THE ongoing coronavirus may have thrown a monkey wrench on their plans this year but organizers of PRURide PH remain undeterred in delivering on their vision for the sport of cycling in the country.
Originally set for March this year, the fourth edition of the marquee cycling event had to be cancelled over health and safety concerns because of the pandemic.
However, instead of dwelling too much on the what-could-have-beens, organizers instead decided to recalibrate their push, turning to the virtual platform to at least sustain the momentum PRURide PH, and cycling in general, has built in previous years.
So instead of a physical event, PRURide PH will be done virtually in November.
“From the physical, we will turn it to virtual. I definitely realized that you can also do so much when you go virtual in trying to mimic the physical,” said Allan Tumbaga, PRU Life UK vice-president and chief customer marketing officer, in Tuesday’s online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum.
They are using the recently held My Prudential RideLondon as a model for the modified PRURide PH event.
One of the world’s biggest cycling festivals, RideLondon was successfully held virtually from Aug. 15-23 after the original one-day bike event was likewise cancelled due to the worldwide health crisis. It attracted around 11,000 participants, composed of professional and recreational cyclists from around 70 countries worldwide.
PRU Life UK employees Ryan Benguelo, Nelsi Rabe, Ryan Lamayo, and Marvin Pacis were among the finishers in this year’s RideLondon virtual race.
Mr. Tumbaga shared that they could have decided to scrap PRURide PH altogether this year but moved against it, seeing the current situation as still an opportunity to further their push for cycling to be a viable mode of transportation and platform to have an active and healthy lifestyle.
“This is really our passion; to push cycling. We have seen during this pandemic that a lot of people are using bikes to move around and we welcome that,” the Pru Life official said.
“Hopefully by pushing through with the event, even if it is just virtually, we can encourage more people to pick up cycling or keep their passion for it alive,” he added.
Registration for the November virtual cycling event is now ongoing over the health app Pulse, which can be downloaded for free on App Store and Play Store.
While the physical staging of PRURide PH will not take place this year, Mr. Tumbaga said they are hopeful that next year it will happen. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
