I already had this urge to go on a spin on my bikes again so I tidied them over during the weekend. Months of non-use have caused dust to gather on the frames, and the tires have gone flat. I spent half of Sunday morning cleaning the bikes, giving them a little buffing, and inflating the tires. Within the week, I told myself, I’m putting in a short ride.

And then I saw those bike photos.

At 3:00 in the afternoon, I put on my cycling shorts and shirt, my trusty old Shimano cycling shoes, and was pedalling off on an easy gear on my old Colnago Dream Lux.

A sunny afternoon is always good for a short spin around town, and that’s what I had out there today. There were rainclouds, but I didn’t expect a downpour soon. But it came. Just before I reached the end of the traffic island where I was supposed to make a turn, big heavy drops of cold rain pelted me and my bike.

I felt a familiar sense of excitement, something I haven’t felt for a while. I weaved my way through the vehicle traffic, carefully picking a line between puddles. I felt the cold wind brushing against my wet skin. I heard it buzz against my ear as I picked up speed, a sound that was always music to my ear. I might need an extra dose of vitamin C tonight, I thought, but that’s not much of a bother in exchange for the thrill I was getting from this ride. I was wearing a smile as I made my way back home.

The ride was short – 26 minutes over a little more than 7 kilometers. But it wasn’t about the distance today. It was about the feeling. I was a child at play again, riding my bike under the sun in the cold rain.

Seeing  President Benigno Aquino III riding a bike and pedaling around the palace grounds may very well be a morale booster for Philippine cycling.

A Philippine Daily Inquirer news story reports a member of Congress expressing hope that the President’s decision to take up cycling “would enliven ordinary Filipinos of all ages to ride a bicycle for transport, recreation, or for sport.”

“It would be great if more Filipinos are drawn into cycling. It is an excellent way to relax, have fun and stay in shape,” LPG Marketers’ Association (LPGMA) Party List Representative Arnel Ty is quoted in the report as saying.

“We are also very optimistic that the President’s special regard for cycling will translate into increased government support for the sport and our cycling athletes,” Ty, a key backer of cycling, also said.

Ty believes that the Philippines is capable of  repeating, or better yet surpassing their “world-class achievements between 2003 and 2007.”

Philippine cyclists had a combined harvest of 25 gold, silver, and bronze medals in the 2003, 2005, and 2007 Southeast Asian Games. The national riders however did dismally in the 2009 SEA Games in Vientiane, Laos, failing to bring home any medal.

Neither did the national riders do well in the 2010 Asian Games in Ghangzhou, China. Not only did they fail to bring home any medal. They also failed to establish any new national records. The last time a Filipino cyclist won an Asiad medal—a bronze—was in 1998.

bisikleta.ph: Pinoy Bike Blog also sees the President’s decision to take up cycling as good news which could even become better.

It’s good PR for the sport, may encourage others to try cycling, bringing more people to bike shops and riding on the trails. And there’s more, says the bisikleta.ph post.

It has a potential to become better if he gets hooked on it. He may decide, for example, to have a bike to Malacanan day at least once a week. It’s going to be hell for his security detail, but through this example, he can help the Filipino people realize the beauty of the bike as a cheap and alternative means of transportation. And maybe make people in the government and private sectors come up with schemes to promote this. And maybe we’ll have bike lanes — to take us to school, work, and everywhere else. Maybe we’ll get parking facilities. Maybe we’ll see shower and locker room facilities.

Hopefully we will.

In his article Really Done, Strickland says he believes that the seven-time TdF champion’s retirement this year is “final and irrevocable.” He explains:

Armstrong found what he was seeking with his comeback. In a searching and surprisingly intimate conversation we had for my book, Tour de Lance, a chronicle of his return to the sport last year, Armstrong told me that he felt he’d lost something important during his retirement.

“I had spent basically three years not exercising much,” he told me. “On a regular basis but very little — I went from five or six hours a day down to 30 minutes a day. And I wasn’t happy with that lifestyle. My personal life was a little rocky. My business dealings became very serious and almost all of them became very successful. With that came the stress and the responsibility of managing a lot more money I had than when I retired and a lot more money than I damn sure ever thought I’d have. And the foundation continued to grow and grow and grow, and I put myself out there more from a cancer advocacy standpoint — not wearing a bike jersey and saying a few words about cancer support, but wearing a suit and a tie and testifying on Capitol Hill.

“My life — keep in mind for 25 years — had been for four, five, six hours I’m riding a bike. Cycling, it’s one of those sports you can do eight hours a day. You’re going to be tired at the end, but if you did an eight-hour run you wouldn’t run again for a week. I think people are better, smarter, more present and more patient when they’ve done some type of exercise — that goes for an eight-year-old and a 68-year-old — and I need more, perhaps more than most people, to get the results I want. Bike racing is the thing that provides me with the most balance.”

