It was still dark when the alarm clock went off at 4:45am last Sunday, 21 March 2009. Switched on the coffee maker, took a "wake me up shower" and after having been asleep for only a couple of hours, it was time to get dressed. Today was the first bike trip for the summer!!!! Lito Quiogue and I were taking a ride up to Douglas Marcaida's 15-hectare farm in the mountains of Pinugay, Barras. After a hot cup of coffee, on came the "Battle Gear" riding boots, blue jeans (couldn't find my riding chaps) tee shirt, leather jacket, gloves, balaclava and riding helmet. After removing the dust cover of my Honda Nighthawk S, which is a 750cc 6 speed bike, getting it started and warmed up, it was off to the first adventure of the Summer of 09, at exactly 5:35am!
The thrill of going out for a bike ride with the guys for some fun and mischief, just DOES NOT DIMINISH (even after 45 years)! Fortunately, there are still about a half dozen active riders from HS'63. Anyway, off it was to meet up with Lito at the Dasmarinas Petron Fuel Station at the corner of Dasma Avenue and EDSA. Getting there at exactly 6am, I spied 4 big Harley Davidson's at one Coffee Shop of the Station (wala si Lito!) I looked further off and there was another Coffee Shop--and there was Lito with an anticipatory smile on his face. Lito was on his R65 BMW that looked like it just rolled off the showroom. Let's go! Poor Lito had no concept of being a bike ride leader! After asking for the route we would be taking, he took off! Shit! He was on a FLIGHT (and I was his wingman... just like on a flight... if you tarried, you got LEFT BEHIND!) He was flying to Antipolo like his life depended on it (and there I was, behind him, struggling to keep up). The upside of it was that we were in the Highland lair of Douglas by 7am! with fog still surrounding the mountains and us freezing our tails off!We roused Dougie out of bed and went up to his roof garden (which has a great view of the surrounding mountain tops) and had cups of piping hot coffee. In a little while, his ladies brought us a feast of Chinese fried rice, a platter of the most beautiful yoked eggs from his free ranged chickens, corned beef guisado, and all the coffee we could drink. Man, that was some great breakfast! After swapping lies with each other for about and hour, we took off for the Sierra Madre Club and Resort. Dougie is now joining us in his Ducati Monster.
Now it’s the misguided Marcaida, who decided to play squadron leader! Flight leader Quiogue was stuck like glue behind him while I coasted along 10 to 15 seconds behind them. This is now mountain territory and is just a continuous series of zig-zag roads, and Dougie is showing us how a mountain rider rides! After about 45 minutes we arrived at the Sierra Madre Club and Resort. It's a beautiful place at one of the highest peak along that part of the Sierra Madre, with a Spectacular 360 degree view. We had coffee, enjoyed the view, the Club, the Hotel, the Casitas (that are for rent) the golf course and the huge swimming pool and Cabanas at the lower part of the resort, then headed off to inspect the road to Infanta, Quezon. Another 45 minutes later we were at the end of the paved portion of the road. Enroute, we passed Camp Capinpin as well as JE Camp, the farm of ERAP, where he was detained. The road was only a few more kilometers to Infanta now, so it was downhill zig zag, from Sierra Madre to the construction site of the road.The road was beautiful for riding because there were very few cars or trucks on it, majority of traffic on the road were scooters, small, medium and large motorcycles, and according to Dougie, sports car clubs often frequent that road. We rode to the intersection to Sampaloc, Quezon and stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant serving Filipino food. We ordered Bulalo, Chop Suey, rice and soft drinks, and whiled the time away with the Videoke machine.
Lunch over, we decided to head for home. At Pitogo, Dougie broke off from our formation and went home. It was a pleasant trip on the way home till we got to the Cogeo area, where the traffic was horrible and hot as hell. The traffic continued to be heavy all the way to C5. Lito broke off at Market! Market! and I continued on home, arriving at around 4pm. Not a bad 101/2 hour ADVENTURE !!!Any biker in the group is WELCOME TO JOIN US!!!
As Joey Estagle was suggesting, perhaps we can take the Nautical Highway and take a trip through Batangas, Mindoro, Panay, Boracay, Negros, Ozamis, Cagayan de Oro then to Davao. Who knows, like I said... never a dull moment in this group!!!
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