Ever been to a bash and wondered, where the did all these nice singletracks come from? How about wondering what does one need to do to set up a bash? Or did you at least even wonder who in the world are these hares? This is an article in a series documenting my experience as a newbie hare, which I wrote as an answer to all those questions that I myself wondered about.
Full listing of Memoirs of a newbie hare
Let's recap what we have so far. Part 1: The hares covers the question
who the hares are and what is their relation to KLMBH bash, and Part
2: Conceptualization covers the process of identifying where you can
set a bash. In short, you know the who and the where, now you'll learn
about how we turn an idea to reality. This would be where we recce a
location deemed suitable for a bash. So what's in the world is a recce?
Recce (pronounced /ˈrɛki/) is a term borrowed from the British military to signify Reconnaissance or Scouting. It means a process of preliminary survey to gain information; especially
an exploratory military survey of enemy territory. In general use for
us non-military people, it means to explore and find facts about an
area of interest. So in short we will have to get off our fat bottoms
and do some riding and bushwhacking to find some nice trails to ride.
You should know by now we never do things the easy way.
Recceing requires a lot of riding. Goes without saying some (if not more) pushing may be added into the mix.
What are we trying to find?
Every
task must have an objective, and for our recce the task is to find some
nice trails to make into a bash. To be much more specific, we are
trying to find sufficient trails to set up a scenic and
long route of a bash. If you've been to bashes, you will know that
scenic route are meant to be an easier and shorter ride for the bash,
and the long route is for those who like it the hard way. A long route
is approximately 18km while general scenic routes are around 8km to
12km but avoiding excessive hill climbs or dangerous descents. The
distances may vary based on the quality and quantity of the trails
available, since we have seen scenic route exceeding 18km which is
quite doable by many.
So now that we know what we are trying to
find during a recce, how do we go about doing it? Lets start with the
tools that you will need for a recce.
Tools of the trade
For
starters, you will need a way to get around. Since we are a mountain
biking group, a mountain bike comes to mind since its what we like to
ride in the first place. However do not be restricted to bipedal power
only, because at times using motorized vehicles could make the job
easier especially when you are doing a preliminary recce. This could be
as simple as driving around in the area to have an actual look at what
you have so far only seen on a map, and look for possible trails to recce
later. This would allow you to cover a lot of distance in a short time,
and not to mention easier on the legs. It wouldn't take a genius to
figure out that you can bring your bike along during the drive in case
you want to ride some trails.
Another thing that you might need
to facilitate a recce is a way to record the area we have recced. Lucky
for us, nowdays we have Global Positioning System (GPS) to help us mark
the trails that we found for reference later. Turn it on, set it to
record into the tracklog, and off you go! However if you don't have one
do not worry, as bashes has been set before GPSes are invented. A pen
and paper, combined with your memory would be sufficient. If you happen
to have a topo map lying around and the skills to use it, that would be
an added advantage. The pen and paper is to jot down way points and
features so that you don't forget, and your memory (or the map) to
remember the trails. I can't help you much if you have a problem
remembering trails, perhaps some essence of chicken might help.
So now you've got the tools to help you, you're ready to start the recce.
You never know where you'll end up on a recce. Here we're following a small stream in a ravine to god knows where.
How do we do it?
In
Part 2 we've covered how an area is chosen as a candidate for a bash,
and needs to be recced. From your research, you would have found a
number of places where you can start your recce. From here there's a
number of ways that you can proceed, but in general a recce involves a
lot of riding and a lot of patience. One way is to just ride with
abandon, going into each and every trail you find. Repeat this a number
of times, and kazam you have a bash set up.
Hmm.. sounds a bit too easy, isn't it? So what's the catch?
The
problem with that approach is that if you just ride without any
purpose, you might not get any tangible results. This might result in
you having to take a lot more time than what's normally required to
complete the recces and set up a bash. I find that adding a bit of
structure would provide tremendous help in conducting the recces,
especially if you have objectives to fulfil in a recce. It helps if you
have a nerd on the team to do the proper planning of the recces, but
for the unlucky ones I've broken up the recce process into two parts to
give it more structure, as seen below.
