Giving it to the man

With the other members of my family travelling to the old country for the Easter break Saturday after work looked ideal to venture back onto dirt and Give it To The Man in the process. The ‘Man’ In question whom I was going to “Give it to” were in this case two men. One, an actual ‘Man’ known here as “The other Weinberg brother” (who in a parallel universe kind of way ISNT a past SS champ and gets around on an xc dual suspension bike). The other, not really a ‘Man’ at all but a mountain, Mount Ngongotaha to be exact. If it was an actual man or a metaphorical man-mountain I didn't care. Whatever the case there was going to be some giving it to going on.

As this was a casual ride I dressed appropriately and headed off towards ‘the man’ er, men. To give it to them. My first act of non conformist defiance upon arrival at our rendezvous was to immediately suffer a flat, thus holding up the ride (scheduling be damned)and showing The other Weinberg brother just how we do things one speed. Suitably patched and booted (hey, bitch..In my world UST stands for Unattached Sidewall Technology, ok?) we headed out. What followed was a pleasant spin up Mt Ngongotaha, with it's stunning vistas of the caldera (no real camera to speak of, though so no photos)we wound up and up, through farmland then into calming and cool native bush which did the job admirably of erasing the terror of my day, we carried on going until finally our destination was reached.

Now, you can imagine my excitement when the other Weinberg brother suggested riding a trail named Jubilee, right. I mean, you know..Jubilee means PAAAAAARTY, right? As gutted as I was to realize at the top that there was no actual party going on (apart from the one in my head) I was consoled by the fact that the little guy riding a bike in the picture had a line through it, so whilst not actually being a party it was illegal and even if we met no men on the way down (we didn't..ladies either for that matter) I was assured that my very act of getting rubber side down would be giving it to someone, somewhere..who was probably a man. With that cheery thought in my heart we got amongst it, what followed were 2.4km of twisty, tight, technical, rooty downhill goodness. About two thirds in the trail smoothed out some and got some more flow on and spat us out minutes later at the base of the mountain. Feeling suitably victorious in giving it to the man(mountain) the other Weinberg fellow and I headed our separate ways. I had meant to "give it to" my geared compatriot in some form or another however I couldn't bring myself to as I've known him for 10 years and the man is a Hessian. Knowing that I'd have points deducted for "colluding with/not giving it to the man" I headed off, spinning madly with my head held high, not giving a damn (which, strangely would have cancelled out the points taken off as my act of not giving a damn was giving it to the man. Even if this "Man" was the SS nation) Next time, perhaps.