Bike ride: Tagaytay...

Tagaytay my mythical unicorn staring at me saying FUCK YOU while its horn glisten with discontent and failure. Honestly I do not like the place because it feels like any other city, polluted, congested, and expensive but because of its elevation and somewhat cold weather it attracts cyclist looking for that casual weekend challenge, or stupidity in my case.

Pic from the net

Last weekend weather in Cavite was like a child favorite basic crayon color Yellow which means RAIN and lots of it.

Normally when such information constantly being fed to you a sane person would just stay indoors do nothing for the rest of the day and wait for the deluge to past. On hamster land we are not having that, plus I already made a bold commitment on facebook that Sunday is the day of truth so I had to do it.
Carbo-loaded hard the following day, slept like hibernating bear the rest of the afternoon. Saturday went by with almost no rain but during dawn and the rest of Sunday morning the storm unloaded HARD.
Break on downpour happened around 9 am had around 6 hours to go before we travel back to Manila so I proceeded with my journey.
Route was Tanza junction/city hall going to inner road to intersection of Gen.Trias and then entering conchu road until reaching amadeo, and tagaytay boy that was easily said than done.

Entering conchu I was already pushing my lowest gear slowly grinding. The climbs are mild but it goes on for meters, to kilometers without a break in elevation. The rain (surprise) made it even worse as most of the road badly paved, on some parts small potholes covered with streaming rain water will catch you. Grip was also an issue as slick-ish tires of the bike was slipping on puddles, roots and leaves that littered the road. On two instances the rain came with a vengeance and I had no choice but to take shelter on one makeshift waiting shed, and some trees for 10-20 minutes killing may momentum. Still the climbs looked to end and I realized that I had way more road to travel and not much time left on my schedule. Plus I was arrogant/stupid to not properly haul food and enough water bad for a fat diabetic person.
Turned around and blasted my way down. It was the highlight of the day as for the first time in hours of pedaling my legs could finally rest while the bike magically took control  and rolled on its own until I reached main road.

Point of surrender

Trip back around the town of Bagtas I came upon a small roadside stall which was selling some Lambanog (local moonshine) got to chat with the dude about how wonderful cavite is and about his libation business.

Orange flavored lambanog

Really hate not making it to tagaytay. During the car trip back to Manila later that day I did not feel numb, nor did I feel frustrated, I wanted to surprisingly tear tagaytay a new one or blow my knees trying to, or its just the Lambanog talking?

Ernest "buy local products" Hamster

Hamster wheel: meet kesong puti, following the OLD Hamster blog

Keeps on spinning...
Previous "bike ride" I said my final goodbye to my old car. Now I introduce my new car.
Still on Mitsubishi camp I call "it" kesong puti (local white Carabao cheese) because it looks like one.
It does the job as city car, cheap to maintain, cheap to run, and cheap on fuel.
Kesong puti welcome to the family!

Kesong puti

Mirage G4-the one with the ass

OLD
Visitors of this site will notice that I had changed to a new format. The old one was getting tired and I feel that change is definitely needed. I am also reverting my write-ups to "casual style" on which I will not censor any cuss words. Although I will be limiting it to just the basic ones. NO special Tagalog or any other weird slang expressions.
Will also include other stuff in the content like video games from PC, console, and toy's because I have a kid and we both love toys.

NEW
Will not include ANY ride data from Strava. I use the app just to look at how I suck compared to my contemporaries so I won't be "embedding" that crap on my blog. You could follow me if you like HERE.
For monitoring ride and mapping I will be using and posting Endomondo data. It just shows the basic "all you need" to know information on my bicycle rides.

NO WAY
Political, religious and all TOPICS pertaining to...will not be showing its ugly head near my blog. I will also DELETE all comments pertaining to such.

Ernest Hamster

Bike ride: Exploring Cavite

Hello, after a messy crash on valentine's day I am now back riding my bicycles.

But first let me say my final farewell to my old car "boxy". We spent 17 years together through college, work, play. Boxy was the first vehicle that my son rode and it was the car that I used to carry my bikes.

Boxy was there through the good and bad times sadly the body rotted by rust so instead of blowing our budget for costly repairs we decided to just sell the car and buy a new one.

Goodbye friend

Last weekend got to ride my folding bike around neighboring towns of Tanza cavite. My wife purchased property on tanza, during the weekends and holidays we leave shitty city life for bundoks a mere 36 km away from Manila.
Tanza a wonderful place with rich Christian heritage (old churches) and beaches a couple of kilometers away from our place. Most are situated inside towns so you have to rely on satellite map based applications on your mobile phones to find them or just go old school and look at the road signs littered along the road. Beaches facilities and rates differ from town to town but they all share the same coastline. Going further south you end up on mountain road "Nasugbu-ternate highway" to Batangas which also has a ton of beaches.

This was the second time I got to go around the same route. Couple of weeks ago I used my newly resurrected Beater SS (single speed) which was fun but very wrong (52-24 gearing). Antero soriano highway (NAIC highway) hilly until you reach NAIC junction, coming from the junction you have a choice of going to Indang, General Trias, or Maragondon-ternate.

Folding bike 10 speed drive train got fucked so now its sporting the stocks bits (Shimano 6 speed, 14-24, grip-shift). Said it before that the stockers are nice piece of drive train with only limited range and weight as negative.
6 speed fine the 52 km Sunday ride along NAIC and parts of maragondon was easy on the knees although I did not push hard anywhere.

Goal for Sunday ride was Maragondon Bonifacio shrine had a vague idea where it is located. According to googlemaps it is just past the maragondon river-bridge, the 2nd street to be specific. Couple of kilometers from entering the st. you will end up on a junction with a waiting shed in the middle "donated by korean missionaries" at this point turn right on dirt-rough road, going straight be cautious on climbs as trucks from the nearby quarry share the same road. A mountain bike right now starting to sound GREAT as the 20' inch almost slick bike tires would slip on muddy road when your giving it gas. Shifted on lowest gear and slowly spun to avoid blowing it on climbs, mud-ruts and I do not want to mangle another RD. At the end of muddy road you will see two paths a narrow paved one straight from the main road, and rocky, mud filed one on the left going downhill. Take the one on the left and proceed down until you reach the river, cross the bridge and climb the rock filled road until you reach the farm gate on the right. When I arrived at the gate it was close with just a chain casually keeping cows from wandering outside, asked a couple of locals swimming at the river where the shrine was and they told me to enter the gate and go follow the path. Entering the place felt like trespassing on some haciendero property. Couple of meters from the gate there was mud so opted to pass by the field of grass with lots of cow-pies, and curious cows looking at this idiot with a folding bike and camera phone. The path reminded me of La mesa's ecopark fire road, it was surrounded with trees which is quite relaxing. Upon traversing the fire road you will encounter a makeshift bamboo gate which is cleverly constructed, couple of meters ahead you will end up on a paved road with horses. Climb the road until you reach a fork at this point you should be able to see the shrine at the right.

Environmental/entrance fee is P20 but during my Sunday visit it was closed. No dice but for couple of hours exploring cavite and doing it on the wrong bike it was all worth it.

Next ride: Tagaytay

Ernest Hamster