Iron Butt Indeed! Pt 1
It was one hell of a ride!
12 midnight was the set time of departure on November 3, 2005. Gearing up that evening was a task. The prospect of long ride was daunting enough, but to do half of it in the dark made me pause and question the wisdom of what we were doing.
Just about ready to take off from Ortigas.
18 brave souls joined this ride. Namely:
- Migs Oca
- John Boy Oca
- Clifford Certeza
- John Certeza
- Nani Juarez
- Al Juarez
- Simon Barcelon
- Pal Punla
- Yeyey Yatco
- Phil Naval
- Reggie Arceo
- Ding Fernando
- Tony Fernando
- Teddy Tong
- Joey Villar
- Jong Dalupan
- Jon Villarin
- and of course myself
This was no regular ride. Sure a lot of people have gone to Pagudpud, heck the sportbike crowd make it a one day ride. But quite a number of us have been pushing the club to organize a ride to this mecca of riding in the far north. It was supposed to have pushed through last year, but was revised at the last minute in favor of a much easier ride. But this year, with a new and aggressive board at the helm, the ride pushed through.
As the time of departure came, I was wondering how much pain my butt was going to be in from this ride. Anyone who has ridden the old PX 150’s for a lengthy period will attest to the fact that you start to lose sensation in your right butt cheek as you hit the 1 hour mark, specially with the “textured” road conditions of our country. There were suggestions as to how to counteract this, including wearing extra shorts, or padding, strapping a pillow on the seat and of course, buying an X9. I decided to forego any preparation and dive into the ride, as is where is, thus, it was time to kiss my fanny goodbye.
As we hit our firs stop in San Fernando, Pampanga. The rain started. There were jokes of renaming the ride from the Iron Butt ride to the Rusty Butt. It was raining hard and it was raining long. And to make matters worse, there were road construction on the highway which, after mixing with the rain, left the road looking like “champorado”.
Yuk….champorado and Vespa don’t mix
Having survived the deluge relatively unharmed, we got to our breakfast stop in Agoo, La Union at 6:30 AM, a good 2 hours ahead of schedule. We were quite fortunate to find a restaurant that could accomodate 18 really wet and hungry riders that early in the morning.
After loading up, both on gas and food, it was time to hit the road again. The next stop was scheduled to be in Candon, Ilocos Sur. This was the first stretch of road where the guys really opened up. The weather had broken and sunshine and dry roads greeted us as we crossed over from La Union to Ilocos Sur. Unfortunately, as we hit the outskirts of Candon, Ilocos Sur, the rain started again. We decided to forego stopping inside Candon itself and decided to stop in a local gas station just outside of Candon.
Stopping for gas near Candon town proper
It was during this break that we heard that one of the Vespas, Jongs Polini PX, had suffered an engine seizure. This gave us a good long gas and food break. We practically hogged the space of the gas station since it was raining. They couldn’t really complain since we emptied their supply of gasoline. After more than an hour of waiting, it was decided to forego the stop at Vigan and go straight to the days destination, Laoag City, Ilocos Norte.
From that point forward it was smooth sailing. Stopped over for one more gas stop in Vigan and rode into Ilocos Norte. You can really tell that you’ve changed provinces just by looking at the road conditions. Aside from the checkpoint along the Sur/Norte boundary, you could see the asphalt suddenly become cement as you pass through the arch. Remember this was and still is the territory of the late Apo Ferdinand Marcos, and it shows.
As we rode into Laoag City at roughly 2:30 PM, I breathed a sigh of releif that the ride had not taken the expected 18 hours but a rather pleasant 14 hours. If it really wasn’t for the rain, it would have been fantastic.
Our home in Laoag, Balay de Blas.
Balay de Blas was a welcome treat for all of us. Really nice ammenities, hot showers and really cold air conditioned rooms waited for us when we arrived. I was highly impressed. Later that evening, the Mayor of Laoag, Mayor Michael Farinas, honored us with a visit as he swore into the club the new members of Euroscoot. Later on Mayor Farinas was presented a jacket with an official Euroscoot patch…”on the left side so it is near to your heart” (as our president so eloquently put it) and was made an honorary member of Euroscoot.
Laoag City Mayor Michael Farinas accepting his “Honorary Euroscoot Member” status from Reggie Arceo
As the day winded down over bottles of beer and tasty Longganizang Loagag courtesy of Mayor Farinas, we collectively agreed that the roads of Ilocos Norte were one of the best we have traveled on, and we have traveled on a lot. Or so we thought…….
Longganizang Laoag for pulutan? hmmmm
wow! tsong! that was mean! there you had me reading how the trip was, and the words were making the picture clearer in my mind again and then i have to wait for part 2 …
Hey Johnny Boy! That was fast!! hehe.
It was really one heck of a ride. Give me a day or two to compose the rest of the story.
galing, pare …