Mt. Sembrano Bike & Hike (October 27, 2012)

We just had another long weekend here in the Philippines and I HAD to go somewhere because A: It's a long weekend and B: My birthday is coming up. So a week before I was able to convince my friends to bike and hike to Mt. Sembrano in Malaya, Pililla. The plan was for the three of us to leave from my friend's place in Quezon City and bike to Antipolo, down to Teresa, and left towards Tanay from Morong last Friday (October 26, 2012). One of my buddy had to beg off since his daughter was sick so the trio was down to a duo and with the storm Ofel having just exited the country, I had to also cancel because it was raining.

So, the trip was moved to the next day and me and my buddy left his home around 7:30 AM, had some breakfast and pushed on towards Antipolo first but not before he got a punctured tire. Having fixed it, we pushed on up to Antipolo then down to Teresa where we got this beautiful view of Morong.

The downhill portion was great going down to Morong but our tummies grumbled and so we stopped at a store for buko juice and some biscuits before rolling out to Baras for lunch but not before taking some more pics of Laguna De Bay.

I swear a bunch of fish were jumping up from the water

We finally got to Malaya, Pililla in Rizal at around 1:15 PM (I know, we won't win any medals for speed) and registered at their Brgy. Hall and asked them kindly if we can leave our bikes as we hike up the mountain. They let us park our bikes in their stock room/ kitchen and they even took note of what we left in their log books so we know the bikes are safe there. 

Saaaafe!!!

We paid 20 pesos each and got their number (09192282804) in case of emergencies. We were told the hike would take an hour and a half since we looked fast but this was not the case as you'll learn later. So we started on up for the hike portion of our trip, I bought just a liter of water from a store and two biscuits. The first km or so was a concrete road that then cuts off to a rocky portion. Bikeable? Maybe, but not really. There's a fork somewhere and we stupidly picked the wrong side (three times in the whole trip) even though we've been told at the registration to ALWAYS choose the path to the right at the Brgy. hall. I stacked some rocks (as a cairn) to the right path since no one thought of doing so.

I've always been worried about the time since we started the hike late already (1:20 PM) and getting lost in those forks took some time too. Up and up, we were able to cool ourselves from the brooks that intersect the path. We got to the manggahan (Mango farm) portion where we paid another 10 pesos to the caretaker (we were told at the Brgy. hall that they forbade this already though) and continued up to this portion. Bikeable? Definitely not.

No, you can't ride your bike here

The problem was my buddy's water ran out and he didn't have any food so I had to share my water and cookies with him when we got tired plus my bum knee started to get sore again going up. We were only able to reach the first camp site near the summit because we were so darn tired/ out of water/ out of food but what a sight! We laid on the grass in exhaustion until we got the energy to take a look around and take pics.

Hey! We biked that road!

The Malaya power plant

There's the summit! We didn't quite reach it, but there's always next time :)

We reached this point around 4 PM (3 hours 40 minutes) and it's not even the summit! We had to go back down and fortunately, the caretakers at the manggahan portion sold buko juice for 10 pesos each and we refueled on that before running down the mountain as the light faded fast. By the time we reached the concrete portion, it was really dark and we logged out at the brgy. hall and got our bikes to get some chow at a nearby carinderia (small cantina). We pushed on back to Manila (Mandaluyong for me, QC for my friend) at 6:45 and I got home almost 1 AM. Phew. what a tiring, tiring, but happy day.

Tips and tricks portion!
1) Yes, you can bike all the way to Malaya, Pillila Rizal which is the jump off to Mt. Sembrano and leave your bikes there. The registration is 20 pesos.

2) Mt. Sembrano is 745 MASL according to its PinoyMountaineer entry which I also used as reference for this trip.

3) Distance from QC to Malaya, Pililla is around 50 kms when i measured it with Wikimapia but God how I wish I have a GPS or cyclocomp to give you guys a more accurate info.
4) We were told that the jeep fare from Crossing Shaw in Mandaluyong to Tanay is 53 pesos and the jeep from Tanay to Malaya is another 20 pesos. If you've been there, let us know your travel time in the comments.
5) Yes, yes, yes you can do Mt. Sembrano as a day hike or a bike and hike a day but you have to be extra tough just bring lots of water and munchies. Use a road bike or use skinny tires on your mountain bike.
6) Bring blinkers and headlamps (you can use it on your way down the mountain and as you ride back home most probably at night)
6) No, you can't ride your MTB up to Mt. Sembrano.

Ditching the car for a bike

The October 2012 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine has this article about a blogger who uses bikes to save more given that they spend $200 to $250 on gas per month plus more for insurance. They sold one car and now they have more cash to put to their savings! I know I'm preaching to the converted but if you need more motivation to use your cars less, then there you go :D.

Our family (meaning my father) has two cars that I get to use when my family (my wife and kids) needs to go anywhere but I use the public transpo to get to work daily and I occasionally ride the bike to work although I can't do it more than twice a week at the most since my office is over 10k away from our home and I have to ride the bike through a major highway to get to work :D

It's a good thing that the blogger's family featured in the article does not need to ride their bikes more than 3.5 miles. The full article can be read here.

Seo Young Deok's bicycle chain sculpture

Designboom is another one of the sites I keep track of through my email subscription and their latest blast includes Seo Young Deok's bicycle chain sculpture. Besides the choice of material that automatically draws me to the piece, the chains have acquired this interesting shade to it. A little more Google magic and I learn that this piece comes from the artist's Dystopia project which is touring the world according to the Huffington Post. I wish the artist more luck :) From Designboom's piece on Seo.