80 riders wheel for fortune

Short but hardly less daunting.

The 2006 Tour Pilipinas Padyak Pinoy comes off the wraps today with 80 cyclists starting their quest for fame and glory in the annual summer cycling spectacle reduced to eight stages covering a total distance of only 1,219.4 kilometers.

For defending champion Warren Davadilla, the stake is higher as he aims to become only the second rider in tour history to win the event three times.

Antonio Arzala ruled the initial staging of the tour in 1955 and repeated as champion in 1956 and 1959. Davadilla has joined the elite list of two-time tour champions when he topped the Golden Tour 50 @ 05 last year. The pint-sized rider from Valenzuela won his first title in 1998.

Thus, all eyes will be on Davadilla right in the first flag-off at the Quezon City Elliptical Circle for the 125km Stage 1 ending in Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija.

Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte is invited to flag off the riders, who will be chasing a total of P2.6 million in cash prizes with the winning team out of the 10 aspirants bagging P500,000 and the top individual rider bringing home P150,000.

From Cabanatuan, the riders racing against time, elements and worthy rivals next travel to San Fernando, La Union then to Baguio City, Angeles City, Lucena City, Sta. Rosa, Laguna; Tagaytay and finally Marikina for the coronation day.

The Baguio-Angeles stage is the longest covering 199kms and the Marikina criterium race the shortest at 90kms.

The tour total distance is nearly 300kms shorter than the 1,492.89km race (10 stages) last year. It was 2,758.69kms in 2004 (17 stages) and 2,421.1kms (15 stages) in the tour revival in 2003.

Without a stage with a length of over 200kms, classic sprint battles could well be the highlights of this tour.

Still, the championship could well be decided on the mountains with the compact eight-stage, eight-day race featuring three treacherous climbs in the Cordilleras, Cavite and Quezon.

"The tour features short routes so this will be non-stop battles for us," said Davadilla in Filipino.

Former champion Arnel Quirimit and last year’s runner-up Frederick Feliciano are among those tipped to give Davadilla stiff challenge in this tour organized by the Dynamic Solutions Inc. (Dos-1) and presented by Tanduay Rhum in cooperation with Wow Magic Sing.

The 80 cyclists picked from grueling qualifying race in February have been spread out evenly into 10 teams. Besides the overall team and individual titles, also at stake are the Mountain King, Sprint King and Rookie of the Year crowns.

The 10 teams and their respective captains and coaches are: Mail and More (Davadilla, Carlo Guieb), Air21 (Feliciano, Cesar Lobramonte), Cool Pap (Arnel Espino, Gerardo Igos), INCA (Ericson Obosa, Neil Barlis), Elixir Sports (Quirimit, Norberto Oconer), Sunbolt (Santy Barnachea, Johny Borja), One Shot Wonder (Ronald Navarro, Cesar Catambay), Red Bull (Joel Carderon, Ceferino Vacunawa), Go21 (Eusebio Quinones, Juan Aquino Jr.) and Cossack Vodka (Renato Sembrano, Renato Dolosa).

Unlike previous tours when the Baguio City stage virtually determined who would be champion, the 2006 Padyak Pinoy has set the Baguio climb early in the tour but spiked the edition with the Tatlong Eme climb in Quezon in the sixth stage and the Sungay climb from Talisay to Tagaytay in the seventh stage.

Cyclists actually consider the Sungay road that connects Batangas and Cavite in picturesque Tagaytay more treacherous than Kennon Road.

"It (the route) offers riders no rest at all," says Davadilla of Sungay, a climb that could see the less conditioned riders preferring to walk their bikes rather than succumb to leg cramps.