[Closed] A biking tale.

Watching the Gurkas help them find their way through the jungle, with the heat, humidity and tropical downpours was quite nostalgic. Dug through my old blog and found the bit I wrote about going off through the jungle.

Welcome to the Jungle: Part 2

It was such an innocent little invitation. “Do you fancy coming mountain biking at the weekend?”. I thought about it for a few moments, as I’ve not really done any off-road biking, apart from an afternoon skills workshop a year or two back. But I own a mountain bike I’ve used for commuting and getting around towns so I thought, ‘Well, it can’t be that hard, I’m a pretty decent cyclist, so why not’. “OK, sure, what time?”. “Sunday, 7:15, my place. Bring LOTS of water!”

OK, so I knew it would be off road, and I kind of expected dirt tracks and forest trails. Living in Brunei, most of the country is covered in rainforest, so I figured logging roads would be the main thoroughfares. I cleaned the dust of the bike, sorted out a binding brake and lubed up the chain. I’ve been riding my tri bike for so long I haven’t been on the mtb for over a year. Even the tropical storm on Thursday night didn’t worry me too much, as it’s been dry here for a couple weeks, and I guessed it wouldn’t affect the trails too much.

Bright and early on Sunday, I met up with my ride, threw the bikes in the back of his landcruiser and drove for 30 minutes to the sawmill that was the start of our route. There were four of us, including a lady I do a Tuesday morning ride with. I’m able to beat her on a road bike, so figured I wasn’t going to look too bad. I should have realised something wasn’t quite right when they had a discussion about how many parangs (machete’s) we should be taking. Were they seriously going to be cutting a path through the jungle, I thought this was a logging road. They smiled at me. The smile’s were really quite worrying.

Mounted up we headed off. Sand, I hate sand, the track started with it, and it sucks to ride through, fortunately it only lasted a short way, and my expectations were met as we headed off down an old logging road. This was looking good, not a great surface, but I could cope with it ok, and after a little while, started to feel comfortable. Then we came to the hill. The track forked off from the road, and just went up and up. This was the old road, about 25 years old, and it didn’t look like a vehicle had been down it in quite a few of those. It was breaking apart and rutted and covered in patches of sand. Oh great, this was not quite what I expected. I made it most of the way up before a patch of sand got to me and walked it the rest. Back on, and I’m chasing the group again. How the heck they go down hills that fast is beyond me, it was real white knuckle stuff. Sections of the road were completely eroded away, and the only path was about 6 inches wide, with big drops down either side. I picked up the bike and walked it and it was still scary, I saw them go over another one later, and they just rode it. Man, if you got that wrong, it was going to really hurt.

Then the jungle started. Remember this used to be a road, now there was almost no sign of it, just a vaguely less dense path through the jungle, completely overgrown with grasses and trees. I couldn’t actually see the ground, just piles of leaves and 6 foot high grasses, it was quite exhilarating going downhill, but uphill was a bitch. We stopped regualarly to climb around fallen trees, to bypass rattan’s (nasty thorny trees with very sharp hooked thorns) and to climb across holes in the path. Erosion is harsh here, given the weight of the rain we get.

After an hour, I was knackered. As I pulled up behind them at a break, my legs were shaking so much from the climb that I couldn’t actually get my feet out of the pedals and I, rather gracefully I thought, toppled over. As I looked up at the sky it occurred to me that lying there was easier than trying to disentangle myself from my bike. “Don’t worry J,” says Jim, the instigator of all this, “there’s only one more technical section, then it’s downhill all the way back”.

Jim’s a liar. I know that now.

The sections through the jungle were quite eerie at times. Occasionally in the dirt we would see (well actually Ellen saw and pointed out, I was too busy trying to avoid all the rocks) tracks of wild boar and cloud leopards that live in the jungle here. A couple of times I heard something heavy moving through the undergrowth, but it was so dense that I couldn’t see what it was and that might just have been for the best. The trail had now become much rockier, made up of stones the size of my fist, and larger. It was a bugger to ride on, particularly uphill, and I walked a couple of these. I found Jim at the top of one, where the road forked, waiting to make sure I went the correct way.

“Hey Jim, do you have a dictionary at home?” I enquired. “Sure J, why?”. “Well, when you get home, look up the definition of ‘downhill’ would you, because this sure doesn’t bloody feel like I’m going down!”. “Don’t worry J, it’ll go downhill soon”. He smiled that worrying smile. I was beginning not to like that smile at all. However, he was right, it went downhill shortly after that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodI’mgoingtodie!

Was roughly what went through my head. Steep? I’ve skydived down shallower inclines. This one was another where the road had washed away and getting down was more akin to jumping than riding. Scary stuff. I found myself standing at the bottom, quite surprised to find my limbs all in roughly the right places and still attached to my bike. Hmmmm. Maybe I’m getting the hang of this after all. Round another corner, carry the bike over another gully and we met a real, honest to goodness forest road, beautiful and hard packed dirt.

I clicked back into my pedals and rode off with joy in my heart. For a whole 100 yards, until I met the sand. If this was on a beach it would be paradise. White and fine as talcum powder, and about a foot deep. However, this wasn’t’ a beach, it was a bitch and I had to try and ride through it. I soon discovered that the best way to ride through was to get off, pick up the bike and walk. Far, far easier. The road carried on like this for a mile or two, a hundred yards of hard pack, then more sand etc etc. Then there was, I was informed, the last big climb. Mostly hard packed dirt, but rutted to hell and a long climb. Jim’s bike decided to eat it’s chain halfway up, so we stopped to pull tools out and try to get the chain back into it’s proper place, which gave me a bit of a breather. Looked like he had bent the deraillier hanger when he hit a rock earlier and it wouldn’t shift onto the low gears on the rear, so Jim resorted to carrying the bike the rest of the way up the hill.

From there it really was mostly downhill, and it was quite a screamer. I still wasn’t as fast as the others, but I was starting to get the hang of this downhill stuff. It seemed to be more a case of point it in roughly the right direction and hang on for dear life, and hope you don’t hit a rock on the way down. Apart from a couple of short, steep uphills, it was down to the cars and a chance to finally stop.