People are funny, and mean, and moody, and mad, and hateful, and sometimes, downright stupid and ornery...
The premise of the movie "Crash" is that people move through their modern lives like cars in heavy traffic, so many all together and yet so isolated from meaningful human contact that, on occasion, they purposefully crash into one another just for the sake of the interaction—supposedly it makes the crashees feel more alive and vital. That MIGHT be true in the USA where people probably ARE more remote from one another, where human contact IS less likely to be meaningful; but in no way would that CRASH premise fly in this place. No, when people “crash” here, it’s more likely to be because of culture or frustration, or like today, both!
Today, for example, I witnessed a “little crash” between an Englishman and a Filipino. Once again, it was in the gym. It seems most of the “fun” things that happen to me and around me happens there.
A few minutes before “the collision” I was on the curling machine when I noticed a Josh Groban song being played on the stereo. I love that guy. He’s great. I was thrilled and excited to hear it. Then, a second Groban song came on, and I realized they were playing one of his albums. Awesome! I finished my current set of reps, and while I shook them off getting ready for the next set, I took a step over to the counter and asked the girl about the music. Right away she got defensive. She’s new and I have this reputation for asking the music to be changed forthwith if, and only if mind you, rap is being played.
“Oh, you don’t like this sir?” She almost looked scared.
“No. This is Josh Groban right? He’s wonderful! I love all music EXCEPT rap. Cos you know why?”
“No, why sir?”
“Cos rap is crap! And when I hear it, I just want to SLAP the SAP out of the person who plays THAT PAP!”
She laughed.
I said also laughing. “See, I told you rap sucks. Now do you believe me? Hey, thanks for playing this album. Where did it come from?”
“That guy over there in the corner,” she said pointing.
I went back to my machine to finish my reps and an older (than me) shaven headed bespectacled Filipino was standing there looking impatient. He asked me, “Are you still using this?”
“Yes sir. Almost done. I’ll give you the high sign when I’m finished.” I said respectfully.
He gave me an annoyed look, which is very un-Filipino and therefore I got the sense that he wasn’t from around here. Him doing that was very uncharacteristic of a local. Besides, his accent, what little I heard of it, sounded a bit American too.
A few minutes later and I found myself next to the fellow foreigner who provided the Groban music. I thanked him for bringing it in and we both agreed how utterly talented the man is. From his accent I took him to be from Great Britain and he verified that when he mentioned how much cheaper it was to buy a Josh Groban CD here in the Philippines than in the UK. He had just bought his newest one in one of the big shopping centers in Angeles City.
Not 15 minutes later and I was by the water cooler and introducing myself to the impatient American-acting older Filipino. Sure enough, he told me he had just arrived from the US two weeks ago where he had been living for many years. His name is Eddy.
I remarked, “Eddy, I knew immediately that you were NOT a local. I kind of pride myself on my observations and you even carry yourself more like an American than a Filipino.”
“Oh really?” he responded warily; “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just an observation. Of course, if you don’t like that I spotted your Americanisms within 20 seconds, then I guess that would be bad, wouldn’t it?” I kidded him. He grinned back, so I knew he got the humor.
About then I heard an angry English voice. It was my fellow Josh Groban fan and he was mad hot.
He came over to me fuming, “Some other guy working out in here doesn’t like my music and made her stop playing it,” he told me angrily.
“What! No way! Who?” I craned my head toward the counter. I couldn’t believe anyone would hate such righteous tunes to the point that they needed it yanked off the stereo; especially considering the rap crap that I’ve had to suffer through in there before.
The irate Limey pointed furiously at a younger Filipino fellow, maybe in his late 20s or early 30s. It’s hard to tell ages over here.
I shook my head feeling myself getting upset and maybe slightly enraged as well, although not nearly as hot as this guy was. I informed him, “No way buddy. The rule is that they HAVE to play out the whole CD if you request that they play it. I’ve had to suffer through crappy rap music before and THAT is what I was told then. THAT’S the rule!”
That was a mistake if I was looking to cool the dude down, because now he charged back to the counter loaded for bear.
I stood and watched the ongoing crash while Eddy spoke up to me, “You know, you guys really shouldn’t be like that. This isn’t your country. Why do you want to piss off the local Filipinos like that? It’s a huge mistake. They are NOT going to like it.”
