Audax 200,300,600 May 25 Ride Summary
06/03/2019 | Carmela Pearson
Friends, the results for the audax rides (200km, 300km and 600km) held last May 25 will be uploaded within the day (as committed by my web team). I am happy to announce that we now have 109 Super Randonneurs to date! Technically, since this is also a PBP year, these 109 individuals have also qualified for Paris Brest Paris. Congratulations! A lot of these Super Randonneurs should be able to convert their pre-registrations to a definitive registration by now. If you haven't done so, please note that you have until June 20 to enter at least 3 homologation numbers in the PBP portal to confirm your registration. A lot of you have been asking me if you can still register for PBP even if you haven't pre-registered yet. For now, Audax country representatives around the globe are still awaiting announcements from Audax Club Parisien (ACP) if they will still be opening slots given that there seems to be a huge number of pre-registrations that will not be pushing through. There should be more conclusive news after June 20 (the deadline of preregistration conversion). Please bear with us. As soon as I hear anything from ACP, I'll definitely let the community know right away.
The riding conditions last Audax were brutal, to say the least. The 200km riders suffered under the sweltering hot weather. But that doesn't compare to what the longer distance riders had to go through. They were played by the weather from torrential and heavy downpours to being roasted alive during mid-day. One of our veteran audax riders, Jeffrey Sunga from Centurion Cycling Club, was not spared as his wheel got caught up in one of the gaps of the infamous and dreaded steel bridge in kilometre 69 as he reached it at 37kph rendering him unable to finish what was supposedly his 600km ride to seal his SR status. We are happy to report that he is out of danger and is now on his way to recovery.
We had a relatively good turnout given that our event coincides with one of the well-publicised UCI 2.2 race in Southeast Asia and one of the biggest Gran Fondo in the country (that are both happening in Subic too)! A lot of our audax riders made the most out of their trip to Subic and did an Audax on Saturday and then the Gran Fondo on Sunday... a true testament of how crazy our Filipino Randonneurs are! We saw some of the youngest 600km Audax finishers in the country -- 14-year old Paolo Sebastian from Roxas Isabela Bikers and 15-year old Ariad Randall Aquino of CAVSU/Tuguegarao City Triathlon Club. I don't know what they are feeding these athletes in the Cagayan Valley region but what these youngsters showed us is truly remarkable! Happy to report that Ariad Randall Aquino is also the youngest Super Randonneur in the country to date! He has shown so much promise and the mental and physical strength that so many of us can just dream of having.
By now we have read so many accounts and heard a lot of stories on how they tackled the 600km Audax ride. Plans are usually thrown out of the window and this is where one's resiliency is tested. I've heard so many success stories and wished I had the bandwidth to document everything and share to the community. All of us have different reasons and strategies in joining the audax. My good friend, Michael Spence, is in serious PBP training mode as he rode the last 530km solo without any sleep and finished with a remarkable time of 24 hours and 26 minutes. Another good friend, Jeffrey Ngkaion, became our 2nd fat biker in the history of Audax Philippines to reach Super Randonneur status. A lot of our PBP athletes also made use of the weekend to test their gears, strategies and set-ups. We were witness to how groups worked together and ensure nobody got left behind in their group. The tears and laughter shared at the finish just goes to show how accomplishing an audax ride erases (albeit temporarily) any physical and mental fatigue brought by the ride.
Most true randonneurs are selfless in nature and I want to commend Jembarry Meer and Rick Tamayo for being present on that weekend supporting their friends and fellow athletes. They willingly took beautiful photos and shared them to the community and was a breath of fresh air during the ride as they try to lift the tired morale of our riders. Thank you for doing that. Thank you to everyone who showed up at 3 in the morning and for all the encouragement you gave one another during the ride. Thank you to my ever-reliable round-the-clock David's Salon crew and checkpoint marshals. Thank you to the leadership of Ms. Jola and Shai. Thank you to our sponsors, David Charlton of David's Salon, Spence Capital, DataOne, Cellife and Coca Cola Philippines. Again, congratulations to all the participants and hope to see you in the next ride!
P.S. We have ran out of 600km Audax medals that weekend. For those who want to order one, please deposit Php 1000 (Php 850 for the medal and Php 150 for shipping) to the following account: BPI 0420-0304-28, account name: Carmela Patricia S. Pearson) and send us the deposit slip, your contact number and shipping address. Please do this on or before June 10. We will try to source them from the nearby country representatives like Singapore and Malaysia and bring it back to Manila on the 13th. Thank you!
