The UN of MTB

Being an ex-pat is a great way to meet lots of people from different cultures.

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Joining the army is also a great way to meet lots of people from different cultures….but then of course you have to kill them.

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Fortunately for us the world has mountain biking.

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Mountain biking enables people of all cultures, fashion tastes and facial features to come together and be united in a common cause.

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Here is a photo from the race in Malaysia to prove it.

Photo courtesy of Per again.

I went for my first ‘backcountry ride’ last weekend and was lucky enough to be riding with a great group of guys from all over the world.

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The countries represented were : France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, US and of course England.

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Within this group there was no dominant culture, in fact it was so disparate that we kinda resembled the United Nations. My wife knows a lot about the UN, her cousin works for them and she has run UN simulations in her classes at school.

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I don’t know much about them to be honest but they don’t seem to do much but talk about stuff.

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I guess this is because they deal with complex situations with far reaching consequences.

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It’s amazing how a mountain bike ride has to deal with the same issues. Our ride was supposed to be along a disused railway track, built in the late 1800’s. We had a map attached to our navigators bike and everything...

…so we shouldn’t have got lost….but we did.

No one seemed to know….

1, Where we were
2, Where we wanted to go
3, Where we were meant to be

At this stage it was amazing to watch one of my wife’s own simulations being executed in front of me.

Just like the UN, we needed consultants to help us make decisions. Being in the Philippines these consultants came in the form of local experts.

Fortunately the Philippines is a very friendly place and it is a wonderful cultural phenomena here that people actually try to help and look after each other.

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Tricycles drivers (with passengers), shop owners (and their customers) and even casual passer by stopped to help us. At one point we had probably 20 people looking at our map, trying to find the answer to our one simple question.....

....wherethefakarewe?.....

Unfortunately none of them seemed to know the answers to any of our immediate needs either. Eventually, someone made a decision. I think it was the Belgian, could have been the French…who knows? It certainly wasn’t the Englishman.….

Fortunately the decision got us on our way again, and we eventually ended up riding some great..if a little flat....trails.
We had a great ride…even if had some hairy moments taking ‘shortcuts’ through peoples back yards as they are cooking lunch and a few very dodgy river crossings. It was a real adventure and I had a great time.
In fact it was so good that I’m going to do it all again next weekend. Thanks guys for an awesome ride. Very different from what I’m used to….but great fun all the same.