A Pinoy Biker’s Philippine Rural Adventures

Another biker overtook me as I was on my way home last Thursday (actually Friday morning already as it was past 1 am).  Since it was the first time that I saw this biker on my route at that hour, I struggled to catch up with him and chat a bit.  I guess he was expecting me to do that as he slowed down his pace.

He told me he was a newspaper vendor during the day, using his bike to distribute them and a drummer for a band at night.  In fact he just came from a gig in one of the spots in Eastwood (a popular hangout place in Quezon City).  He was on the way home to Novaliches, a good five or so kilometers away from where we were.

For that short while we were biking and chatting,  he shared with me some thoughts about biking to work.  He said that what he was able to save on transportation fare, he bought parts for his bike and he proudly indicated to me the high end parts that he has fitted his bike.  According to him, he started biking because of his brother who also sold newspapers using his road bike.

I also shared with him my reasons for biking and how I got started.  I also took the opportunity to tell him about the Firefly brigade and that this year is the Tour of the Firefly’s 10th year and so we are going nationwide.

But one thing that stood out of our conversation is that we realized that with our bikes, we can go anywhere with just .50 cents on our pocket and not worry about anything else.  We don’t need to buy gasoline or oil for our engines, just water (which we can get practically free anywhere) and a little food (of course for short journeys only).   Traffic doesn’t affect us, or if it was really heavy and not even the bike could fit between cars, we could just hoist it over our heads and be through the worst traffic jams.  I have actually done this once, in an intersection where there was no traffic light.  Not one of the drivers would give in or allow the other drivers to pass so we were all stuck there.  But I only had to carry my bike on my shoulders and passed through all the cars.  One motorcycle driver shouted to me that he wished he could do the same with his ride. I like to think that as I was entering the premises of our office, they were still there trying to figure out how to extricate themselves out of that darned traffic.