I turned my attention to him. “Dude, I’ve been here a long time and I know exactly what you are saying. I’ve already been through similar situations where I was expected not to confront a local because I was in HIS country, and besides, I’m ALSO supposed to fear what they can do to me when my back is turned. That IS what you’re talking about, right?”
He nodded wryly.
I went on, “Okay, rationally, I know that you are right. But for many of us, a moment comes along where you just say, “NO WAY! I AIN’T TAKING THIS!” and I’m sensing that that fellow over there is having a moment like that. And besides, this gym is owned by a foreigner, a majority of the people that come in here are foreigners, and we don’t think we should have to keep kissing local ass even in here! This is supposed to be an international place, you know?”
I could tell Eddy wasn’t convinced by my tirade, and all the while I’m talking to him I’m watching the English fellow get even more riled up. He got right in the face of the Groban-hating Filipino fellow and things got so heated that the two gym boys, both big muscled fellows, were now playing the role of physical peacemakers. I’ve seen dozens of fights and I’ve seen hundreds of confrontations that seemed about to erupt into fights and I knew straight away that this one was NOT going to involve fisticuffs. They were just growling and snapping, neither really interested in tangling.
So, instead of a CRASH! it was more of a piddling fender-bender; interesting to see, but nothing worth calling the cops and ambulance over.
Just another day in “paradise...”
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
The French Foreign Legion vs. The British Gurkhas: A Light Comparison
Almost 20 years ago I took a class or so every semester toward earning my Associates Degree in Avionics Technology. I wrote the following paper for an English class taught by one of the best teachers from whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning--Mr. Bill Garvin. This little paper was the culmination of that class. I knew I couldn’t go wrong writing about mercenaries, and everyone is fascinated with Gurkhas and Legionnaires. For all you out there looking for info for a school project on Gurkhas and The Legion, this little research paper is somewhat dated; so I highly suggest further reading using more recent sources. Note: There also exists the Spanish Foreign Legion, but in practice it recruits almost exclusively from Spaniards.
English 10013
Professor Bill Garvin
November 11, 1988
Thesis: How do the French Foreign Legionnaires and the British Gurkhas compare and contrast as the last two important mercenary military outfits still actively part of any western power’s army?
I. Legion and Gurkha beginnings
A. French Foreign Legion origins
B. The Carlist Campaign
C. British Gurkha origins
II. The Motives and background of the men
A. The Legionnaire
1. Where he comes from, his outlook
2. Why he fights
B. The Gurkhas
1. His personable outlook
2. Where they come from, why they fight
III. The training of these mercenaries
A. Gurkha training
1. The innate mountain soldier
2. Special training requirements
B. Legion Training
1. The brutal indoctrination
2. The men who train them
IV. Pivotal battles in their histories
A. The battle of Camerone
B. The Bengal Army Mutiny
V. A final analysis
**********************
Introduction.
Comparing the French Foreign Legion with the British Gurkhas is like comparing two brothers: one saintly and responsive, the other ornery and self-destructive. Both outfits have been in existence since the early 19th century, and both have been important units in their respective country’s army in every major conflict of the 20th century. Both French Legionnaires and Gurkhas are elite mercenary fighters that would have been disbanded long ago, if they hadn’t proved their worth in scores of wars and skirmishes since their inception.
I. Legion and Gurkha beginnings
The Foreign Legion was founded by King Louis Philippe in 1831. He did so in an effort to keep thousands of unemployed foreigners in France from further unemployment and mischief. They were shipped in mass across the Mediterranean to the new French colony of Algeria. There they performed miserably in battle and were relegated to road building and well digging (Mercer 4).
In 1835, The Legion was loaned to Spain for almost two years to fight the Carlist rebels for Queen Christina. They were rarely paid and had to forage for food. Out of the thousands that went, less than 200 rag-clad Legionnaires crossed the mountains to France. Those not killed in battle or by disease had deserted.
Near the end of the Carlist campaign, The Legion found itself in The Battle of Barbastro against Carlist mercenaries, most of which were deserters from the French Legion. The Spanish on both sides paused fascinated, as the two groups of mercenaries struggled to destroy the other. The bitter fight lasted from dawn to dusk, and most of the combatants ended up dead or wounded. This was the beginning of the compelling myth of The Foreign Legion (Mockler 135).
