As I loaded my bike onto the back of the car, my Singaporean neighbour asked me where I was going: “Cycling”, I said, “off road”. “There's space to do that in Singapore?” came his incredulous reply. I was to remember that reply an hour later as I cycled past a sign saying 'Beware of the Crocodiles', not a building in sight.
The truth is, I had no idea where I was going. And that was the whole point. For I was about to go out with the Singapore Bike Hash, a group of mountain bikers that meets once every three weeks. For some, the rides are just exercise, but to others they are also an extension of a 70-year-old tradition in Southeast Asia.
On that occasion we met in Kranji, on the northern coast of the island, for a ride that took in dirt and gravel paths through secondary rain forest, rubble-strewn derelict land, and the occasional bit of connecting tarmac. For most of that time – as with every bike hash – only a few people would know exactly where we were: only the techies with their GPSs, old-timers who have been running and cycling round Singapore for twenty years, and the hares – the ones setting the trail. For the rest it was a chance to discover places that they’d otherwise never see, and in the process get totally lost in a natural setting in a country that often seems completely urbanised.
The hares are . . . well, to understand that you've got to go back a bit. "It's very reminiscent of fox hunting", explained first-timer Dori Ross, riding with her twelve-year-old son Theo. And no wonder, for the first hash was started in Kuala Lumpur in the 1930s by a group of British colonial officers and expatriates. They followed the typical structure of a hunt: the hare goes out first and lays a paper trail, and the pack (‘the harriers’) tries to follow. It may sound simple, but the hares do their best to throw off the pack by laying false trails, dead-ends, and by taking the pack through 'interesting' terrain. "There's lots of confusion, people milling around watching to see where everyone else is going, waiting to see who's picked up the trail", said Ross.
That first hash was a running hash, and from these origins in Kuala Lumpur a worldwide phenomenon has grown. The first hash having been interrupted by the war, the second hash started in Singapore in the 1960s, and from there it has grown to over 2,000 clubs on all seven continents – even in Antarctica. Bike hashes are a more recent addition, having started in the 1980s and spread to around 50 clubs. The Singapore Bike Hash, led by the current Grand Master, ‘Barbarian’, is proud to be recognised as the world’s original bike hash.
Michael Hinterbrandner described the trials of being a hare. "You have to go out to do at least two or three recce rides to work out your trail. It's going to take you three hours at least to recce a 25km trail, and twice that when you're marking it". The hares mark the trail with a variety of white, biodegradable marks: chalk marks wherever there's something to write on, sometimes flour or toilet paper.
Veteran hashers who know all the tricks will keep a wary eye on any hare seen standing on the course near a mark, as they know that when enough of the pack has gone past the hare is likely to scrub out the mark and put in a new mark pointing off in another direction. The fast riders that have already gone past eventually realise they can see no more marks and circle back, while the rest of the pack gets a chance to overtake the front runners.
Loo Ching Soo and Mike Maxwell, fast and fit mountain bikers who are clearly a level above most of the pack, love these false trails. "The beauty is that everyone gets a real ride", they say. "A good hare will get all the riders to the end of the ride at about the same time." Colin King, a veteran running hasher who now rides on bike hashes as well, is clear that this is not a competitive sport: "you've got to get the pack round together. Coming in first is frowned on".
It's clear that the hashes inspire loyalty. One hasher, newly returned to Singapore from his native Sweden, said he hashed in the city 10 years ago and it was one of the things he missed when he went home. Swedish hashes, he says, are not the same. Another is so loyal that at the beginning of each year she books flights from Singapore to Bangkok for the last weekend of every month. Going up to see friends, it's no coincidence that her trips fall on Bangkok Bike Hash weekends.
Sometimes the trail markings have been known to cause problems. Although the same marks – chalk, flour, toilet paper – have been used throughout most of the hash's history, more recently the flour has caused problems. Hashers in the US and Beijing have run afoul of the police. Suspicious of why the group are dropping an 'unidentified white powder' on the trails, authorities in both places have reacted decisively – to red faces all round. To be on the safe side in squeaky-clean Singapore, flour isn't used by the bike hash, though there is also a more prosaic reason, says Jeff Bradford, veteran Hasher and ex-Grand Master: monkeys eat the flour.
Another common concern among bike hashers in the city is the preponderance of expats in the group. There are native Singaporeans, but it is rumoured that the reason for a surprisingly high proportion of them being female is that they are looking to meet foreign guys.
Not to be drawn to comment on this factor they are certainly outnumbered by the rest of the very international pack. One of those expats instead describes the hash as: "A fantastic way to discover parts of the country you'd never find on your own." That makes it sound like a larger place than you might otherwise think. Perhaps my Singaporean neighbour should come along after all . . . ∆∆
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