buildings and bikes

it is the year of construction frenzy in Iloilo City.
 i hope they think of us, the bike users, too.
nothing can be more appealing than a city
where people are able to bike in normal clothes, confidence and all.  

Bicycle advertising

In Silay City, Negros Occidental
I chanced upon this man in his bmx with the bike's front rack doubling as an ad space.
I think he is a signage maker or something.
too bad he pedaled too fast i wasn't able to photograph his advert.

splashes of red and yellow

high school girl in her uniform on after school leisure ride around the capital.
red skirts flooding the streets is fail proof signal of general class dismissal;
excited teens wanting quick escape from school into discovering the world with their friends.
and what better way to do it ?
on bikes, of course! 

clever young manugbalot. he knows his reds and yellows well.
there's no other way he could have done it better than
paint his bike with colors that encourage snacking. 

the bikes are out tonight

It's starting to get really hot now--it's almost summer in the Philippines!--and what better time to go out and meet with friends!

Night time meet ups at Molo Plaza...ride, dismount and strut, easy as that. 

well-lighted public spaces like the Molo Plaza are favorite evening hang outs for friends on bicycle, lovers loving, pedestrians walking, children playing and parents parenting their children playing.

and yes, do try to find the bicycle bicyclists in the picture.

Molo has it.

i took pictures of bike users passing by the Molo Bus Terminal. I was quite impressed the versatility that this non-motorized animal has become. i only hung around for less than half an hour, late afternoon of a Saturday and counted more or less 15-20 bike users, including the pedicab/cargo bike users. about 95% of what i saw were utilitarian and urban bike users. and majority of the pedicabs i saw were either junkers, for hire or peddlers. i saw men "junking" with their kids, about a couple of their wives--and in one of the two groups, the wife was pregnant.

there was one bike users that really caught my eye--unfortunately not captured on: they were 4 on one bmx bike. which is pretty insane because, WOW! where do you get skills like that? do they teach that in PhD college or something? do you need like a special course in physics to learn to balance 4 people on one small bike like that? totally blew my mind--and my phone camera was too speechless it didn't open its shutter when i clicked the "take picture now" button. I say to keep this creativity going, we should give them "special roads". I heard in other bike cities they call it "exclusive or segregated bike lanes". this exclusive bike lanes, i was told is a special lane for those who want to use their bikes. and no, it is not shared with cars and trucks and deadly things that run on four wheels (and sometimes two: remember the motorized bicycles? i think they call them overspeeding scooters). Yes, it is a road, and most run parallel to the deadly-four-wheels-only-roads but only that, it is for bike users. and just them. sometimes they also put a strip of green to separate them bike roads from motor-users roads. i was told some places were so far advance they call their special roads "cycle superhighway"-- yes, a highway for just bike users. anyone of ya ever heard of that? my mind is officially blown.

and before that even happens, let me present to you the humble snapshots of the beautiful and handsome bike users of Iloilo City.

Shade-y gents

One of the important accessories to have as a bike user is perhaps the sunglasses, or shades as we would normally call it. it very well keeps those glare late afternoon sun of our eyes, allowing us to concentrate on the road while pedalling to and from home--but mostly to home.

i have never been a shade user myself; i wanted to but i never really learned to get use to it like it was my second eyes. In that case, the cap with a wide visor is always second best choice. 

here are the shade-y gentlemen biker users of Iloilo City, going past the bus terminal in Molo, always looking cool in their main mode of transport. there were more bike users than i expected; my very slow phone camera couldn't keep up with them. 

Pampering thee work horse

The day i took my bike swimming.
My bike is my work horse. Some days, i bring it to the beach to get its much deserve restin' and sunnin'.



photo by Eric Barbosa, Jr.

Our resident photographer submitted this today and I made a story behind it.
Eric has been a great photographer-documentor of critical masses in Iloilo City. We've had about four last year, give or take. He has been doing his documentations while on his white mountain bike. he does it smoothly, coordinating with the route master days prior to the mass, taking notes of the routes, mapping his photo stops to make sure that he gets the best shot with the best iloilo city ID at the background. Eric should make his own photo site soon.:)

Rearing it.

so i left my bike at the courtyard and look! I caught curious cats trying it.
somebody is apparently loving the rear rack.
of course, one has to be in proper biking gear to use my bike, meaning flats, or heels, if one must. and maybe, a crisp,clean shirt for the man is good enough.
or throw in some chucks then man's good to go.

bikespotting.

mid-day visit to the farm.

early off?

red and green.

biking with ice cream.

threesome in a cargo bike/pedicab. best when raining.

balot and carrot cake? seriously?

One, Two, Three, Four, Five!

Riding a bike five ways:

solo.

duo.

threesome, perhaps more fun.

foursome, family style.

or in fives, crowd-getter!

