Roads were decent most of the way up there. I went through San Carlos because the route through Mabinay was showing a lot of construction and traffic on Google maps. From the Dumaguete airport to the Bacolod city limits only took around 4 hours total. Spent half an hour sitting in slow, hot and polluted traffic. (You guys need to visit Bacolod and walk around before you wish that trikes and motorcycles would go away in Dumaguete. The alternative is much worse IMO.)
I just came back from Bacolod and was amazed of how much smother traffic was and how much more courtesy people showed. Could be we were in different areas of the city, or the noisy Harley made them give way
Came back through Mabinay. It was faster (less mileage and I was pushing the bike much harder on the trip back though) but was far more stressful because of all the sugarcane trucks, idiots and trikes on the highway. I was yelling, cursing and flipping the bird every kilometer or two.