Many agree that this year’s Tour marks the end of an era which saw Lance thoroughly dominate the world’s premiere cycling event. For us who have looked up to and idolized Lance all this time, it’s a sad reality. Yet, for Lance – as Strickland says –  it may as well be rediscovering what he has lost sight of for a while.

Both groups have agreed to conduct joint tryouts for the formation of the national team for the Guangzhou Asian Games in November. Officials of the two factions said the move initiated by the Philippine Olympic Committee could be a breakthrough towards ending their three-year animosity.

In a report by Eddie Alinea at PhilBoxing.com, lawyer and two-time tour of Luzon champion Cornelio Padilla, secretary general of the Tagaytay City Mayor Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino faction was quoted as saying “It’s a good start.”

The 1966 and 1967 Tour champion and the only Filipino rider to finish an Olympic Games road race was also reported as saying it is “very possible” that the warring factions would agree to a permanent truce that will lead to the resolution of the leadership controversy.

Armando Bautista, Padilla’s counterpart in the Mikee Romero-led faction, was meanwhile reported as saying “the joint tryouts… opened the avenue for us to at least agree on a common goal, that is to form the strongest possible team for the Asiad.”

The conflict between the two groups has caused embarrassment to the country in the international arena a number of times. In last year’s Southeast Asian Games in Laos, the entire national team was barred from participation due to the riders’ lack of licenses from the governing Union Cycliste Internationale.

The UCI recognizes Tolentino’s group, but the POC, going against its own charter which mandates that only national sports associations recognized by its International Sports Federation should qualify to be a member of the POC family, recognized instead the group of Romero.

The tryouts start July 9 and 10 with  the road events – mass start and individual time trial –  at the Subic Bay circuit. The mountain bike events consisting of downhill and cross country races will follow on July 11.

Track events which include the 1-km ITT, 4-km individual pursuit, Olympic sprint for men and women and keirin and 50-km. point race for men will be held July 12 and 13 at the Amoranto Velodrome in Quezon City.

Philippine cycling fans will surely be looking forward to a better organized and better prepared national team that will carry the country’s flag high in the Guangzhou Asian Games.

Alejandro Valverde had earlier won the Volta a Catalunya, Spain’s second most popular bike race, in May. His victory in this year’s Vuelta caps a campaign in this premiere Spanish bike race which saw him finish at third place in his second Vuelta in 2003, fourth in 2004, second in 2006 and fifth last year.

Valverde becomes the third Spanish rider to win a Grand Tour in the past two years. Alberto Contador, who did not join this year’s Vuelta, took the top podium spot in the 2009 Tour de France in July. Contador also won the 2008 Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana. Their countryman Carlos Sastre won the 2008 Tour de France.

Valverde rode this year’s Vuelta under the shadow of suspicions of drug use. He has been linked by some sources to the Operación Puerto, a blood-doping affair which erupted in 2006. While he has not tested positive, he is still suffering the fallout from those allegations.

Early this year, the Italian National Olympic Committee reportedly linked DNA samples taken from Valverde during a rest day in Italy of the 2008 Tour de France to blood seized in the Operación Puerto investigation.Valverde maintained his innocence and questioned the Italians’ jurisdiction over this case, but was still suspened in May 2009 by the Italian Olympic Committee from competition in Italy for 2 years. This prevented him from joining the 2009 Tour de France which passed briefly through Italy.

Valverde will compete for the world champion’s rainbow jersey at the world road race championships next Sunday. He has finished second in this event twice, in 2003 and 2005, and was third overall in 2006. Whether or not he does like he did in the “Vuelta” is something worth watching for us cycling fans.

Bicycling.com has video highlights from the 2009 Vuelta for us who missed the race.

photo from corynrivera.com

Coryn Rivera continues to show American cycling fans just what she can do on two wheels.

Her latest victory, considered the biggest win in her young cycling career, is topping stage five of the Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend, Oregon. How big is her win? She just outsprinted five-time US national criterium champion Tina Pic and Australian Kristy Broun.

In her article on First Edition Cycling News at cyclingnews.com, Kirsten Robbins writes:

Coryn, from California, is a 23-time US junior national champion in a multitude of disciplines; road, time trial, track and cyclo-cross. She began racing when she was six years old, encouraged by her father, Wally, and mother, Lina, both Filipinos, who started her riding tandem with them, together, until she was big enough to rider her own bike.

Robbins also quotes Coryn thus:

“Cycling, to me, isn’t a sport, it isn’t a hobby, it isn’t an interest. Cycling, to me, is a passion… And where passion comes from, there is no pain, there is no suffering, but only the love of pain and suffering. And a passion is something you never quit, you never forget, and something you will always love. A passion is forever, cycling is forever.”

Coryn will be part of the US national team that will compete in the junior world championships time trial and road race on August 7-9 in Moscow, Russia.

