Marilaque Motorcycle Ride: A Guide to the Highway

By Godfrey Zubiaga, founder Last verified Sep 29, 2026

Marilaque is the mountain highway east of Metro Manila. It has also been in the news for crashes, stunts and a long argument about enforcement. This guide covers the road itself, what has been reported about policing it, where riders stop for coffee and breakfast, and how to ride it at legal speeds and come home in one piece.

If you are new to the road, read the enforcement and safety sections first.

What Marilaque is

"Marilaque" is a nickname built from the places the road crosses: Marikina, Rizal, Laguna and Quezon. Officially it is the Marikina-Infanta Highway, and it used to be called Marcos Highway until it was renamed after 1986. It starts at Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City, runs across the Marikina Valley as a divided highway, passes through Antipolo, and then climbs into the Sierra Madre. From there it crosses Rizal and Laguna and ends in Infanta, Quezon, passing through towns such as Baras, Tanay and Santa Maria on the way. Sources differ on its exact length, so we do not quote a figure.

Past Antipolo, the road is described as a standard national highway of two to six lanes divided by lane markings, the kind you find in the provinces.

One landmark worth knowing before you ride: the KM90 marker on the Marcos Highway sits at the Laguna-Quezon boundary. If you want to see the stop itself, it is listed as KM90 on the Waypoint destinations page.

Getting to Marilaque from Metro Manila

The approach is the first stretch of the highway itself. From Katipunan Avenue you follow the Marcos Highway across the Marikina Valley into Antipolo. At the Masinag junction, where the highway meets Sumulong Highway, the road starts to climb. From that point you are on the mountain section.

Riders have long met up at a gas station on Marcos Highway before dawn, fuelled up and had coffee, and then ridden out as a group. That habit is described in a 2017 TopGear feature, so check what is open when you go rather than assuming.

For distance and fuel cost to the start of the Rizal highlands, use the RideCost page for Manila to Tanay. That page covers the first part of the road, not the whole highway.

Fuel, parking and road conditions

Fuel: we have not verified fuel stations along the mountain section, so we will not name one. Start with a full tank, fill up before the road leaves the city, and do not plan to find a station when you are already low.

Parking: the popular cafes fill up on weekends. One 2025 write-up of Kape Natividad in Tanay says it has motorcycle parking that can get full on weekends, and advises going early. Weekdays are calmer, kaya mas masarap mag-ride ng weekday.

Road conditions: they change with weather and traffic. TopGear described fog on the mountain sections in the wet season in 2017. The Philippine weather service divides the year into a rainy season from June to November and a dry season from December to May, so wet-weather riding is normal for half the year. We do not have a current road-surface report for every kilometre, so treat a wet corner, a gravel patch or a sudden slow vehicle as things to expect, not surprises.

Checkpoints and enforcement

This is the part riders ask about most, so here is what has been reported, with dates, so you can judge how current it is.

2018. A group made up of the Trail Club Association of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police and barangay officials launched Task Force Marilaque. It put up warning signs with a 50 km/h speed limit and deployed officers and roving patrols to check that riders were wearing proper riding attire and equipment, were not overloaded, were licensed, and had registered motorcycles. Officers were to use speed guns.

January to February 2025. After a fatal stunt crash that went viral, senators called for permanent checkpoints. GMA reported that the Highway Patrol Group named five high-risk sections where stunts and racing happen, including Devil's Corner in Tanay, and that local checkpoints existed but had not been effective. The HPG's Rizal advisory group proposed permanent outposts at Palo Alto, Manukan and Devil's Corner.

February 2025. MotoPinas reported photos of a tarpaulin showing a 30 km/h speed limit within the municipality of Tanay. The outlet said it could not confirm who enforces it, whether it applies to specific stretches, or what the penalty is.

What does that mean for you? Two things. First, the legal baseline is set by law, not by any one sign. RA 4136 requires drivers to go at a careful and prudent speed and sets maximum speeds by road type, including 80 km/h on open country roads with no blind corners and 30 km/h on city and municipal streets with light traffic. Those are limits, not targets.

Second, rules and enforcement on this road have changed several times, so the posted sign on the day is the rule. Keep your licence, OR and CR with you, wear complete riding gear, and do not carry more than the bike is meant to carry. Those are exactly the things the 2018 patrols said they would check.

Cafes and stops along the road

Marilaque is a ride-and-eat road. Riders often stop for breakfast, and TopGear's 2017 feature said the stops serve hot bulalo, barako coffee and breakfast dishes.

Speranza Restaurant. A breakfast stop on the highway with a view of the Sierra Madre, right by the twisty roads, and a regular for weekend group rides. See it on Waypoint.
Kape Natividad. Along the Marikina-Infanta Highway in Tanay, open-air, with a view of the Sierra Madre and motorcycle parking that fills up on weekends.
Cafe Katerina. In the Tanay hills at Sitio Mayagay, Barangay Samploc, and named in both GMA's and TopGear's Marilaque features.
Jariel's Peak. A viewpoint and restaurant at the far end of the road in Infanta, Quezon.

We are not listing opening hours or menu prices, because those change and we have not confirmed them. Check the venue's own page before you ride out.

Riding it safely

The reason this section exists: the reports above describe stunts, racing and crashes, and a 2017 feature described crashes happening almost every weekend. Corners on this road are for riding, not for showing off. The corners are the reward, and the only way to keep getting the reward is to keep your speed inside what the road and the law allow.

Ride your own pace. Do not chase the rider ahead of you. If a group is faster than you, let them go and meet them at the next stop.
Group riding. Keep a staggered gap, agree a regroup point at a cafe or viewpoint before you start, and never race between them.
Weather. If rain or fog rolls in, slow down, increase your gap and consider stopping. Painted lines, leaves and mountain runoff are slippery. Check the forecast, especially between June and November.
Night riding. Mountain corners, fog and unlit stretches make night riding harder. Plan to be off the mountain in daylight.
Gear and phone. Full riding gear, every ride, and no phone use while you are moving.
No stunts, no racing. They are what the patrols and proposed checkpoints described above are aimed at, and they are behind the crashes in the reports.

After Marilaque: where to stamp your Passport

Marilaque crosses Rizal, Laguna and Quezon, which sit in the CALABARZON region. In Waypoint you earn a region stamp the first time you complete a ride with at least 5 km of GPS track inside that region, so a ride up the mountain section is an easy way to collect CALABARZON in your Waypoint Passport. Depending on where you start, the first part of the highway runs through Metro Manila too, but a stamp only counts if the completed ride has at least 5 km inside that region.

Want more of the region? See motorcycle ride destinations in CALABARZON and the wider near-Manila list.

Ride 5 km inside a region on a completed ride and its stamp is yours.

Stamp CALABARZON in your Passport →