I did this ride a couple months back and it was just too cool again ... I had made the videos but never posted them... This ride began to just check a blocking point I had hit on this loop last yr ... I was just gonna do the ~15 mile ride to the blocking point, ride down it and then return the same way and NOT run the bottom side of the ridgeline ... I was just gonna make a slow easy day out of this ... It was a little bit risky (for me) due to the fact that it was started a little late in the day (because I was stopping to drink beer with the locals) and I did not know exactly how I was gonna get back out of this ~valley once I got to the point where I'd have to climb up and over the ridgeline and hit a real road for the trip back home before dark ... This area is pretty remote in the middle of Cebu as you can tell by the pics and even though I am on a trail, it is pretty overgrown due to the lack of foot traffic ... Here's some pics of the area .... Yep, muddy but good type mud and rocks for a hard bottom and the worn out IRC VE-33 worked great with my 08 TXC250 ... I'm glad I was on the 6speeder and not a 5speed TC250 model on this ride .... This is where we're headed ... We'll be running well below the ridge top on the left of this pic and stay on this line up, through that white dot in the left-middle of the pic and out the far end, tapering off to the left as we climb up and over the ridge line... The original blocking point ...That hill that guy is walking up is alot more vertical than it looks but is 100% doable & I was gonna roll over it and back up over it today for trail\customer riding verfication ... Instead I rolled around the hill and took a line around a large tree behind that cemented water house and keep inching down the trail .... Plenty of embedded rocks for traction and the mud was perfect almost ... Better mud than most I've encountered around here ... The worn out IRC was AOK
Water source for this place ... Here's the tree I rode around ... White dot area seen in previous wide view pic ... There was a few more really cool looking photos OPs but I had to keep pushing across here as it was getting closer to dark and my bike was running hot and my water supply was limited ... Looking back to the beginning of this trail, this point is well past the beginning of that middle ridge and I'm maybe 3/4 the ways to the end ... That's Negros Island in the far distance...
I'm scouting the trail forward and still considering going back due to water and time constraints ...This view is backs towards the bike.. All the coconut trees have climbing notches so apparently someone here is living off the fat-of-the-land :0 ) Yep, the 08 TXC250s are bada$$ to say the least ... This was the last stop before the climb up and over the ridgline I was following .. I got water here and knew at this point that I was gonna not have to sleep over out here ...
The final climb to the top ... Only video of the climb out as I did not wanna stop and snap anything ... Too important not to break my uphill momentum ... A few pics below at a creek closer to the bottom of this ridge but on its opposite side as we just rode ...
This video is of the last part of the ride to that blocking point ... along with a small tribute to Levon Helm of The Band. -- This is election time and this area might has received a road-grading ... I'll go back up there after the election and see if any tax $ were spent up there ... -- Those road rocks (not the ones tossed into the ruts to fill them up as maintenance) are all embedded and sticking out the ground 5-6" or more making a very rough road ... View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqRZoDbkDRs
Here's the climb down, up, and down again and past the sticking point via going around that large old tree ... The locals here were very helpful getting me across .. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNe0y5NOoo
This starts in the white-dot area .. -- I was really creeping along here ... It was all overgrown and there was lots of large lava rock just off the trail many times and did not wanna crack into any of that stuff with the bike or me ... Plus every s0 often, I was on the edge of some very vertical hillside ... View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D8jom9fnZE
The climb out ... There were a few gnarly places here where the IRC held its line and did not slide off the trail ... I always cover the clutch lever in this places to help control the traction .. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQgSUK453os
