A Pinoy Biker’s Philippine Rural Adventures

Talk about envy. Howie Severino’s side trip to Bohol is something that this blog hopes to accomplish in the future and he is there now doing what I could just dream of and fantasize about. But congratulations to him for doing so. Living one man’s biking would-be world in the flesh and enjoying it is the stuff that makes armchair biking a lonely endeavor. Bughaw, his trusty bike is very lucky indeed. (My bike is colored black, should I call it “Itim”?) And so are those colorful people they meet on the rough and rainy roads of Bohol. I would have loved to meet Professor Peter Pelegrino, a candidate on his way campaigning for the governorship of the island. I would tell the good professor that indeed, as his last name suggest, he is a pilgrim, looking for nirvana, that may or may not exist for him. Howie called him “Don Quixote”. I wouldn’t object, but I think this Don had more chances to make his visions come true than our Don Peter who is so poor that his version of “Rocinante”, Don Quixote’s skinny horse, is a rickety and rusted bike. What with poor brakes and horns that don’t toot at all. Rocinante’s tuberculous neighing could be heard a few inches further than the bike’s toot, if ever. Compare it with Bughaw, which was even fitted with a camera mount to document their trip and show us, first hand, how rough the roads are. The two bikes hit it off at once I’m sure.

I would have loved to be with Howie on the deck of the ship, and perhaps together we could have done some bunny hops, hoping not to slip on the somewhat wet deck and not be thrown overboard. Bikes are particularly useless in the sea, so I would have been really careful not to fall.

BIKE-asyon sa Bohol, airs Monday night, April 23, on GMA7, after Saksi