Haring In more detail. Volunteer (3 - 6 months ahead of your planned ride) Interested in haring? Check out the ‘Haring is Fun’ page or contact the Trailmaster. We know that once you’ve talked to the trailmaster you’ll be dying to get out there; make that decision and commit a weekend to a future Hash. Note: If the last weekend falls on a public holiday the Hash is often moved to the prior weekend to make reserving accommodation easier. The future events page will show you which month’s Hashes your fellow hares have already taken. Pick a free weekend at the end of a still vacant month and let the trailmaster know. Decide on a Location (3 - 6 months ahead of your planned ride) Choose a location between 2 – 3 hours away from Bangkok. Much further and you’ll be in the van longer than on your bike, much closer and you’ll not find much great mountain biking terrain. You’ve probably been on a few Hashes by now. Which ones did you enjoy? There’s normally a much bigger area to investigate than the previous Hash route. Driven through an area that looks cycling friendly and new to the Hash? Time to check it out. Memory loss? Contact the trailmaster for hints and/or check out the archives. Make sure you don’t arrange a Hash in the same location too soon after a previous Hash. Choose a Hotel/Resort (3 - 6 months ahead of your planned ride) Normally to be done at the same time as you choose your location, but resorts are often close to each other in these areas so you can hunt around for alternatives on your first recce. Speak to the resort a.s.a.p to make sure that they can and are willing to provide for all the normal Hashing needs. Now we are getting around 100 riders on many of our rides it’s important that they are happy with the influx of two wheeled guests and all the mud and beer that goes with it. Prices should range from B1000 – 1500 per night. As the rides are getting larger it is becoming more difficult to find resorts with enough rooms and rates towards the lower end of this price bracket - but please try. There is a great mixture of Hashers, and although Hashers want some home comforts they don’t want to be splashing out on luxury villas either – look out for a large restaurant area, western style breakfasts, cheap beer and swimming pools to cover most ‘wants’. Remember to haggle. Many Internet prices for resorts can be half the published price at reception, and with the sizable amount of business you’re bringing their way you will have plenty of scope to negotiate. If this all sounds like too much hassle, then contact SpiceRoads (http://www.spiceroads.com/contact) and ask them to handle all the hotel bookings. They will charge riders a small commission. But this might be offset by their stronger bargaining power. If SpiceRoads are involved they will deal directly with the hotel, and Hashers will pay SpiceRoads directly. Having problems? Great area, but can’t find a resort large enough? Maybe there are a few resorts/guest houses that are close enough together to accommodate a Hash? Taken a look at the historical info? Again don’t forget you can contact the Trailmaster for suggestions! Hotel Requirements (3 - 6 months ahead of your planned ride) You’ll need to pre-book rooms. Except for maybe the quieter July and December Hashes, you’ll need to reserve a minimum of 40 rooms, with the availability of up to 60. Most Hashes need in excess of 50 rooms to accommodate everyone. Some hotels will want you to put down 50% deposit on the rooms while others will keep the reservation with no deposit. If possible go for the latter, and try to get the hotel to accept Hasher’s bookings direct. It’s a lot of extra work to manage all the hotel accommodation yourself. If you do handle all the bookings yourself, make sure you always get the money from Hashers when they make their reservation. Otherwise you’ll find some absent minded riders either forget to turn up or forget to pay you before driving off on Sunday afternoon, leaving you to pay the hotel out of your own pocket. Arrange late checkout on the Sunday – until about 15:00 is the norm. A buffet lunch for Saturday is not a requirement but is easy for the hotel to organize and makes sure everyone gets some decent food before the Hash – Veggie and Chicken fried rice are always a good option. A Buffet dinner for the Saturday is essential. Normally you’ll choose the food from the hotel’s set options. Get a few veggie options on the table and you’ll make friends for life – and no, oyster sauce doesn’t count as a veggie option! A good idea is to ask the hotel to use a ticket system for paying for the dinner, which can be booked at the same time as the room to help with numbers. Resorts favour earlier buffets (it allows the staff to get home earlier), but by the time the Circle has been completed and riders have cleaned up themselves and their bikes it will be at least 7:30 and possibly 8pm so push for a late start to the buffet. Recommend they collect cash for the beer as it is served, otherwise it gets very complicated with the bills. Try to get one individual at the resort to liaise with you and the Hashers to ease booking. If offered use either the resort or their Bangkok office, as using both always ends in tears. Get the resort to organize a cold-water urn for the start and finish of both the Saturday and Sunday rides. You’ll also need them to provide a couple of tables for the Hash grub, 5/6 trays for the food, a tub for the tuna, and a couple of sharp knives to cut the veggies. Last but not least beer (for the buffet)…remind the resort just how thirsty Hashers can be! Plan the Trails (3 months to 1 week ahead) Your main job is to set the ‘trails’. So get out and ‘recce’ (explore), the area as much as you can -taking note of where you are going! You can do your first recce without leaving home, by reviewing the area using Google Earth to look for likely trails. Portable GPS units are definitely the easiest and becoming the most popular way to record recce’s and create the final trail, but you can still use maps, compasses and/or general awareness of direction - picking out a fixed landmark to circumnavigate from can be helpful. The Saturday ride should be a reasonably difficult and longish ride of about 35-45 km or