Cebu’s Iconic Ride: Willy’s
If the Tour de France has the Alpe d’Huez, Vuelta a Espana has the Angliru, Giro d’Italia has the Stelvio Pass, and Belgium has the Koppenberg, then Cebu has Willy’s. Don’t laugh, I’ll state my case here.
If you even consider that you are half the cyclist that you are, then you should have been to Willy’s at least once. Where is Willy’s?
Willy’s is in the heart of Cebu and I remembered one
friend from Manila who told me that we are lucky, we don’t have to go to Tagaytay or take a car to do a climb, its right in our backyard!
My first climb to this place was back in ’88 or ’89, too long to remember. I rode it with the Deipareni twins, Julius and Caesar, who would become MD’s later and are now in the US. The final part of the climb, which ends at the front gate of the Chateau de Busay was unpaved in those days, full of ruts and at that time for me, ridiculously steep. As I was trying to put my tire on safe ground, it slipped after the rear wheel got caught in a rut. I fell. Well, that was welcome to Willy’s. It wasn’t named Willy’s, in fact, there was no Willy’s back then. We rested our tired bodies at majestic house we called the “White House”. Then a sari-sari store was built just a short distance from the “White House”. It had a bamboo bench and slowly, cyclists drifted to the small store which offered ice water and refreshments. Willy is the son of the owner of the store.
The climb to Willy’s, starts at the corner of Gorordo Street and Salinas Drive, in Lahug. This road starts as the Veteran’s Drive before it morphs into the Transcentral Highway. (Transcentral Highway, btw, deserves a column of its own). It is 5.5km long and it starts with a gentle left curve going up. It is not very steep at the first 600m with grades averaging 7 percent, then suddenly it ramps up to about 12 percent for the next 20m, short but sweet! You are grinding at this point before it flattens for the next 30m. This is then followed a 700m climb with grades of 8 percent and ends just after the Marco Polo Hotel gate.
The next 700m is flat, allowing you to take a breather, then rises a bit near the GMA-7 corner, flattens, then goes down just before the next climb which is 700m with a gentler gradient of about four percent. The next 1.4km is flat, the entree before the main dish. The last obstacle is 400m long with a 15 percent gradient at its steepest before it flattens just after the Chateau. Two hundred meters later, you’re now at Willy’s.
I don’t know Willy’s last name but I know him for more than 20 years, a very nice and friendly person. Willy’s store was moved a few years ago just a stone’s throw away and it still serves the meanest and most epic pancit bihon that only a cyclist can truly appreciate!
And oh, in case you’ll be looking for Willy’s sarisari, it’s called, “Darwins”, named after his son.