The Gurkhas became part of the British Army after being defeated by a British force of 39,000 from 1814-16. They fought bravely, and the much-impressed British didn’t wait for the war’s end before starting to raise Gurkha battalions. In April 1815, the first Gurkha battalion was authorized and serves still (Farwell 33).
II. The Motives and background of the men
By examining the motives for enlisting, the training, and the outlooks of the individual “mercenaries,” we can get an idea how they established themselves as fighting legends. It’s important to understand why the individual riflemen fought to the death so many times for countries not their own (Mockler 20).
Over the years, The Legion has picked up its soldiers from the lost causes of Europe. After WWI, ultra-nationalist Germans joined in great numbers. As Hitler rose to power, Jews, Austrians, Czechs, Poles and Hungarians signed on. The end of WWII began the era of Nazis and fascists recruitment right out of prison camps (Mercer 7).
When trying to describe the individual soldiers, few have said anything positive about Legionnaires. Kipling described them as the “The Legion of the lost ones and cohorts of the damned” (Bocca 34). It’s not surprising that the Foreign Legion has appealed to so many with suicidal tendencies. In the same vein, the slower suicide of alcoholism is the pride, tradition and vice of the Legion (Mercer 5).
Yet, it is impossible to generalize the Legionnaires. To some, The Legion is their love and family. On the other hand, thousands have deserted and describe their experience as hellish. Modern Legionnaires can be described as tough young men, used to hardship and looking for adventure. They see fighting as a good career, and some may feel the mythological past is too emphasized (Mercer 322).
The Foreign Legion is renowned for its toughness and admired for its fighting skills, but few have loved them. Herein lies an acute difference with their French Legion counterparts. Where the Gurkhas are known for their physical toughness, they lack the brutish Legion traits. Harsh discipline is not found in Gurkha regiments. They charm and are admired by all they meet but their enemies (Farwell 14).
If you were to meet one of the pleasant little Gurkha mercenaries, you couldn’t imagine that in a firefight this little fellow is a quick and vicious killer. So personable are they, many people have become confirmed Gurkhaphiles after going on a single patrol with them (Weller 50).
Most of the Gurkha mercenaries aren’t of the warrior castes such as there are in India to the south, even though many generations have served father to son. They come from the trader, farmer and herdsmen castes (Farwell 21). Most are family men. They marry young, usually between 15 to 17 years of age (Farwell 147).
Why these pleasant little mountain men join and fight so hard for England must be examined. It’s been said they fight for the money, but that has been the solo reason for very few. One Gurkha said, “The army is the easiest way to demonstrate one’s braveness to the world.” Others want to leave the confined and restricted life of the village. All of them it seems, simply love battle and excel at it (Farwell 82). An old Victoria Cross winner, retired to his native village in Nepal, was asked why the Gurkhas are so brave. He answered, “Only that we have such bad tempers when something makes us angry” (Farwell 280).
III. The training of these mercenaries
We’ve seen that both mercenary groups have two different kinds of recruits to train, which explains the wide difference in training regimens.
At the time of the Gurkha beginnings, the British regiments were filled with society’s rejects, and it was felt that fierce discipline was required to maintain control. But that didn’t work with the Gurkha recruits. They were already naturally enthusiastic soldiers, requiring little disciplinary action. For instance, Captain F. Young, a battalion commander, recorded in seven years only one court martial. This is an unheard of statistic in any other army in the world. Desertions are almost nonexistent, although nothing would be easier (Farwell 48).
In Gurkha basic training there is no bullying or intimidation. No Gurkha has ever been flogged, even back in the 1800s. The NCOs in charge of recruits use humor, example, persuasion and great patience (Farwell 84).
Things most of us take for granted, all must be introduced to the young Gurkha recruit. The toilet is a curious idea to them that there should be a particular place to defecate. Time is a concept that must be learned in more than general terms. Eating utensils, furniture and boots are all new. The first month is agony for him as he gets used to wearing boots after a lifetime of bare feet (Farwell 84).
