i just read this, and pretty much have to put it on. cheers to the cool ones at http://www.groundeffect.co.nz

To jump, or not to jump

To jump, or not to jump: that is the mountain biker's question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The rags and chortles of outrageous riding mates,
Or to launch your bike off a ledge of troubles,
And by a clinched sphincter, survive? To jump: to land;
Once more; and by a landing to say we end
The knocks and grazes
That lycra'd flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To jump, to land;
To land: perchance to live: ay, there's the rub;
For in that leap of faith what second-thoughts may come
Of clipping free and bailing for the trees
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of such big drop-offs;
For who would bear the whips and thorns of the blackberry patch,
The giant gum's unbending armour, the proud man's shattered GPS,
The pangs of dislocated joints, the pretzel'd wheel's delay,
The insolence of others and the 'bagger' spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy sixteen-year-old-with-8-inch-front-'n-rear-and-no-mortgage takes,
When he himself might his timely demise make
With a soil-sampling endo? Who would take the pain,
To grunt and sweat under a weary granny-gear climb,
But that the hope of nailing that gnarly drop-off,
The undiscover'd nirvana that once found
No mountain biker ever returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear the opt-outs we know
Than crank hard at those ledges that we know not of?
Thus Wang Chung does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of car-park bravado
Is sicklied o'er with the pale thought of a yard sale,
And yumps of great hang-time and distance
With this regard our wheels hug the dirt,
And lose the catch of air.