Imagine the light breeze touching your skin and the sun’s warm rays on your face as you cruise past strangers on a long and winding road. This bicycle ride is truly epic, you think; the weather’s perfect, the scenery postcard-worthy and you’re in your element today, well-rested from the night before. Queen’s “Bicycle Race” is playing somewhere and you sing along to the lyrics.
Now if only this bicycle ride were real. For someone like me who spent the last of her teenage years riding her bicycle everywhere but stopped doing so when the streets became congested with vehicles and creepy bystanders, a bike ride like this can only be fantasy, unless joining a cycling club—and investing in expensive equipment—is considered an option.
The reality is we live in a concrete jungle, and a safe, worry-free bike ride in the city isn’t a walk in the park for most of us, and at least a hundred motorists could easily trample on our dream bicycle ride. The leisure of biking in safe, open spaces is reserved for those who are members of certain clubs and have found themselves riding in groups and covering long distances during weekend trips to the suburbs, clad in appropriate cycling gear.
If you‘re not yet sure if you want to be a serious cyclist and you just want to enjoy biking again, here’s your pressure-free alternative: The Bike Playground.
The Bike Playground is perfect for people who just want to get back into the habit of riding a bike but only have a couple of hours a day to do so. It’s great whether you want to ride alone or with family and friends. It has two outdoor trails—one for adults and another for kids—as well as an indoor pump track, the first of its kind in the country.
This playground is accessible, conveniently located at Circulo Verde in Quezon City, and covers an area of approximately 12,000 square meters.
In an interview with Super, Monique Castañeda, Ortigas & Co.’s marketing manager explained, “We don’t want it to be too intimidating. When you hear it’s a race track, it’s a bike trail, people sometimes get too intimidated. They don’t really want to try it out. So the way it’s designed, it’s really for the entire family. It’s a combination of playing and training.”
The Bike Playground’s facilities cater to both beginners and serious trainers. Mountain bikes, road bikes, BMX and Cyclocross are welcome. The Outdoor Trail covers a distance of 1 kilometer, which should be more than enough to get one’s leg muscles started. The Kids’ Track is smaller and much easier to navigate through. Bicycles in different sizes are available for rent, from toddy push bikes for children as young as two years old to mountain bikes for the more experienced. Cyclists may bring their own bikes and just pay the entrance fee.
Haven for newbies
To make sure that the facilities are suitable for target patrons, Ortigas & Co. consulted highly regarded resource persons in the field, including professional cyclist, former national athlete and Mountain Bike National Coach Banz Mendoza, who also serves as The Bike Playground’s operations manager.
Mendoza stressed that The Bike Playground is a haven for the newbies as well as for pros. “Para dun sa mga baguhan na gustong mapasok sa mountain biking cycling, we have bike rentals available, with helmets. Meron ding instructors, mga bike coaches para sa kailangan na may magturo. Merong kids’ track, push bike para sa kids na hindi pa marunong mag-bike or mag-pedal. ’Pag marunong na sa push bike, pwede nang mag-progress to a bigger bike na may regular pedals na. May mga instructors tayo na pwedeng magturo.
“Hindi lang siya nagke-cater para sa mga baguhan. Nagke-cater din siya to those who seriously want to improve on mountain biking. Ito kasi ’yung may pinakamagandang fundamentals, facilities para sa aspiring athletes,” he said.
The main attraction of The Bike Playground is the Philippines’ first ever signature pump park by internationally-recognized Velosolutions under the supervision of mountain bike luminary and designer Claudio Calouri.
The pump park is composed of a series of slopes of varying depths and heights in a covered area, which, from the looks of it, might be a tad too challenging for a beginner. At the venue’s media launch, members of the press as well as professional cyclists—among them French World Pump Track Champion Adrien Loron—were invited to try the pump track.
“This one is very technical. You have a lot of different options and it’s very nice to ride it especially since it’s indoor,” Loron says of the pump track.
As for the rest of the playground, the world champion has this to say: “It’s a very nice place for beginners and for pros as well cause you can start and improve step by step. So you can start from the lowest level and go cruising this track and get more skills and go faster and faster. It’s very adaptive for all levels. ”
Safety concerns
While the track and trails were constructed with safety precautions in mind, accidents may still happen, like in any other sport.
Apart from competitions, personalized coaching and monthly clinics, patrons can also look forward to safety training sessions. Paramedics are on standby during operating hours should unfortunate accidents occur.
Biking is fast becoming a trend in the list of sought-after fitness activities and The Bike Playground comes as the perfect setting to make the sport available to more people. While it serves as recreation and fitness venue and aims to promote a healthy lifestyle, coach Mendoza also sees it as an opportunity to discover and develop athletes. “A facility like this is a natural breeding ground for developing raw talent,” Mendoza explains.
The Bike Playground is part of Circulo Verde in Bagumbayan, Quezon City. It is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Follow @thebikeplayground on Instagram and Facebook.
