The 2005 Suarez Cup

Two weekends ago, almost 90 cyclists, supporters and race officials went to the beautiful island of Leyte to join the second edition of the Suarez Cup. Somebody up there must have favored the SC-05 when the rains stayed away that weekend. The 2-day affair started with a 32km ITT (Hilongos-Inopacan-Hilongos) and a 134km road race that took the cyclists from Hilongos, Maasin, Padre Burgos, Tomas Oppus, Bontoc, Bato and back to Hilongos. Leading the Cebu contingent were cycling/triathlon/adventure racing patron Ames Urgel of team KALIT and Atty. Jong Sepulveda of CEBU CYCLING.

HONEST M/V KINSWEL CREW

The race seemed to be over before it took off when Roy Zapata, the event organizer, "lost" his bag that contained cash for the prizes and his laptap that contained all race documents less than 18 hours before the ITT! Thanks to the honest KINSWEL crew, led by Capt Marcos Tagalog and Officer Remedio Quimsing (who found the "precious" bag), the SC-05 was a go! I hope that the owners of KINSWEL will recognize the honesty of his men.

I have written here last summer that Leyte is the perfect place for bike training and racing. And that includes Ormoc (Terry Larrazabal Bike Festival) and Maasin. If the US Cycling Federation has Colorado as their training center then our cycling officials should consider making the province of Leyte as the RP training center. Consider this- traffic is almost non-existent, roads are well paved as well as it is wide, has an existing highway that connects Luzon and Mindanao and it's not lacking in mountains. More importantly, the people are nice, warm and friendly, not city-friendly but probinsya-friendly.

THE RACE

The racing was absolutely a blast! I ended up 8th in the B category ITT with Ben Fabroa, BIKEHUB's mechanic, taking the top honors in the race of truth. Jaybop Pagnanawon, son of 1986 Marlboro Tour champion Rolando, and Jonas Lazarte, took the cat A and C respectively. In the road race, Tour vet Ginging Villaver, newcomer Junjun Canasa and Jonas Gorgonio of Maasin won the cat A, B, and C respectively. Overall winners took home cash prizes and handsome Italian made trophies. In the general classification, Villaver took cat A, CIT teacher Neil Duhaylungsod beat Fabroa in cat B and Jonas Tan, a triathlete from Baybay, won the Cat C. The race was superbly officiated by the Reclamation Cycling Club crew led by Mark Ylanan. According to Roy, the 2006 edition will be moved to May to avoid the typhoon season.

2005 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2005 World Championships has lately been devoid of legit stars. Consider this-Aussie Michael Rogers has been crowned as the Time Trial World Champion last Friday in Madrid, Spain for the third consecutive time, a WC record. But if you compared Rogers TT record in the Tour de France with Lance Armstrong's, it looks so pedestrian. In last July's Tour de France, he came in 30th, 5'18" in the 55km ITT and 45th in the 19km ITT, coming in @1'45". In the 2004 TdF, he was 50th in the 55km ITT, @7'28" and in the TT to Alp d'Huez, he was 2'34" back at 12th place.

For the past few years, some of the big names of pro cycling have been snubbing the WC after it was moved to September from August. The reason being that the WC's are scheduled very late in the season. I think the problem is with the governing body, the UCI, for putting up so many races from January to October to the detriment of the health of the cyclist. No wonder doping is ever present!