Another record broken and this time for a really good cause. 564 riders registered at the registration desks of the 5th Annual MAP toy run and then quite a large number joined the motorcade along the route and more joined at Enchanted Kingdom making the final number somewhere between 600 and 700 riders.

UNICEF was once again our beneficiary with a total of 200 children & caregivers joining the riders at the Fort Bonifacio assembly point. A big thank you to Enchanted Kingdom, Gonuts Donuts for the donuts for the children and riders, to Starbucks for the iced chocolate and coffeee, to Motoworld, Shopwise, Access Plus, BMW Autohaus, the Yum Yum Tree and all the riders and volunteer helpers who made this a day 200 children will never forget.

At 8am we left the Fort to ride in a motorcade to Enchanted Kingdom. We are getting better at doing this every year but still had the same problem of about 200 riders heading off on their own before the children and Santa joined the motorcade. The marshals headed by Herc of MIB did a great job although I think next time we will need more of them. For the last two years it has poured with rain during the toy run and this time we had a typhoon sitting close by so we all expected rain again so I doubt if anyone expected such a huge turnout. Being in the lead I don’t see much of the ride other than what is in my mirrors but it was obvious that far more riders now understand how to ride in a large group. It was great to see hundreds of riders showing how it should be done.

At Enchanted Kingdom I made the mistake of putting the toy drop zone near the pickup point for the children’s rides around the car park. We tried to stop to rides to do the toy drop but it was not possible. The kids wanted to keep riding so with hundreds of bikes queued up we abandoned the ride past toy drop and everyone just handed them to Santa and his helpers who put them onto three enormous piles.

An unexpected surprise for the children and myself was the Dapitan Volunteer fire engine and crew who joined the motorcade and gave the children rides at Enchanted Kingdom.

Jojo Medina took most of the pictures below. Thanks Jojo. By the time I removed my Santa suit and we entered Enchanted Kingdom I was dehydrated and a bit crispy from the sun so I didn’t get a lot of pictures inside but it was very obvious the children were having a ball. Last and most definitely not least, thank you to Ned Hourani for working hard and long to make the Fifth Annual MAP toy Run the best yet.