I admire the riding of everyone in this forum, including the very few whose skill levels are less than my own. There are riding Gods in here, and it enables them to do things of which I am truly quite envious. One specific highlight for me is the trips people have made in order to ride down volcanoes. It will probably always remain a dream for me. This post was sparked off by a couple of things. Steve Colligan riding down a volcano in Peru, Mayon volcano, which is erupting at the moment, and the thread about how much land people own.
In the UK I own just about enough land to feed a small family of earthworms ( nightcrawlers USA?). However I also own Mayon Volcano…or kind of own it. When I was 3 or 4 years old we lived quite close (dangerously close) to Mayon, which is a fabulously symmetrical conical volcano of about 7000 feet height. I used to stand and just admire it. One day my father said:
“If you like it so much I will give it to you.”
So it became my volcano. It never of course entered my head that my father did not actually own a single square metre of the volcano. But ever since the family has always referred to it as my volcano. It erupts every 5 or 6 years, being the most active volcano in the Philippines, and so when it destroyed my brother’s farm a few years ago, I got the blame, for it was my volcano, and therefore my fault.
It is erupting as I write, throwing flaming car sized lumps of rock about and streaming lava down the slopes. Scientists think that the coming full moon may well trigger it into a more significant loss of temper. Tens of thousands of people have already been moved. They all have my apologies. Some BBC pictures:
And I am trying to attach a picture I took a while ago.
There is a hotel about half way up the mountain. I have stayed there a few times. None of the room windows fit properly, and sleep is interrupted by bugs of various kinds flying in from the nearby jungle. Whether the frequent earthquakes have distorted the building I don’t know. Last time I stayed it was in a rather sad state. Since the Americans left their base following Pinatubo’s eruption, the number of tourists has fallen dramatically and the Mayon hotel was obviously struggling.
So the activities of others riding down volcanoes, makes me highly envious, and I really want to become good enough to ride down MY volcano. I probably will never achieve that level of skill.
I am like you in a lot of ways, about traveling far distances to ride remote, beautiful areas.
I am not as much into muni, but I would love to get that in a lot in the near future, but to be able to go to a different continent and ride the towns hitting all the trials lines would be great.
I Also feel envious when reading great write-ups of distance riding, the scenery, the feel of just riding along through miles of miles of trails.
I cant wait for the days where I have enough money to go to different countries to ride there, and I can wait for the day when I can do my first long distance ride.
the thing i envy the most are actually ppl whi cant ride plz let me explain
mostly coz of the feeling when you first learn to ride and you feel invincible and like you could really kik some arse the you hit the curb and you get back no the uni that is the best feeling in the world
i want to some day go onto a tour one day, like the K1 team does. i also wanna buy a coker and ride around Australia, which could be a lot of fun on the first few days. i also want to go to the ski slopes and ride down them. and a volcano to ride down would be nice as well. i also admire guys that can glide at high speeds, i want to be able to do that!
i am envious of those who have others to ride with and that dudewithasock has a sock. is that plus the socks you have on or not? cause then when you are wearing socks you could be dudewiththreesocks
I love watching the vids of all those really good riders in the mountains and on the streets, but when I go out to try to practice a trick (like a 1/2" hop) I end up rolling down the street and around the corner. I have uni wunderlust. So I envy everyone with an inseam greater that 27" who can and do ride Cokers, etc. I am just peddling as fast as I can at the back of the pack.
I don’t really envy anyone, apart from maybe AspenMike because of where he lives! I do greatly admire a lot of riders, because there are so many better than me! Some that spring to mind are Gracie Sorbello, Nathan Hoover, Xav Collos and Ryan Atkins, but there are many more.
I also admire people who are consistently write entertaining and intelligent posts, for example Naomi and Mikefule but again there are lots more.