The Foreign Legion uses the traditional method of stress and hardship in its recruit training. The recruit must be 18 to 42 years old and at least 5 feet 2 inches tall (Mercer 34). An interesting irony is that many Gurkha soldiers, renowned as they are, wouldn’t even make the Legion height requirements.
As the Legion developed, a fixed indoctrination process also developed. A recruit learns that the Legion is all, and the individual is nothing (Mercer 33). The 16 weeks of initial training on the island of Corsica is unbelievably brutal, and beating up the recruits is traditional (McLeave 156). The brutality is a constant part of a legionnaire’s career. To cure a man of cracking up under the stress of combat, he is beaten so badly, he realizes death is better than being a coward (McLeave xvii). This is the make or break period. The training is so intense that the authorities expect desertions within the first six months (McLeave 156).
At the initial processing center at Marseilles, recruits are launched into a depressing atmosphere for the psychological effect. Once they pass their physical, they are met by the grim quote attributed to General F. de Negrier, a Legion officer from the last century, “You are soldiers in order to die, and I’m sending you where one dies” (Mercer33).
All training is administered by NCOs. This is to keep the officers out of sight and above the men. The French officers are one of the most important aspects in creating the Legion spirit (Mercer46). After WWI, France began to assign only its best officers to the Legion, as it proved itself worthy in one battle after another (Bocca 73).
IV. Pivotal battles in their histories
In each of their histories, the Gurkhas and Legionnaires can look back on a single battle that defines them as two of the world’s premiere fighting elites. It would be remiss not to look at these crucial pivots in each outfit’s past.
On April 30th of each year, The Legion stops what it’s doing and throws a huge orgy of drinking, eating and singing Legion songs as they celebrate the battle of Camerone.
At Camerone, Mexico, on 30 April 1864, 59 Legionnaires in the service of Emperor Maximilian found themselves facing 2000 Mexican Juarista troops. The French legion detachment was led by Captain Danjou, who had one hand made of wood designed to grasp the reins of his horse that he might stay in the Legion. He pledged each man to fight on to the death, and each man agreed. They fought for over nine hours in the searing heat and dust of a farmhouse that was to be their final redoubt. There were just four wounded men left standing, when the Mexican commander asked for their surrender. They answered by charging with fixed bayonets into the massed Juaristas (Mockler 137).
A legionnaire explains, “The Camerone appeal to us is as natural as instinct. The Legionnaire reaches out to it with his heart, because it is part of his pain. It is a great reminder that sand is always in the eyes, of the battleground ill-chosen, of the odds too great, of the insufficient cause to justify death, and the tools always wrong. Above all, nobody cares if we win, lose, live or die. Camerone gives the Legionnaire strength to live with his despair. It reminds him he can’t win, but makes him feel there is dignity in being a loser. It is an expression of his desolation” (Bocca 8).
As Camerone defines the despair of the Legion, the Bengal Army Mutiny at Delhi, India, in 1857 separated and defined the Gurkha soldier from the rest of Britain’s ethnic units. In this fateful rebellion virtually every ethnic group of Britain’s supposedly loyal Indian army rose up to hack their surprised British officers to death. The Gurkhas faithfully helped put down the rebellion and refused to allow religious scruples to interfere with duty. That fact made them important and versatile to the British.
At the siege of Delhi, no sooner were the Gurkha loyalists in position, then a large body of mutineers attacked them. They fought in extreme heat and dust for almost 16 hours. It was only the first of 26 determined attacks beaten back over a week’s time.
After the amazing display of bravery and loyalty, the Gurkhas were recognized as truly special, and the British officially styled them as riflemen rather than as sepoys. The highest compliment paid them was that the British considered Gurkha troops interchangeable with British troops, and only the best British officers were allowed to lead the amazing little fighters (Farwell 139).
V. A final analysis
In the final analysis, it can be stated that the British Gurkhas and the French Foreign Legion are more fundamentally different than similar. The Gurkhas are culturally and physically homogenous; while the Legion has had 101 different nationalities serve in their ranks over the years (Mercer 6).
But, an important similarity is that both outfits are products of different values and societies than those of the 20th Century (Beaumont 1). It was typical of the times that the French Legion and the British Gurkhas were used by their countries to help in colonial expansion and keeping control of those colonies.
