Mayana, the highest paved road in Bohol

During Holy Thursday, I joined a group including Tagbilaran City Councilor Butchie Zamora, Pio Castro III, Jemuel Madanguit, Michael Sague and 8 audacious sold who rode the highest paved climb in Bohol. Mayana is a mountain barangay that divides the towns of Jagna and Sierra Bullones. It used to be an NPA stronghold which made headlines a few years ago when NPA’s ambushed a military convoy killing a high ranking officer.

These days, though, it’s a relatively peaceful pass but sometimes petty thievery happens. Tagbilaran to Jagna is 64 kilometers and the plan was to climb over it and proceed to Sierra Bullones, then to Carmen of the Chocolate Hills fame, Loboc and then Tagbilaran. Easire said than done.

The climb is fairly easy 3/4 of the way but after that it ramps up to a 12% gradient. It’s a killer! At its peak, its more than 700 meters high. But as most plans go, it was only a plan. I forced my way to the top but my legs felt like rubber. I finally stopped before I made a fool of  myself  falling over my bike from fatigue.

We also did this route last year with the heat giving us a good beatdown. Fortunately this year, Holy Thursday was the last cloudy day of summer.

Next year, we agreed to finally cross our Rubicon. No more turning back.

The Ardennes Week

Fabian Cancellara and Nikki Terpstra can take their well -deserved rest, performing admirably in the “flat” and cobbled classics. Last week was the start of the hilly classics, aka, the Ardennes Classics.

Last week was dubbed as the Ardennes Week, with three races in 8 days- Amstels Gold, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege

It started off with the Amstel Gold Race, a relatively new race that was born in 1966. Of all the major one-day races, this event is the only event that is named after its sponsor, Amstel Brewery in Holland.

This years edition was 251 kilometers long and the main difficulty were the 34 short but steep climbs that were as long as 3 kilometers  to 600 meters with gradients ranging from 3-22%!

Going into the last climb, the 900 meters Cauberg, there was a crash that took out team Lampre’s trio of leaders including World Champion Rui Costa. When the climb started, team Quick Step set a fierce tempo but then an attack from BMC’s Samuel Sanchez, forced Quick Step to react. But it was just a fake the Olympic road champion and when Quick Step’s Michal Kwiatkowski followed him, he faded, allowing Sanchez’s teammate Philippe Gilbert to finish all of the pretenders.

In 2011, Gilbert did the Ardennes Slam, winning all three races, considered an incredible feat. Only one rider had won the slam before, Italian Davide Rebellin in 2004.

Unfortunately for Gilbert, his chance to do the slam was thwarted by Alejandro Valverde who won the midweek Fleche Wallone. Gilbert was nowhere to be seen as he was held back by a crash going into the last climb. With narrow roads, it was almost impossible to get into the front of the peloton when everybody ahead of you wants to stay in front.

Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the oldest one day race, is tonight (last night). I’m sure there will be fireworks! I’ll go for Gilbert!