This past week was a bit of a roller coaster, emotionally. For the most of it, I was in Boracay to shoot a residential development. That’s great and awful. Let’s do great first: It was great because it paid well enough, and I’ve come to realize that I love Boracay unironically.

My feelings for Boracay have gone full circle. I loved going there while in college and even after college. Then it got so crowded, commercialized and dirty that I avoided it, decided to grow up and see other places. Then I grew up some more, been to other places, and I’ve come back to it with simplified feelings: I just love this best beach in the world.

But it’s awful because, to get there, I have to ride in a small plane and land on a very short tarmac. It was especially horrible because the weather has been bad and there’s nothing like a bumpy ride in a small airplane to get me to ponder about mortality, fate and the general state of my life. Have I really lived? HAVE I?

Anyway, I made it there, and obviously, I made it home. I put in a couple of honest day’s work, felt I really delivered on a job, had some really good meals, and met some really nice and interesting people. I got to hangout with my brother (who I got to help me out on this gig) as a boon.

Traveling is also an effective reminder of how old I’ve become. As much as I enjoy the novelty of almost every experience in any new place, I easily get homesick. I miss my routines, my bed, and my bikes.

I got back from Boracay yesterday and today I couldn’t wait to hop on a bike and stretch my legs. I met up with my buddy Hester and just spun around. Biking with Hester is great. He’s a family man and a dad to two very young, cute daughters, and even if we’re high school buddies, it helps to have someone slightly ahead in terms of life experiences to just talk to and bounce my idiotic single guy preconceptions off.

In cycling terms, he’s the dude ahead of you, carving a line, taking on the wind, being strong and smart about it. (I know Hester reads this tumblr, he can buy me a drink later.)

Anyway, highs, lows, this week was kind of cool.

Often, during a ride that’s tough, that I had to wake up early for, that had me bonking 20 kilometers from home, I’d think that, shitmothereff, this will be my last ride for awhile. I’m not going to think of bikes and biking for some time. I should be wrapping my head around work, time with loved ones, and all other things important.

Then I get home, cool down on an easy chair, kick off my shoes, peel off my sweaty gear, and think, when and where are we riding next?

(photo by Jun Uy)

These two cover shoots came out a month ago, I just found out. Styled by Tata Mapa. Shot for Hinge Inquirer. If you see it in the bookstores, buy it!

Good Housekeeping, December 2012 issue.

My cover photo for Good Housekeeping Philippines’ December issue.

Styling by Cleone Baradas, recipe by Roselle Miranda, art direction by Kara Miranda Ballesteros.

Just so you all know I still take pictures for a living between bike rides. Haha.

my Sunday ride

Near where I live, across EDSA, is an exclusive, gated subdivision where the country’s tycoons, CEOs and politicians live. It’s also where, as of late, in the absence of long, group rides, I’ve been doing my short, solo Sunday rides.

I have a high school/bike buddy who lives there and because I am, as Italian gangsters say, “connected,” I have a car pass that gets me into this nice village, and allows me to bike on their nice, wide, tree-lined streets. On certain days of the week, at certain times of the day, traffic is slow, and all you have to deal with are the annoying road humps.

I’ll take it. I’ve taken so much of it that I’ve created a bunch of Strava segments in this village. (There’s a 4.5km loop, a 2.5km loop and a gentle 600 meter “climb.”) It can get a bit mind-numbing, the number of laps I have to do around the subdivision, just to get some kilometers on my legs, but it’s safe, the homes are nice to look at, and it will do.

I’m not the only guy on a bike on this route. Especially on Sundays, it’s a bit of a mix. There’s the usual executive-class, Lycra-clad jock on this TT bike (ugh), some helmetless, expat country manager on his $10,000 all-carbon ride, a retro eccentric on his steel Pinarello, and the random politician on his $14,000 custom ti*. A bunch of them, including me, are in t-shirts, unclipped, on mountain bikes.

This afternoon, to make up for a week of bad legs, I had set my mind on attempting to crush my Strava PRs. The KOMs are totally beyond me, but the plan was to hunker down, suffer, and get some power on.

But the afternoon was just so nice. This late in the year, the air is cool, and the light, golden and pretty, filters through the leaves of all these old acacias and tamarind trees lined up along the streets. While I was trying to perfect my pedal stroke on a long downhill, I saw a religious procession and stopped to instagram this unfamiliar ritual of people bearing banners and statues, lighting candles at small altars set up by the househelp on the driveway of mansions.  While I was time trialing across a nice flat portion of the route, I noticed that I was casting a long shadow, and decided to stop and instagram that shit too. Families were out on whatever bike they kept in their garages for days like these. And a pretty, leggy, European girl in a nice, short outfit - thank you, tropical climate - was on her dutch commuter. Soon, I was off my bike, pretending to fiddle with my drivetrain, having a sip of water, but actually people-watching. Strava PRs be damned.

Eventually, I got back on, found some strength in my legs and tested them on a couple of quick laps. Nothing that broke personal records, but enough to think that, maybe next Sunday, I could.

*True story. I was going counter-clockwise on the 4.5km loop when, coming towards me was this middle-aged dude on a beautiful custom Ti Baum. He says hi, I say hi back and like any jerk on a bike, I surreptitiously check out his bike, saw what it was, and decided to chase him down and talk to him about it. Of course I couldn’t catch up and decided to turn around, go on my route, knowing for sure I’d run into him. True enough, a few minutes later, he’s coming down towards me again, I yell, NICE BAUM!, he yells back THANKS!, quickly turns around and chases me down easily. After introductions, we talk shop about custom bikes, bike fits and his beautiful Lightweight Wheels. A real nice guy. Later on, we peel away on our own routes, I let him and his Land Cruiser full of security men pass me first, and it takes me a few seconds to realize that this nice Baum dude I was talking to is a controversial congressman, son of a senator, who is planning to run for a Senate in the coming elections. Bikes make strange bikefellows.