Caliraya Sports Week Part 3

Ok this is the end of this trilogy. I just wanted to write about the "Deaf Trail" in Caliraya. This dirt road starts from the Caliraya cement road and ends about 15km later at a school for the deaf. It's a moderate climb on a mountain bike (I'd call the Reverse Palace Ride a difficult climb) but it can really demoralize you if you're not psyched up to climb it.

I've done the climb before (before I tore my ACL) the last time we visited Bong's place in Cali. This time Nix and Elena decided to join us. Nix had tried climbing the trail a few weeks back and she turned back in the middle of the climb when Bong told her, "After the curve, there's another hill." He he he. That did it. I guess if you put it in your head the next curve will be the end of the trail, you'll get psyched out when you discover it ain't over yet.

Poor Elena was still struggling to find her rhythm on a mountain bike. I think this was just her 3rd real ride on an MTB. She would sometimes shift gears too early before the start of a hill and other times she would shift late. I'm convinced that a large part of the problem is that she's still not comfortable and therefore she tends to tire easily due to the tension. She complained later that hands and forearms felt really tired from gripping the handlebars so hard.Meanwhile Robin was determined to get a proper workout from the ride... so he went up and ahead of us.... a few minutes later he'd turn around and rocket down the hill.... then up again to pass us.

At the end of a particularly hard climb, we had to stop and Bong reassured Nix and Elena that this was the highest point of the climb. Ya right. Highest point?!? Mwa ha ha ha. 3 or 4 more hills later, Elena wasn't laughing anymore. She was out of breath and struggling. The bananas helped a bit. After some coaxing we finally made it to the gate of the school.... he he he, the politically incorrect joke of the moment: Bakit walang doorbell dito?

It was a great downhill ride and my KHS full suspension really performed nicely (the last time I was using a hard tail frame). At one point, I almost over-shot one of the steep left turn curves. I applied just enough braking force, locked the rear wheels for a split second, letting my rear wheel skid a bit and then ended the move with a subtle correction. I was a bit anxious on the way back because it was getting dark and I thought Elena wouldn't go down fast enough. She did great though, speeding downhill at a faster-than-expected pace. She said she just had to put more trust in her bike and that it wouldn't fall apart on the way down. By the time we hit the cement road it was dark already but we made our way back (about 4 km of cement road) to the Surf Kamp parking lot safely.

All-in-all, a great 4 day vacation. Although I must confess I felt very bad about not being able to properly meditate over the holiness of Holy Week. As if to drive home the point, while on the bangka on our way back to Manila, I realized to my chagrin that I had left my car keys in Bong's house. Luckily I had a spare key. Unluckily, we had to endure the noisy car alarm that went off as I tried to manually override it without my remote. To make matters worse, the traffic was terrible. We missed the 6:30 pm Easter Mass completely. Next year, I'll make an effort to at least hold a Stations of the Cross prayer with the kids. We did that in Anilao a few years ago and it really was a touching experience for us and the kids.