X Sports: Downhill Challenge Adobo Style

No Head Gears. No Brakes. No Fear!

Extreme sport (also called action sport, adventure sport and adventurous sport) is a media term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger or difficult and often involving speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts.

Pimp My Ride: Adobo Style

Two weeks ago me and my friends went uphill in a place called Bongbong in Valencia, Negros Oriental to witness a different kind of extreme sport children ages 6 to 8 years old play. In most downhill challenges they use BMX Bikes, Snow Boards, Moto X Bikes, Skis and Bob Carts, but in this part of the world they have their own version of a bob cart called "Ligiron". Ligiron comes from the visayan dialect word "ligid" which means wheel. When we arrived there, some of their parents where still making them.

Proudly Philippine Made

Environment friendly, all made out of indigenous materials. The main chassis, steering rod and wheels are all made of santol wood. The seats are made out of bamboo strips that also serves a good shock absorber and give superb suspension. The wheels are then wrapped with old tire strips lubricated with grated cocoa pods. No engines and no brakes.

The Need for Speed

The sport is participated in by mostly kids and sometimes with adults too, no protective head gears, no breaks and with no fear at all making this totally extreme! I am not aware of any child's sport this fun and reckless anywhere here in the Philippines or abroad.

The Race Tracks

In order to get the fastest speed, the kids carry their ligiron to the starting point, at the peak of the hill and gets set for the adrenaline rush. After all extreme sport is about height, speed and having a high level of inherent danger with spectacular stunts otherwise it won't be X Sports!

Extreme Driver

According to the town folks, the ligiron goes a few years back in the 1980's. Ligirons at that time had bigger wheels about 6 feet in diameter and was used by farmers to transport copra from harvest to the market place.

The Rush Hour

The kids really have fun and enjoy this sport. They do this almost every weekend. They even hold race competitions and invite some other kids from the nearby village.

X Sport Model: Hersley Ven

The sport is not yet popular. It was even my first time to see such totally extreme child sport. Some passers by gets amazed when they see the kids rushing down the hill. Some of them offer to buy their ligiron and pays them P100.00(about USD 2.00) for one.

After seeing how the kids enjoyed, Hersley and the rest of the gang couldn't help but try the thing. I didn't want to miss the feeling of adrenaline flowing through my body so I tried it too. We all had a blast.

The X Monkeys heheheh!
(From your left: Nicky Dumapit, Hersley Ven, Bruce not the Lee, Victor, Carmel)

The best part of the trip was the warm welcome and the hospitality of the villagers. They showed us around and offered us lots of food. We wrapped upped the trip with a thirst quenching fresh buko juice (coconut juice). It really energized us after the tiresome mountain treck to capture these rare moments.

We plan to go back sometime to capture the thrills in video.




Very Special thanks to Nicky Dumapit for touring us in the village.

Special Thanks to Hersley Ven Casero for his "Pimp my ride" photo. Check out more of his photos here...

And thank you to the Bongbong villagers for the warm welcome, fresh bananas, buko juice and the "water and salt".