Biking to Kaybiang Tunnel

It was a good start for The Pinoy Cyclist. I hope you all enjoyed my first post last week about my list of biking firsts. I had 80 views for the site and 20 views for my first post since it was posted. Allow me to sustain the momentum with this second post.

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One of the reasons why biking has experienced a renaissance in recent years is the millennial generation’s (which I am part of) appetite for travel and extreme adventure. Biking offers an opportunity to travel with minimal expense and with great effort on the cyclist. But the health benefits and the landscapes it affords are worth it. Millennial cyclists have since made it a point to visit some of the breathtaking destinations they can reach via bike.

Among the sought after biking destinations near Metro Manila is Kaybiang Tunnel on the border of Cavite and Batangas provinces, which is 67.8 kilometers away. The new tunnel, which opened in 2013 after four years of construction, is 300 meters long and is the longest subterranean tunnel in the country.

To reach the tunnel from Manila, cyclists can bike through Roxas Boulevard and Quirino Avenue until they reach Cavite. Once in the province, cyclists can take the Aguinaldo Highway, Tirona Highway, Antero Soriano Highway, Governor's Drive and the Ternate-Nasugbu Highway to reach the tunnel.

With Patrick on the part of the road where he broke his chain

THE CHALLENGE

I accepted the challenge of biking to Kaybiang Tunnel from my friend and former co-worker Patrick Jhiel Ilog from Naic, Cavite. We went there on January 3, 2015, making it was my first long-distance ride of that year and my most difficult ride so far.

Since I was coming from Bacoor, I took a different route from what I listed above, through the narrow streets of Imus City until I reached Advincula Road that connects to the Antero Soriano Highway. I was annoyed by the pockmarked condition of Carsadang Bago in Imus, which was being drilled for Maynilad's pipe-laying project at that time. I was relieved to finally reach the main highway after that.

Along Soriano Highway are the towns of Kawit, Novelete, Rosario, Tanza and Naic, as well as General Trias City. The highway has four, wide, cemented lanes along the section from Kawit up to Barangay Halayhay in Tanza. After that, it narrows to just two lanes up until its junction with Governor's Drive in Naic, making biking in that portion scarier because of the speeding minibuses that ply the road. I had to stop and move to the grassy shoulder every time I hear a minibus behind.

This section also has plenty of gravel and broken glass that could puncture your tires, which I actually experienced when I was already near Naic after a piece of staple wire got into my tires and tore a hole into my interior. I had to bring my bicycle to the vulcanizing shop after meeting up with Patrick.

The portion of Governor's Drive from Naic to Ternate was much better than the latter portion of Soriano Highway this part returns to a four-lane configuration. And biking with a companion seemed safer than biking alone. The road returns to a two-lane configuration in Ternate where the Ternate-Nasugbu Highway begins.

Posing for a photo at Kaybiang Tunnel.

MISHAPS

Patrick and I had lunch in a roadside carinderia in Ternate, just on the foot of Mount Palay-Palay (Pico de Loro), before hitting the road again. At the bend on the road just past Gapan River, we encountered our first major incline where Patrick, for some reason, broke his bicycle chain. It was a relatively new mountain bike so the breakage was surprising. He probably didn't have the right gear on when he assaulted the incline.

Patrick tried to find the missing link that broke from the chain in order to fix it with the tools he had but to no avail. We eventually placed his bike on a tricycle and brought it to the nearest bike shop, which was in neighboring Maragondon. It cost us an hour or two to have his bicycle fixed. By the time we began assaulting the trail to Kaybiang Tunnel again, it was past 1 p.m.

MORE PUSHING THAN BIKING

It was my most difficult bike ride experience given the steep mountainous topography of the area. Throughout much of the trail, Patrick and I pushed our bicycles and felt embarrassed every time a group of season cyclists in premium road bikes would pass by. The terrain, combined with the midday heat exhausted us. But we managed to get past the drop off point to Pico de Loro and the last store leading to Kaybiang Tunnel. After that, it was smooth biking all throughout as we rode the downhill to the tunnel.

The tunnel was quite the tourist attraction for cyclists and motorcyclists when we arrived. There were plenty of people taking pictures and selling different wares. The tunnel itself was big although I thought it would be longer. I marvelled at the Filipino engineering that went through building the tunnel. I made sure I didn't miss my chance to take a photo of this destination, which literally took me sweat and bone to reach.

The view where Cavite, Carabao Island, 
Corregidor and Bataan line up.

After the tunnel, Patrick and I biked further down the road to get a view of Patungan Cove, one of Nasugbu's several coves. There was a part of the road where there is a lineup view of Carabao Island, Corregidor Island and Bataan, which was breathtaking. Patungan Cove itself is majestic with its quaint fishing village and mountains. It's just sad that the fishing village is being evicted by a real estate company to give way to a condo-resort project.

