Climbing up The Wall 1

It’s 6 o'clock on a Saturday: the sun is out, birds are chirping, and the dreadful sound of the alarm clock is nowhere to be heard. You wake up and decide to have a quick morning exercise to hopefully bring back that summer body of yours. What do you do? You get your cobweb-infested mountain bike and ride it to the mountains!

Atleast that’s what I used to do back in the more flexible days (a.k.a. Highschool), but today, I had the chance to do my weekend routine, thanks to the long break given to us by our University. Since it’s the weekend, I’ll be riding out to one of my favorite spots as a mountain biker: The Wall.

Left Fork leads to "Shotgun," a road that I wasn't able to conquer even with my car; Right Fork leads to The Wall

The Wall 1 is a great place for group trainings

The Wall is an uphill road that leads to the famous Timberland Heights, which features a Sports and Nature Club, and has been a haven for mountain bikers and weekend warriors alike, including me. Its visitors can enjoy the view of the Metro 835 feet above sea level. Also, Timberland Heights has served witness to a couple of Mountain Bike races; it has its own array of trails, commonly known as zones, that are the usual go-to places of mountain bikers.

The Wall is a great place of interaction and bonding between joggers, bikers, and the like

 The Wall is divided into three parts – Wall 1, 2, and 3, respectively. While the Walls 2 and 3 has limited access, the Wall 1 is available for the public to use and enjoy, be it mountain bikers or joggers, etc. I personally enjoy climbing up the Wall because I still view it as a challenge to climb it up without dismounting from the bike. This Wall also was my first time to ride my bike in an uphill road, and I still get reminiscent of the good old days when I used to bike almost every weekend to hit the trails.

Since my place is just a few kilometers from the Wall, I can ride my bike going there without any difficulties (except the rain; it was drizzling when I traversed the road once again.)

The "siko" that I sometimes traverse by dismounting off the bike and walking upwards.

Two kilometers of biking and I find myself on the foot of the Wall; it got its name because of its likeness to a wall: upright and vertical. As I start climbing the hill, I see the usual landmarks that I’ll be passing through before getting to the end of Wall 1: there’s the Biker’s Café, the Columbary, and, of course, the dreadful “siko”, which I personally believe is the hardest part of the Wall 1 to climb; it requires skill and strength from the lower body to be able to climb it with ease.

The 3-Minute quick break turned into a 10-minute Picture taking break. Haha!

The last time I climbed up the Wall was a few months ago, and my knees are starting to rust again, so I had to take a few breaks to catch my breath, and as I take those breaks, I just looked around and began to appreciate the natural environment around me. But, I also realized that I still have to finish the Wall 1 so I started climbing up again.

The road gives priority to bikers, allowing them to take a few laps in this area as a cooldown routine

As I reached the end of Wall 1, I sighed heavily because my lungs couldn’t sustain that much activity anymore, unlike back in highschool, when I can still do two rounds of the Wall and not even break a sweat. I’m just glad I still can ride this road even without practice. As I ride around the small roundabout to “cooldown” myself, I noticed that the number of bikers riding every weekend has significantly increased too. A few more rounds in the small roundabout and I decided to go down the Wall and call it a morning.

This is the time it would've taken me to reach the top IF I had not taken any breaks. LOL!

My 4-year old steed still looking good

Any first-timer (sometimes even regulars), would want a photo of their bikes taken with this sign