have ridden it by habal-habal. But I tell you, you don't know nothing about it until you ride it by bike. And that's what we did two Sundays ago.

I had done this killer ride twice and each time, I got off my bike. In '99, I rode it via Uling road and I got sick like a dog when I got home. We took the northern route via Lugo in '04 with Frank Gatdula and company and we got home 7:30pm! I wanted so bad to conquer it without getting off my bike. I wanted another shot!

We took off from Metro Mandaue 7am under gray, angry skies. Just before Lilo-an, the heavens opened, not the "cat and dog" kind but the kind that pours on like forever. It was that kind of day. Our pace was what I like to call, "talking" and by 9:30, we had reached our first pit stop in Lugo. In a blink of an eye, the small but hospitable carenderia owned by Jojo Atillo, who serves a mean "adobawng baboy", was swarmed by 17 dirty and hungry men.

After that 30-minute stop, we were down at Tabuelan by 10:30. Except for four flats on Xerox Lauron's bike, the 18km downhill was breathtakingly beautiful, that stretch of road crossing east to west. I think that this is one scenic piece of road is still a secret that all Cebuanos should discover and experience.

The real action started after the town of Tuburan on roads (is that what they call it?) that didn't resemble one but a café au lait colored rice paddy. It's unbelievable that a stretch as ugly as that stretch could still exist in Cebu.

But for me, it was at this ugly-stretch-of-road where lore's and legends that could last a lifetime take shape, depending of course on who is telling the story. I drove hard along this road of mud forcing the others who were behind to find their own lanes or eat muck. Even though our chains were now lubricant starved, we all were imagining that we were in a breakaway during Paris-Roubaix. The locals who were hunkering down from the cold and the rain from the safety of their homes and in waiting sheds were looking at us like the city slickers that we were. Must have been laughing at us!

By 12:30, we reached Balamban and we looked like we all crapped in our shorts. We stopped for lunch at terminal eatery and we all thought that we were in a 5-star restaurant! A platito of limp guso set me back by 20.00!!! Whoa! But at that point, I tried not to care; I was too tired to find another eatery. Besides, there was plenty of water for cleaning up our bodies and our bikes.

At exactly 1:30, we started out. I told everybody that the latest we could be home was 4:30 although I really didn't believe it. The rain had stopped but was threatening again. The first 2 K's were rolling and just fairly hard. But when a sign along the road said, "Welcome to Central Cebu National Park", the "sufferfest", as Dan Wistihuff III calls it, commenced.

Ahead of me were Ome Rodriguez, Rex Tan, Stephen Chian, Lyndyl Caraquel, Kasag Nebria, Isyot Bohol, Nilo Barbalose, Ginging Villaver, Taer Lambo and Dan. Behind were Sasai Salazar, Dexter Lapuz, Ian Colina, Xerox, and the brothers Duhaylungsod, Neil and Von Rio. A few hundred meters from the sign was exact spot where I climbed down twice and walked the next 4 Ks. I was determined not to get off even if the speed on my bike was just 1kph faster than if I had walked.

(to be continued)