BY TITO S. TALAO
A weekend breakaway It was a dream come true to be there — even for just three days — from Calatagan South Beach (CaSoBe) in Batangas to the Praying Hands monument in Tagaytay, and New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac, for the kickoff stages of the MPTC Tour of Luzon 2026.
It wasn’t quite like the coverage sportswriters experienced during the heyday of the Marlboro Tour (I was around from 1987 to 1998), when reporters rode passenger jeepneys throughout the race with portable typewriters and travel bags, wearing baseball caps, sandos, shorts, and slippers, with hand towels draped around their necks. Mine was more of a weekend breakaway.
These days, media practitioners do their jobs in relative comfort, traveling from one town to another aboard air-conditioned vans that shield them from the scorching heat and choking dust—both constant challenges in the old days. My ride could seat 12 passengers; we were only six, including the driver.
That said, the core of the coverage remains essentially the same: interview podium finishers after each stage, grab a quick lunch if possible, compute time differences, and file stories for print and online desks—along with photos and video footage—while planning for the next day’s race.
Time constraints and prior commitments kept me from a longer stint with the revived MPTC Tour, dubbed “A Heritage in Motion.” Still, the three days were enough to reconnect with Tour champions Renato Dolosa (1992 and 1995) and Carlo Guieb (1993–94), and to reminisce.
I also ran into the “King of Kennon Road,” Juancho Ramores—now vice mayor of Talisay, Camarines Norte and a race director for the Tour—on my way to breakfast at New Clark City.
Suffice it to say, the stories shared about those late ’80s and early ’90s races could easily fill columns for a week. At noon on Thursday, in front of the New Clark City Stadium, as riders approached the finish line for the team time trial second leg, Arrey Perez, the Tour’s chief organizer and CEO, revealed that while nothing is final yet, early plans for a third MPTC Tour of Luzon are already being considered.
“We just need to convince the boss a bit more,” he said. Apparently, the major sponsor has expressed concern that local fans might grow weary of an annual cycling event and prefer a break after this edition. Perez, however, was assured by sportswriters that establishing the MPTC Tour of Luzon as the premier local sporting event every summer is the best way to keep it firmly embedded in the minds of cycling fans.
To break the cycle, so to speak — and interrupt a heritage in motion — may not be the best move, especially after two highly successful editions.