about 4 hours long, while the Sunday ‘hangover’ ride should be both an easier and shorter ride of about 25-30km or about 2 hours long. Try and take in some nice scenery – especially on the Sunday. You’ll need to go to your chosen location several times in advance of the Hash. Many of the haring regulars may only take 3-4 times to visit an area, but for your first Hash we’d suggest nearer 5-6 to ensure you have a good, relaxed, and fun experience. One-way rides (with transport back) and ferry crossings etc. sound exciting but are almost impossible to arrange for 100 or so bikers. Keep it simple, especially if this is the first Hash you've set. Remember that with so many riders anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Once out and about ride down tracks, trails, singletrack, and roads (not too many) and hopefully they'll lead you to more tracks, trails, singletrack and roads. Do not expect to have your trail sorted out after your first visit. Start a trail by exploring and checking where other routes go, sometimes you will be frustrated as one part of your trail may not link to another but with time and effort and improving local knowledge you may find you can link up all the interesting sections and routes you’ve discovered. Your aim as Hare should be to set a trail that is interesting, challenging, scenic, have a few surprises, and the trail should if possible aim to make everybody ride close together and finish together. This should be done by setting ‘Checks’, ‘U-turns’ and ‘false trails’ to slow down the FRB’s, (front riding bastards) thereby allowing the average rider to catch up. When you hit a dead end, use it as ‘U turn’ or ‘false trail’. A U-turn is an obvious instruction to the riders to turn around and look for the paper from where they came, whilst a false trail just disappears and keeps the FRB’s guessing for longer. Checks are laid on the trail as a cross normally placed at a main intersection of trails where the paper can be in any direction within a 500m radius of the check. Finally there are Back-Checks where the paper recommences again back in the direction you’ve just come from. Provide 1 water stop along your route, normally a shop marked with H20 on the ground. Arrange your water-stop shopkeeper to have enough cold drinks for us. IMPORTANT keep the ON-OUT route well away from the ON-IN route, as well as keeping Saturday’s ride away from the Sunday’s, to ensure that the trails can’t get mixed up. Get all the information together to be able to inform the Hashers. (4 – 8 weeks)
Provide all this information to the webmaster and On-Sec who will get the details onto the internet and e-mail out to everyone. If you are at the ride the month before yours ask the hares if they have any paper, chalk, signs etc. over which they can give you. What you need to bring to your Hash. A week before the ride send an e-mail to Hash Piss and Hash Softee reminding them of the date and location of the ride. You can get the contact details of all the committee members at http://www.bangkokbikehash.com/Committee.html. Check to see if they are bringing ice boxes. The Brits won't complain if the beer is warm but the French and Germans will give you flack. Usually there is no problem, but if they say they can't come contact the GM to arrange an alternative - you'll have enough to worry about on the day without worrying about drinks! (in theory this shouldn’t be necessary but the committee is only human and it’s better to be safe than sorry). Food - Beer and soft drinks are organised by Hash Piss and Hash Softee, but you buy and bring the food (claim the money back from Hash Cash). Download the shopping list. You also need a packet of plastic knives, paper plates and pack of large rubbish sacks, Besides what the food you buy French fries go down well, but you would need to see if the resort can supply them. Shredded paper - The hares will usually use shredded paper to mark the trails we follow. Flour, chalk and paint may also be used. You will have to carry a bag stuffed with your shredded paper. Bikes! – Obviously! The weekend of your Hash You’ll need to go up on the Friday night on your weekend haring a Hash. Get up nice and early on the Saturday and lay the trail (~6hours before ride-off if you are doing it all in one go, or less if you are splitting the job with other hares) with your shredded paper, making sure you’re with a co-hare for safety! Remember even though you know where you’re going you still need to drop all the paper so you’ll be taking the same time to lay the trail as it takes to ride it! It’s a lot easier to carry a relatively small bag packed tightly with paper than a big bag loosely packed. Mark the trail fairly regularly, generally the paper is laid every 100m or so, and may be hidden from direct view but don’t get too clever nor too simple. Remember you can use arrows (in flour/chalk tends to be best) to mark complicated junctions. Make sure the hotel knows where, and when to put out the water urn (1 hour before roll-off), tables (mid-afternoon on Saturday and mid-morning on Sunday) and other supplies. Ask if they can supply a large icebox with ice for the beer and softees. Make sure there are plenty of places for parking near the circle, as poor Hash Piss and Hash Softee have to get the beer and soft drinks there. While the Hashers are paying Hash Cash look around for people who aren’t going on the ride, and try to talk them into cutting up the salad. At roll off time the GM will call a circle and you should give the riders an idea of what to expect - total distance, distance to the water stop, any special hazards such as unrideable sections, shortcuts for wimps. It is also good to volunteer your phone number so any riders with problems can call you (though often parts of the trail are too remote to have a phone signal). After the pack has set off make your way to the water stop to greet them, help any distressed riders and send them on their way for the second half of the ride. After the pack has left the water stop return to the hotel and put out half the food. If the food runs out bring out some of Sunday’s rations. That’s it, nothing too difficult! Find a couple of trails, book a hotel & dinner and buy the food, easy peasy! |
