The epic ride we at Vespa Club did got an 8-page exposure in the May 2008 edition of Homestyle magazine (P150/National Bookstore). Special thanks to Mon (our club’s VP) and Vanni (the mag’s Managing Editor) for making this glossy feature possible.
Below are soft copies of the page layouts which appeared in pages 114 to 121 of Homestyle’s current ish.
click thumbnails for a bigger display of the 8-page spread
I’m reposting the entire article below. Some of the photos may differ from those which appeared in the magazine as some text in the article are actually photo captions of specific images. 
Read on…
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J0HNRANA
john[dot]rana[at]gmail[dot]com
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John Rana and friends ride their scooters through 11 provinces in four days, amassing enough moments of pure camaraderie and unforgettable sightseeing to easily outlast the memory of their stinging backsides.
The North Luzon Loop is one of the three main Tourism Highways recommended by the Department of Tourism (DOT) for anyone who wants to explore the breathtaking sights of the Philippine countryside; the other two being the Pan-Philippine Highway (a 2,500-kilometer arterial road network from Manila to Davao in Mindanao via Bicol in Southern Luzon and Samar and Leyte in Eastern Visayas), and the Nautical Highway (which covers 919 kilometers of land and 137 nautical miles of sea travel through routes utilizing the RORO network of ferry terminals and vessels).
The Loop is the shortest of the three and involves inland travel throughout, making it a popular long-ride route for local bikers. There’s even the annual Iron Man Challenge for big bikers that require them to do the trip in less than 24 hours. But for a rider to truly experience the beauty of the countryside, we knew it would be best not to hurry.
So that was exactly how we at the Vespa Club planned it. We scheduled a four-day ride (February 28-March 2) to complete the adventure which took us around the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Cagayan Valley, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija and back for Thursday until Sunday.
As luck would have it, another scooter club have planned the same long ride to Pagudpud within the same time frame although their route had them starting from the opposite (east) side. When EuroScoot president Cliff Certeza and I (his counterpart in Vespa Club) talked about the timely coincidence, we agreed that the two Manila-based groups should meet up north for a fellowship night of sorts. So a higher purpose for this long ride was born. It also helped that some officers and members of another scooter club (Scoot66) decided to come along with our club to be our guest riders and made this epic ride at the tip of Luzon even more historic. (Our odometers clocked 1,400-or-so depending on where exactly in Manila we are based.)
Here’s the story of this epic journey as told through pictures. Read the rest of this entry ?