The despair and loyalty of the French Legion both contrasts and compares to the cheerfulness, good humor and loyalty of the Gurkhas. The motivations of both groups are on the extreme ends of the scale; yet both have finely honed, well-disciplined troops absolutely faithful to their units.
Legionnaires and Gurkhas have demonstrated repeatedly that death is preferable to defeat, and that is why both mercenary outfits have been so successful. It looks as if they will continue as uniquely elite forces in this century and probably well into the next, until men learn for good the folly of war.
Phil Spear
***************************
Works Cited
Beaumont, Roger A. MILITARY ELITES. Indianapolis, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1974.
Bocca, Geoffrey. LA LEGION! New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964
Farwell, Byron. THE GURKHAS. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1984
McLeave, Hugh. THE DAMNED DIE HARD. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973.
Mercer, Charles. LEGION OF STRANGERS. New York, Chicago, San Francisco: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
Mocker, Anthony. THE MERCENARIES. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1969.
Weller, Jack. FIRE AND MOVEMENT. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1967
************************
Mr. Garvin, my teacher for that class, wrote the following remarks on my paper:
Grade: A/A
Fascinating paper. I have acquired McLeave’s and Mockler’s books for further reading on the subject. Excellent paper in both content and construction. You have been an integral part of the class, Philip. It isn’t every semester that I have a student with such insight and perspicacity. I have, at times, found myself teaching to you. Best always in your further academic endeavors. If I can be of assistance, give a big, Southern yell.
BGJust call ME perspicacious! .... grin....
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Bicycle Memories, Part 7, Still Building Trail and Loving it!
I worked on building my single-track trail one segment at a time. Thinking back, I recall at least ten distinct areas, each separated by some geographic feature, like a dirt road, open fields and meadows, streams, or just a place where I was forced to exit the trail onto the paved perimeter road before diving back into the cover of the trees and undergrowth.
Only just over ½ mile square, I meandered the trail around the area's perimeter, always seeking to double and S-curve back where possible to make full use of all interesting terrain assets. I needed to try and keep the path hidden by thick foliage so that no casual observer would be able to spot me from the street or from the huge rectangular clearing that took up much of the central area.
When I first started the trail, the middle region consisted of 5 or 6 acres of uncut wild grass with a seldom-used gravel road encircling and bisecting it; but by mid ’92, the authorities started using the field to air out contaminated soil. For months, that aerating dirt totally stunk up the place until the pollutants in it slowly evaporated out. First, they formed dirt berms to prevent out-leaching, then they spread out huge thick sheets of black plastic, and finally they covered the plastic with that smelly dirt excavated from construction sites around the base. (By the way, some of the most polluted areas of the country are located on military bases.) In a way, having that odious process going on “right under my nose” was a blessing, since for a time it kept people out of my hair and away from my trail.
In my last post I write how I continually solved new problems as I continued through various types of topography. At the risk of being tedious, I’ll cover some of the other engineering tribulations that presented themselves for solution. For instance, as soon as I finished the 70 feet of "wandering dike" through the willow swamp, I ran right into a huge patch of thorn vines. I had no choice but to go directly through the middle of it. To the right was open field and around to the left was more dank swamp. The open field was out of the question because it was in sight of the people working on the soil purification project. So, there was only one thing to do—burrow straight through the briar patch.
A good thing about that time of year (November-December) is that the vegetation was less dense than it would have been during Arkansas’ long hot humid growing season. Just the same, the thorn vines of “The Natural State” are as bad as in any tropical rain forest, maybe worse. The thorns can rip human skin like a razor blade and the vines grow thick and tough. I built the trail right up to the edge of the mass of impenetrable vines and just stared at it thinking it was going to be one heck of a job.
The first day tackling the massive thorn patch, I came equipped with a pair of thick leather work gloves and an old hand-pruner I normally used to trim my rose bushes. One snip at a time, I began to carve away at the thick mass of razory growth by removing two or three feet of vine per snip. I’d cut a piece and toss it carefully to the side. After an hour I realized that I would in effect be constructing a tunnel lined with perilously sharp thorns looking to slice up the unwary rider. It was going to be “exciting” to ride through. I realized that I couldn’t afford to leave even one stray piece of vine on the ground or I would surely be dealing with one flat after another.
