#321 - Report - 09/04/06 - TI Joe, Guillaume, David

The faith is restored? Singapore Bike Hash returns to its glory years as the French duo ably led by TI Joe put on a weekend extravaganza of rides, hash entertainment and a downright jolly good time. This was without a doubt one of the best outstation rides that we have had, if not ever, certainly in a long long time. Flawless organization led to an effortless weekend of good trails, cold beer and excellent food. If you had to look for a whinge then possibly the return ferry trip was painfully long…but we couldn’t blame the hares for that, could we? Even the weather gods couldn’t take the edge off the riding although they had a very good try on the Saturday with an awesome demonstration of power that saw the trail totally washed out beneath a dark brooding sky of lightening strikes and thunder which left some of the pack wondering if it was a good idea to be out on a bicycle.

The weekend was extremely well attended with a total of fifty nine participants of which twenty seven were families (wives and children), three were guests and the rest – a whopping twenty nine were members (that’s forty percent of our total membership). It was extremely disappointing that the weekend clashed with the Singapore Rugby 7’s which put quite a few of our avid members in a real quandary as to where they should be? A very tough choice which ever way you looked at it and unfortunate for those who had to remain in Singapore. On the Sunday with the addition of the day trippers we made it up to forty four percent of the membership – very impressive and a big thank you to all who came.

The riding was excellent although somewhat wet (understatement of the year) with some very technical sections on the Saturday and a longer plantation ride on the Sunday, see attachments. This was virgin trail to all but the most seasoned (read old) of bike hashers and is definitely an area that should be re-visited – all you budding hares take note?

The highlight of the weekend though was the naming of Fergus who on the Saturday had some how managed to fall off his bike into what looked like a muddy puddle but soon became apparent as a quicksand hole as Fergus started to sink before becoming firmly embedded, requiring half of the pack to pull him out – luckily in one piece. Back at the circle it was obvious that a hash naming was on the cards and the likes of Mud Skipper, Hippo and Mud Sucker were bandied about. Initially the pack voted on Mud Sucker but it was later as a few cleansing ales liberated “those parts of the body that other drinks do not reach” that the minds went into overdrive and a much more suitable name was found. This lead to a re-christening on the Sunday and thus it was that ‘Mud Sucker’ transformed into ‘Fat Stuck Bas*ard’ and Fergus now becomes part of the Ba*tard family ably left by the most famous Ba*tard of them all - Fat Crashing. This is a most significant event as with the, previously unreleased, news that Skinny Crashing Ba*tard was departing Singapore permanently, and in fact Sebana would be his last ride, the Ba*tard family were looking somewhat depleted.

Our sincere thanks must go out to ours hares who put in a tremendous effort (more than most of you will ever know or realise) to produce a superb weekend. Special attention must be made of Guillamume who having spent three or four weekends recce-ing all the trails could not, unfortunately, make the weekend. So much effort so little reward but those in the know are grateful. Note must also be made of David who, stepping in as a last minute replacement, sacrificed his own riding enjoyment to lay trail on both days. While most of the pack were staggering out of the Captains Lounge late on Saturday night (or was that early on Sunday morning? [no names mentioned]) our hares had already left long before dawn to start laying paper.

All in all a fantastic weekend which must be repeated soon????

On On

Barbarian

Grand Master