Will she ever don the colors of her parents’ native land in an international cycling competition? Perhaps that is a question for local cycling authorities to think seriously about.

Not at third place, though, and without the yellow jersey on his back.

This year’s Tour saw a different Lance Armstrong. It was a Lance Armstrong who suffered in the mountains, a Lance Armstrong who was left behind by GC contenders a dozen or so years his junior when they stepped on the gas in the crucial climbs.

The Lance Armstrong at this year’s Tour was not as sharp as he was before, but definitely far from being  just a shadow of the man who dominated cycling’s biggest event for seven straight years.

At 37, tired and hurting, he was still able to hold on to a podium spot at the end of the day at Champs-Elysees in Paris, yielding only to Alberto Contador, 27, and Andy Schleck, 24, undoubtedly a testament to the character of the man who took cancer by the horns and beat it.

John Leicester, a sports columnist for the Associated Press, summarizes the Tour for Lance in his article Armstrong more human in third place in these words:

He couldn’t win the race, but he won hearts and new ears in France and elsewhere for his other big passion outside of cycling—the fight against cancer.

He and the Tour are both better off for it.

On the final climb to the finish of Stage 15 of the 96th Tour de France yesterday, Lance Armstrong was left on the slopes of Verbier along with other key GC contenders when his Astana teammate Alberto Contador stepped on the gas.

Contador went on to win the stage, grab the maillot jaune and establish his position on top of the GC with a 1’37″ lead on the second-placed Lance, who finished the stage in ninth.

What does Lance have to say about that?

Daily Peloton quotes him:

“It was as hard as I thought it was going to be and a lot harder than Andorra. It’s been four years since I’ve done something like that and I was unsure. I felt good leading up to it but that high end stuff is what I’m missing.”

“I’d give myself a B-minus I guess. A day like this really shows who is the best and I wasn’t on par with what’s
required to win the Tour.

So is it over for the seven-time TdF champion?

Not quite, it seems, if you ask Chris Carmichael, Lance’s coach for 20 years.

“Some people may be quick to write off Armstrong because he didn’t display the same dominant climbing power he had a few years ago. I think it’s a little premature for that kind of talk. There’s no doubt today could have gone better, but it was far from a disaster,” he writes in his column on Bicycling.com‘s TdF section.

“Tomorrow is the Tour de France’s second rest day, and that is followed by more stages in the Alps. I expect Lance to be a factor in those stages, especially in an effort to take time out of riders like Carlos Sastre, Bradley Wiggins, and Andy Schleck before the penultimate stage to Mont Ventoux. It may have looked today like Contador is unstoppable in the mountains, but Lance knows from experience that for the rider in the yellow jersey, opening up a bigger lead is always worth the effort,” he adds.

Lance is a sentimental favorite, for me and perhaps others who have followed the man’s career, found inspiration in his successful fight against cancer and in his seven-time dominance of the Tour de France. He wasn’t the same Lance at Verbier, yes, but in the end he still managed to regain his second place position in the GC with a 1’46″ advantage on third-placed Bradley Wiggins of Garmin-Slipstream. That somehow shows the man’s character and ability.

Would he prove Carmichael’s words true? I guess we’ll have to wait, and see.

Honestly, though, I hope he does.

I have been off the saddle for a month or so, and a text message to the information officer of the City Government of Kidapawan about my new temporary contact number was answered with an invitation to join a mountain bike ride with a group made mostly of city government workers.

The route was up to Barangay Ilomavis, a seemingly endless climbing of almost 15 kilometers, then down to Balabag, Meohao, Palera Perez and Manongol passing through challenging dirt roads lined by banana, rubber and fruit farms which is a common sight hereabouts.

The message said we had to assemble before 6:00 am in front of the City Hall. I was still busy sending some e-mails at 6:00, and was considering just catching up with the group somewhere on the way up to ilomavis. But a text message came asking where we are. That means they haven’t jumped off yet and are still waiting for whoever has been invited who wasn’t at the assembly area yet, like me.

I left the house at 6:30, pumped some air into my tires at a vulcanizing shop, and headed for the city plaza hoping to still find them at the assembly area. They were still there, waiting not only for me. It was already 7:00 when we rolled off.

I took my position at the back of the group, a usual practice when I join group rides. I felt good with the pace and just kept a steady cadence as we started the ascent. After about 8 kilometers on pavement we hit the rocky dirt road going to Ilomavis. The boys of Biking Coy, mostly 10 to 15 years younger than me, were riding well. I was riding good myself, though not as good as I wanted to. Perhaps it was the lack of saddle time. Still I was having a fine time riding with the boys of Biking Coy.

I didn’t finish the route, though. Duty called and I had to head home ahead of the group. But the boys of Biking Coy will have other rides, and I hope to be with them again.