LBC Ronda Pilipinas rolls off in Laguna

STA. ROSA, Laguna, Philippines – Will an old face resurface as champion of the Ronda Pilipinas 2015? Or will a new name emerge from the shadows of the big guns?

Former champions Reimon Lapaza of Cycleline-Butuan, Mark Galedo of 7-Eleven, Santy Barnachea of Navy-Standard Insurance and Irish Valenzuela of Army will be marked men when the Ronda  championship round hits the road today with a 60-kilometer criterium at the Paseo Greenfield City here.

Visayas qualifying leg champion Boots Ryan Cayubit of 7-Eleven and Luzon winner Ronald Oranza of 7-Eleven are also expected to shake things up by launching their ambitious bids and challenging the old guards.

“It’s anybody’s race,” said the 29-year-old Galedo, a Southeast Asian Games gold medal winner who made it straight to the main event being a member of the national team that competed in the Asian Cycling Championship last week in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

7-Eleven team manager Bong Sual, who boasts of the power duo of Galedo and Cayubit, said his team is out to win it all.

“We are the only Continental team here, they have been together for a couple of years,” said Sual, whose other team members are Baler Ravina, Marcelo Felipe and teenage sensation Jay Lampawog.

“There is no goal but to dominate this Ronda Nationals,” he added.

Like 7-Eleven, Navy-Standard Insurance is parading a star-studded team of Oranza, Barnachea, former Tour champion Joel Calderon, Lloyd Lucien Reynante, ACC silver medallist Jan Paul Morales, and mountain climbing specialist El Joshua Carino.

“It will be unpredictable this year but if we can produce a champion in our team, why not,” said the 38-year-old Barnachea.

Cycline-Butuan team manager Lito Patayan, for his part, said it will be tougher this year for Lapaza after losing Vicmar Vicente to a road accident last year.

“We will do our best to keep the title of Reimon Lapaza this year but it will be tougher because we lost a friend and a rider,” said Patayan referring to Vicente. “We visited his grave before we came here because we’re dedicating this race to him.”

After the morning criterium, a 120.5-km Stage Two follows as it will unfurl in Calamba, Laguna and finish at the top of the Quezon National Park or Tatlong Eme (Three Ms) in Atimonan, Quezon in the afternoon.

The race resumes tomorrow with a 171.1-km Stage Three, considered the longest and one of the toughest. It unfolds in Lucena, Quezon and rolls  through the mountain passes of Rizal and  ends in Manila.

On Feb. 24, participants will negotiate the 159-km Stage Four from Malolos, Bulacan to the Tarlac Provincial Capitol.

The next two days, it will be the 151.8-km Stage Five from Tarlac to Dagupan, Pangasinan, where champions are born, and the 152.5-km Stage Six sending cyclists from Dagupan to Harrison Ave. in mountaintop Baguio City.