Timberland Eco-Trails, 28 January 2012

I found out just recently that All Terra bike shop has sponsored building the trails near the Timberland Sports and Nature Club in San Mateo, Rizal, and they actually partnered with the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) to build the trails.

I'd been wanting to check out the trails there, but never had the impetus, until now. It was awesome to find out that a few of my workmates actually ride, and a few others have just recently caught the biking bug. They've started to schedule weekend getaways, starting out in Bataan the other week, which, I was unfortunate to have missed.

This past weekend, they set their sites on Timberland, and I made it a point to go. Alfred, Dior and Rishi were already having breakfast at Shell Commonwealth when I arrived around 7:30 AM. LT got there shortly after.

We drove in convoy all the way to Timberland and got there just before 9 AM. Good thing it was a fairly overcast day, since we got to the site fairly late. Trail access is free until April 2012, when they'll begin to charge a P50 entry fee to help maintain the trails. But we still had to pay P25 for parking at the club house.

The trailhead was about 700 m out from the club house parking. It was a double track that pointed up, leaving me pining for gears. It could prove to be a fairly intense "warm up" for newbies. I hate to say it, but LT's mechanical proved to be a godsend, offering a brief respite from the climb.

Since this was our first time here, we wanted to try out the "Green" trail, supposedly the one for newbies. We never found the entrance to it. Only the "Blue" (intermediate) trail entrance was marked out. The lack of signs was disappointing.

The Basic trail, was, basic (go figure). It was a fairly straight piece of track that was mostly downhill and rocky in sections. One particular section was quite a hoot since it was a fast downhill. It eventually exited into a junction that transitioned on to pavement.

We followed the road which turned upward for some time but eventually turned back. We found out later on that that was the famed "Giant" road.

We rode back up the Basic trail and stopped briefly at the Blue trail exit. We got to chat with a couple of bikers, one of whom was an acquaintance from the Pinoy MTB forums. It was also a chance to take some silly photos.

We tried again to look for the Green trail entrance, after asking for directions from our new friends. We weren't sure if we went the right way. We were told the Green trail was fairly easy with minimal climbs. The one we went on seemed endless and had quite a few rocky climbs. So I guess we made a wrong turn somewhere...

After what seemed like an eternity, not knowing where we were going, we eventually exited the trail at the junction where the Basic trail transitioned on to Giant (4th photo from the top above). Looking it up on Google Maps later on revealed that we actually took the Roxas Loop. It was actually a cool "trail" (it had a lot of pavement sections) in that there were fast downhills and the scenery was much better than on the Basic trail. Definitely worth going back to.

All in all, the Timberland Eco-Trails is definitely worth checking out. The sections with extended climbs made me contemplate going back to gears again (I had to dismount and walk a few times at the risk of cramping), and I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the ride as much if I did it alone (hooray for riding buddies). But I guess I just need to start riding more again.