Coverage by The Visayan Daily Star

This article was released on September 26 from Bacolod City, Philippines. Special thanks to Alex Pal, author of the article!

Dumaguete Connection with Alex Pal

Biking for Life

It's not only because I have some difficulty walking these days (signs of arthritis?) but the constant morning rains (and a few other excuses) had effectively gotten me away from mountain biking for a good three to four weeks. But last Sunday, Irma and I had to go biking come hell or high water. It was the day the Bike for Life came to town.

Bike for Life is a project that aims to raise funds for cancer patients. The concept is that bikers will pedal from Manila to Davao and sponsors will donate funds based on the total distance covered by the cycling caravan. For every place they visit, local bikers will join them and bike with them for the last 10 kilometers or so in order to help drum up awareness of the project, as well as the Big C. This was the sixth leg of the Bike for Life 2007.

Our group, which until now is nameless (we've been trying to crack our brains for a good name), joined the scores of local bikers who welcomed the Bike for Life caravan. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were over 100 mountain bikers from Dumaguete who heeded the call. I've never seen that many mountain bikes gathered in one place in Dumaguete. As soon as we met up with Kevin Zerna, Jasper Maypa, Renclar Jadloc, Cobbie and Dessa Palm, Karl Villarmea, and Dale Law at the Provincial Nursery, after 1 pm, we rode out to Ajong, Sibulan, the site of Jo's Inato by the sea, a good 12 kilometers north of Dumaguete, where we would join the B4L caravan.

Dale came in a solo bike. We missed the chance of having two tandem bikes join us that day. Rosita Law was almost convinced by hubby Dale to come along (they ride a tandem bike everywhere they go). And the other tandem bikers, Terry and Maria Havraneck, must not have been informed of the activity. The ride to Ajong was reminiscent of our road biking tour of Siquijor island last year. For one, it was the first time we biked together (minus Glenn Fernandez who had since immigrated with his family to the cold city of Calgary, Canada) in the blazing afternoon sun.

There must have been 30 or so bikers who had come along with the Bike for Life caravan from Manila. it was kind of difficult to tell who from what (everyone was in colorful jerseys). All of us, for that brief moment, were united by our common cause--we were biking against cancer.

We rode back to Dumaguete, passing through some busy thoroughfares, eventually ending at the Silliman Hall where a cancer forum followed.

All bikers also posed for a group photo with the historic Silliman Hall in the background. The photo, which was graciously emailed to me by Carmela Serina, one of the B4L organizers, will definitely make another interesting collection to our photos at our favorite painitan of Deling and Saning Villegas at the Valencia Public Market.*