Sometimes
in search of a connecting trail, you will have to cross some rivers. In
the rain. Bring waterproof undies if you have any.
1. Know the lay of the land.
First
of all you do need to know the general outlook of the area. This would
be done by first scoping out the major roads and trails of an area. Do
this to get an overview of the area to find out potential patches of
land that might contain trails that you are trying to find. This is the
part where you find out what you planned on paper is suitable or not
for that area. The most basic way to do this is to find a trail, go in
to see where it goes. If it ends up at a dead end, try to see if you
can bushwhack to a connecting trail. If not, backtrack and try another
trail.
To do this in a structured way is to try to ride the
trails to form a big loop. Before there were GPSs, hares would use
compass bearings to recce a plantation area in the shape of a
rectangle. For example: Ride north 10km, east 10km, south 10km, and
finally west 10km. With a GPS, you can just ride a trail and observe in
your GPS where you've been. Try to explore trails that might help you
connect everything into a loop. However bear in mind that this is not
successful all the time, most of the time a recce might end up at a
dead end forcing you to retrace your steps and find other alternatives.
During a recce certain trails leads to dead ends. When at first you do not succeed, don't stop trying. The different colours in the map above shows the different stages of a recce.
2. Refinement
This
is the part where you plan a much detailed recce instead of just riding
to find out trails in general. Based on what you have found so far you
may want to conduct additional recces to connect certain sections or
explore areas that you have marked as potential areas. This could be
places that is missing to complete your loop, or just certain places
that you have seen during your previous recce that looks like a nice
place to ride. You may repeat this process multiple times until you are
satisfied with an area.
Bushwhacking is part of the job. Remember to pack your machete/parang when you go on a recce.
Things to remember
There's a few important things to remember when you're conducting your recces.
1. Try to plan a schedule for your recces -
I know not everyone is a project manager, but it help to have some kind
of schedule to your recces. Try to plan your weekly recces backwards
from the bash day, in line with the objectives that you will set below.
You do not want to still trying to decide the location of a bash 1 week
from when you're supposed to organize it.
2. Have specific objectives -
When you go do a recce, try to have an objective on what you're trying
to achieve for that day. For example, I want to connect point A to B
and also check out area C. By having objectives for a recce you focus
your efforts on achieving tangible results, and also not stretch
yourself to much for a day. Its not much fun when its getting dark, and
your co-hares wants to strangle you when you still want to check that
hill you saw.
3. Try identify waypoints as references - Waypoints are used as location references in the area of interest which makes it easier for you to communicate with the other hares. For instance, you can tell your hares that for today the objective is to try to to find a link between Kampung Kok San to BridgeBeam. This is better that "that point we reached at noon last week to the village we found the week before that". Try to use easily identifiable waypoints and name it accordingly. For instance, Dusun Durian is a good waypoint, but its not such a good waypoint when there's 20 other durian orchards in the area.
4. Don't be too ambitious - Set your
objectives realistically, and stick to it. For example, don't plan to
cover long distances if your hares are not up to the task. Also do not
expect to cover long distances when the area you're trying to recce is
a dense forested area.
5. Don't forget to have fun - What's the use of doing all this if it becomes a chore? Remember to try to have fun during a recce.
Processing your recce information
Once
you have done all this, you can try to figure out if an area is
suitable for a bash. This would mean an area has enough trails fitting
your requirements. Bear in mind also that it might take multiple recce
session before you can actually figure out this fact. As a rough
estimate, on average it takes about 2-3 months of recceing a new area
before we can figure out if an area is suitable for a bash. There are
instances where the hares has to abandon an area since they can't find
sufficient quality trails to complete a bash. This is covered in the
next section, Planning.
by Riza Shaharudin
photos by Mike Kwan (unless he's in the photo that is)