Bike, safety and grace

There is nothing more comforting, gratifying, pleasurable than seeing a woman on a bicycle. 

Women and children are indicator species on the road. One does not need 100-paged safety audit reports to know how safe one's city roads are. One simply needs to look at the number of women and children on the road on their bicycles to do basic, simple, regular stuffs like going to work, school or shopping--or going on picnic with friends! The number of women ditching personal cars for bicycling or walking for errands and socializing is a good enough indicator for the level of safety of the city's roads. 

Add to that, bicycling in the chic-est way possible!

the magical moment on take off...

...on constant pedalling

...and graceful turning.



such a lovely thing! this functional biking!

Rest and a rack

what a better way to end the day:
to take a pause and just soak in the cool December breeze in the newly pedestrianized streets.
median separators instantly turn to bike racks! a great way to repurpose something!



photo by Eric Barbosa, Jr. 

picnics

There's nothing more normal and fun than biking to picnic with your friends and their families.

the Central Philippine University (CPU) has a lovely field that's open to the public and is never restricted to bikes.
on weekends throngs of people from the neighborhood come here for fresh air and quality time with their family and friends.

photo by Randy Yap

children and bicycles

the quality of life of a city should be measured by the number of children who can bike safely  on its streets; to and from the house, school, football practice, playdates, picnics, birthday parties, family days, library visits,museum visits, beach, so on and so forth.

cycling is not a special event. it is as normal as walking, as seeing a child ride her bike to school.

father and daughter off to work and school, lovely long shadows and all.

photo by Jeabai Javier 

Going to the Central Philippine University to see the lights!

photo by Jeabai Javier

what happens when you give a girl/lady/woman a bike.

late at night and the streets are clear of cars and jeeps
is our chance to hang out with friends
in the streets and teach them bike tricks.

here, emily a snowboarder and mountainbiker back in Canada, tries a trick on a mountainbike.

photo by Eric Barbosa Jr. 

KNight Biker

now how does biking around the city at night feels and looks like?

one word: FANTASTIC!!

Molo Plaza is the bike friendliest plaza in the whole of Iloilo City.
You should see the number cyclists that come here at night,
from all gender spectrum, from all ages, on all kinds of bike.
other public spaces should follow suit.

bi-cycle

two people, not a professional group-po, not a sports team, cycling together. leisurely and in normal clothes, out for a morning "stroll" or going home from shopping.

just as it would in a bike friendly city.

photo by Eric Barbosa Jr.

solis street views

Solis street, where FDCP's Cinematheque is currently located, might be one of my favorite streets in the City.

Solis streets and bikes and weekends.

where are you going kid?

biking to get some beer, perhaps?

i thought he was going somewhere
then at the end of the street he made a sharp turn and biked back to the other end.
he did that on and on and on until he got tired.
what a nice way to spend the weekend afternoon away.
our city should have more of these kinds of spaces where
everyone can just bike the weekend away, in normal clothes. 

pedicabs/trisikad

if there are "bikers" that people in car-centric city hates, they are probably the pedicab drivers.

pedicabs are what to developed nations are CARGO bikes. like the christiania or nihola or bakfiets, only that in pedicabs the "box" is attached on the side, not the front. this is not for lack of imagination but mainly for two things: 1. without retrofitting the box into the whole bike frame, one actually retains the actual look of the bike; one can easily detach the third wheel for solo, private rides; 2. having the boxes on the side makes better for maneuverability (especially in doing sharp turns) in typically narrow old Filipino streets.

their size, when on the road, makes it almost impossible for SUVs to overtake. most of the pedicab drivers are citizens from the lower income brackets. in our neighborhood, our well-loved and well-trusted pedicab driver is a homeless man.

as of the present, the service of these pedicabs are restricted to "barangay/village roads". they are never allowed to ply through the national highways or those roads considered major thoroughfares by the
motorists.

several attempts have been made to ban these pedicabs from using the streets but they keep on coming back. the planners only attribute the pedicabs' stubbornness to the fact that the pedicab bikers have no other source of income but pedicab driving, little do they consider that these pedicabs exist because there are people who need them. seldom do people also associate use of pedicabs to GREEN TRANSPORT. the only popular go-green method in transportation that many people know of is converting to prius or using unleaded fuel to power the deadly killing machines called cars. But no, never once did pedicabs ring a bell.

it's time we changed how we look at the humble pedicab. make them more useful on the road.

shooting, as a pedicab passenger.

shooting at the driver.
his muscles strained to gather as much strength as possible to get three passengers
(total weight at least 150 kilograms) from point A to B.

bikes and parade

It's always a good sight: groups on their bikes joining a parade. 

Iloilo City Charter Day Celebration
at Solis-Iznart St intersection.

photo by kdcamena