Two Cebu Cycling teams, made up of 9 riders per squad, will be leaving for Batangas this week to join in the all-executive, 3-day, 4-stage, Tour of Matabungkay. Cebu Cycling Team A (don't ask me why we're team "A") is made up of Tony Codina, Jong Sepulveda, SankxOntanillas, Kiko Lim, Mike Flores, RaldyVios, Ronnie Adlawan, Brett Harrington and yours truly. Team B, Cebu Cycling-Hortaleza-HBC is made up of Ome Rodriguez, John Gayatin, Phillip Sainz, Ned Revilla, Art Lambo, Tyre Lambo, Ernie Hortaleza, Ramon Espinosa and MirkoValentin.
According to Ome Rodriguez, CC/HBC will be gunning for the overall crown rather than for individual honors. Although I'm not familiar with the competition, having never raced in Luzon before, I'd like to venture out and say that with this line-up, CC/HBC will be one of the top 5 favorites to win the 2010 ToM. If I were a betting man, I'd put all my eggs on Mirko's basket. Mirko, a native of Trento, Italy, and a good friend of 1988 World Champion Maurizio Fondriest, is probably the strongest rider in that team. In fact, Nino Surban, currently the best Filipino MTBr, couldn't drop the Italian in one of their training rides to Lugo last week.
For team CC, we'll just try to hang on with the big boys. I never had an experi-ence of riding in a peloton of more than 100 cyclists but in the ToM, 260-plus cyclists have signed up!!! I could probably start and finish the race without ever getting to the front. To give you a perspective, the Tour de France limits their race to about 189 riders.
The first two days are both road races, 90 and 100km, respectively, to be followed by a 30km TTT and a 40km ITT on the last day. I joined this event to experience racing with the best riders in my category and to determine how my body will react to the stresses of multi-stage racing. Hopefully, it'll hold up.
2010 World Championships
Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd will be wearing the "arc en ciel" jersey for the next 12 months after he won the World Championship road race held in Australia last week. Arc en ciel, aka, the Rainbow Jersey, is the next most popular jersey after the Mail-lot Jaune or the Yellow Jersey of the Tour de France.
Cycling's World Championship is held every October and the venue changes every year. Generally though, the racing cycle of this event is continental Europe for three consecutive years, then a non-European country for a year before coming back to Europe again.
RCM Is Back!
With the help of a few friends, the Road Cyclist of the Month is back! This event had been put on hold for four years but we decided to revive it to bring back to make cy-cling more interesting.
RCM RESULTS CAT C: 1ST- TATA TY, 2ND- TATA MATUDAN, 3RD- NONOY ABASOLA, 4TH- JV ARANETA, 5TH-- DANNY SIMBAJON RCM OVERALL:TATA TY-45 PTS, JV ARANETA-38, TATA MATUDAN-36, NONOY ABASOLA-32, RAFFY BACAYAN-13, DANNY SIMBAJON-11, RONNIE ADLAWAN-11
OTHER RESULTS: MANDAUE CRIT RESULTS GOLDEN BOYS: 1ST-GARY FERNANDEZ, 2ND-ROGELIO BASIRGO, 3RD-MICHAEL NACU GREENHOUSE ROAD RACE: CAT B:1st-Mirko Valentin, 2nd-Ramon Espinosa, 3rd-Jonas Ponseca, 4th- Dadong Carcueva, 5th- Ome Rodriguez CAT C: Toto Lim, 2nd-Raffy Bacayan, 3rd-Raymond Naquines, 4th-Ryan Ocanada, 5th-Igi Maximo
Finally, Welcome back, Brett Harrington!......I was so disappointed last weekend when that the organizers of the Talisay Fiesta Crit announced the last minute postpone-ment of their event to January 12, 2011 because of a schedule conflict of another event. A few out of town cyclists had already arrived too late only to be stood up.……Congratulations our friend from Cavite, Boy Tiples, who graced the Greenhouse Road race.