Larga!!!

One thing I used to look for in a neighborhood was a basketball court. It's only now that I stay on the lookout for a group of cyclists, and although I'm looking for it now there is very little that I can say about it because outside of the bay area in Manila cycling remains unpopular in the Philippines.

What makes a sporting event popular? Maybe not if you open it on a weekday. As is the case of this year's Padyak Pinoy tour. Today, Thursday, at the bay area in Manila, the tour is scheduled to hit the road. The route seems impressive and very much makes my feet itch. When the peloton kicks off only the mediamen and the tour organizer probably will know what has happened in the following stages, except of course to the participants and those in the circle. It's that something that stays with the person.

I hardly know why the sport is unpopular, and let us not try to examine it and spoil the magic of the tour. Yes, the Tour is magical if you ask me. I only follow it in the newspapers, but the hard work and endurance of Arnel Quirimit and Jun Ricafort at the past Padyak Pinoy tours and its predecessors, the Tour Pilipinas and the Marlboro Tour, are incredible. It's hard to explain, but it was something edifying.