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Sunday, January 01, 2006
Covington: One for the road
By Gary Covington
Looking In
* They're not used to seeing a bicyclist flying down the Buhangin road at the crack of dawn, especially the puti variety; I'm followed by the usual jeers and taunts, the girls as bad as the boys.
THERE goes my peaceful early morning bike ride.
The past few days anyway. I've been catching the homeward bound Misa de Gallo crowd. First comes a burst of jeepneys and private cars--as if somewhere a horrendous traffic snarl-up has suddenly freed--but what do I care, they're on the other side of the road.
On my side are gaggles of youngsters footing it back from the big Bajada Redemptorist church on J. P. Laurel. It's been a lark obviously, a chance for boy meets girl. The guys are seriously cool; baggy pants, baggier sweat shirts and spiky 'I've just stuck my fingers into a power outlet' hairdos. The girls are dressed in the tightest of jeans, the slinkiest of tops, bare midriffs are everywhere.
They're not used to seeing a bicyclist flying down the Buhangin road at the crack of dawn, especially the puti variety; I'm followed by the usual jeers and taunts, the girls as bad as the boys. Hardly in keeping with a bunch of youngsters who 20 minutes before were standing po-faced celebrating mass but such is life.
It's astounding the hazards we cyclists face pedaling about town. Other cyclists for example.
There's one group of crazies who insist on pedaling along on the wrong side of the road against the flow of traffic. Too idle to cross the road? Too stupid to figure out that there's a reason why on this side the traffic goes this way, on the other side that way? I don't know but they can be scary when, without a look, without a care in the world, they pop out of a side turning and steam full ahead towards you. Chicken for bikers.
The dual-carriageway Boulevard--early mornings between Magsaysay Park and the Piapi market--is bad for suicidal cyclists. Suicidal tricylists in fact laden with tots heading for the local Quezon junior school.
Pedal in the right direction? AWAY from the school only to come back again? YOU obviously don't pedal a tricycle for a living.
Most people see (and curse) the Boulevard as a never-ending stream of slow moving traffic. Not at sunrise it isn't. Fewer vehicles equals more speed equals a race track for the container wagons speeding their supersized tin boxes from the wharves of Sasa to downtown warehouses.
And what a clanging and clashing as the containers bounce on the flat beds--the Boulevard is not the smoothest of highways--a clangor joined by the braying of the trucks' horns as they bully their way through lesser traffic.
Finally, calling all motorcyle manufacturers. Upswept exhaust pipes may look jazzy and compliment the line of the machine and its fairings but... they're at just the right angle to gout noxious exhaust fumes into the faces of whomever is behind - the passengers of open-sided jeepneys, pedestrians, cyclists, other motorcyclists. Back to the drawing board men.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (January 1, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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