On the way back, Patrick and I decided that we've had enough bike pushing for one day. We hired a tricycle where we placed our bikes and went back to Naic. I was so tired from the ordeal that I took the bus home, with my bike stashed in the bus undercarriage.

Biking to Kaybiang Tunnel remains an unforgettable biking experience for me. It proved that I can muster the energy and endurance to bike such distance and elevation. I would like to return to Kaybiang in the coming years and bike the entire distance back and forth.

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First pedals

My hybrid bicycle Red on the day I bought him in 2014.

Let's talk about firsts, being that this is my first blog post as The Pinoy Cyclist.

1. I first learned how to bike in 1998. At that time, I was in fifth grade. There was a girl who lived next door to us and went to the same school with me. She was in fourth grade at that time. One summer day, her mother bought her a new bike. It was shiny little BMX that she showed off to us and which I was so envious of. She would pass by our house as I was playing my toy soldiers in our garden and each time, I would follow her with my eyes as she whizzed along the street on her bike. One day, as she was showing off her bike, I asked if I can carry a person on the back of the bike (angkas in Filipino). She touted her ability and let me hitch. One thing led to another and soon I was asking her if she could teach me how to bike. We got all sorts of bruises as she taught me how to balance the two wheels while pedalling. She was a good teacher for her age. And I learned quickly. Eventually, I would drop by her house to borrow her bike for quick errands. She still lives next door, but she's married now and has kids. We never really gotten close after that because her family is of a different religion.

2. I got my first bicycle in 1999. Like the girl next door, my bike was a BMX with blue rubber handles, a blue seat, a shiny chrome frame and colorful spoke beads that slid up and down with every turn of the wheels. My mother gave it as a present after my graduation from elementary school during the summer of that year. And since I was going to high school where my mom taught, that meant biking to the village next to ours to get to school, which was around four kilometers or a 20-minute bike ride from our house. I used that bike not just to get to school but to visit classmates' homes for group projects or activities. That was my first venture into exploring the ins and outs of our town. However, the following year, pedal problems led to the BMX being placed out of service and she was in the backyard for a long time until her chrome eventually rusted, rendering her unfit for service. She was sold for scrap when I was in college.

3. I got my first hybrid bike in 2007. At that time, I just graduated from college with an Education degree and had been accepted for a teaching position at the private school where I studied took up elementary studies. It was at least a kilometer from our house so I thought of getting a bike to commute to and from work. It was smooth sailing from the beginning as biking enabled me to get to work in just 15 minutes. But with the amount of paperwork I am bringing to and from work, it wasn't practical to commute using the bike. Moreover, when the monsoon rains started, it wasn't easy commuting in bike with my rain gear. Eventually, the bike was reduced to being used for errands and touring on the weekends. When I transferred to a different school in 2010, it completely got neglected and I decided to donate the bicycle to the foreman who helped in constructing our new house that year.

4. I first bought my bike Red in 2014. It was the year I began my career as a feature writer for a national newspaper. I would commute from our house in Cavite to my workplace in the Port Area of Manila everyday. With the hellish metro traffic and the scarcity of UV Express vans that take suburban commuters to Manila, my daily commute would take me around two to three hours the most. It was during these long commutes that I noticed the construction workers that ply Manila's streets daily to get to the different building projects that have sprouted in the city. At that time, there was also a bike boom, with cycling become more and more popular once more, especially on weekends. I would see young and old professionals on their road and mountain bikes along Roxas Boulevard. Single, stressed out, slightly overweight and still reeling from my first romantic relationship, I decided to go back to biking. I was also slightly inspired by my friend Cecil De Guzman who used to bike from her home in Las Piñas to her workplace in Muntinlupa. I bought Red at a local bike store for ₱4,000 complete with a helmet and a pair of gloves on November 8, 2014. That purchase eventually led to the start of my solo bike tours.

A map of my first long-distance bike ride.

5. I had my first solo long-distance bike ride in Las Piñas in 2014. It was a 22.60-kilometer bike ride from my home in Cavite, through the Molino Dam between the province and Las Piñas, and then BF Resort Village and back to our home. I completed it in just two and half hours, which I was able to track using the MapMyRide application on my Android phone. That route eventually became a regular route for me as it was the most accessible to my place and has very little disruptive traffic and obstructions. After that ride, I found myself itching for the pedal every weekend, thinking of and mapping out new destinations and going on farther journeys.

These are just some of the first pedals that I am willing to disclose. You'll read more of these first pedals in my next blog posts as The Pinoy Cyclist.

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