Surprisingly, it took just over a week to tunnel through the 50-foot mass of thorn vines, and that was working about an hour or two per day. When I emerged at the other end of the patch, I had nipped out a passageway that I could ride fairly easily through by keeping my head down and elbows in. At its highest and widest it was just over six feet high and four feet across.
Months later, during the summer, when the trail was long completed, I had to continuously work to keep that tunnel of thorny foliage free and clear of new growth. The vines never stopped trying to sprout back into the middle of the passage; but instead of cutting them back, what I did was redirect the new vines back into the tunnel wall.
A remarkable thing happened one day when I pulled my bike over to do some maintenance on the vine patch passage. I always skulked around first to reconnoiter the area before going to work on any part of my trail. I’d freeze my body for at least a minute, and then, slowly turning, I'd scan a full 360 degrees.
On that day, I walked out to the edge of a meadow not far from the north entrance going into the thorns. My eyes spotted a place in the 4-foot high grass that had been disturbed by something or someone bigger than a dog. Visually, I followed the trail of displaced grass to a spot that seemed even more depressed. Slowly and as quietly as possible, I made my way to the tamped down area.
There, only a few hours old, rested a pair of dappled fawns, resting in the spot where they had been born. There was still some slightly bloody remnants of their birthing on the grass beneath them. I decided my trail could wait till another time and I left them to their momma; I’m sure she was waiting anxiously for me to go away.
My time in those woods, either working on or riding my single-track, was continually punctuated with wonderful nature moments like that. Its no wonder that I was out there almost every chance I could.
As I said up top, sorry if this series is starting to get a bit tedious, but that two-year period from November ’91 until August ’93, when I developed, maintained and rode that delightful trail is the source of a lot of really cool memories that I feel a need to capture here. So, bear with me, coz there’s more to come…
Only just over ½ mile square, I meandered the trail around the area's perimeter, always seeking to double and S-curve back where possible to make full use of all interesting terrain assets. I needed to try and keep the path hidden by thick foliage so that no casual observer would be able to spot me from the street or from the huge rectangular clearing that took up much of the central area.
When I first started the trail, the middle region consisted of 5 or 6 acres of uncut wild grass with a seldom-used gravel road encircling and bisecting it; but by mid ’92, the authorities started using the field to air out contaminated soil. For months, that aerating dirt totally stunk up the place until the pollutants in it slowly evaporated out. First, they formed dirt berms to prevent out-leaching, then they spread out huge thick sheets of black plastic, and finally they covered the plastic with that smelly dirt excavated from construction sites around the base. (By the way, some of the most polluted areas of the country are located on military bases.) In a way, having that odious process going on “right under my nose” was a blessing, since for a time it kept people out of my hair and away from my trail.
In my last post I write how I continually solved new problems as I continued through various types of topography. At the risk of being tedious, I’ll cover some of the other engineering tribulations that presented themselves for solution. For instance, as soon as I finished the 70 feet of "wandering dike" through the willow swamp, I ran right into a huge patch of thorn vines. I had no choice but to go directly through the middle of it. To the right was open field and around to the left was more dank swamp. The open field was out of the question because it was in sight of the people working on the soil purification project. So, there was only one thing to do—burrow straight through the briar patch.
A good thing about that time of year (November-December) is that the vegetation was less dense than it would have been during Arkansas’ long hot humid growing season. Just the same, the thorn vines of “The Natural State” are as bad as in any tropical rain forest, maybe worse. The thorns can rip human skin like a razor blade and the vines grow thick and tough. I built the trail right up to the edge of the mass of impenetrable vines and just stared at it thinking it was going to be one heck of a job.
The first day tackling the massive thorn patch, I came equipped with a pair of thick leather work gloves and an old hand-pruner I normally used to trim my rose bushes. One snip at a time, I began to carve away at the thick mass of razory growth by removing two or three feet of vine per snip. I’d cut a piece and toss it carefully to the side. After an hour I realized that I would in effect be constructing a tunnel lined with perilously sharp thorns looking to slice up the unwary rider. It was going to be “exciting” to ride through. I realized that I couldn’t afford to leave even one stray piece of vine on the ground or I would surely be dealing with one flat after another.
Surprisingly, it took just over a week to tunnel through the 50-foot mass of thorn vines, and that was working about an hour or two per day. When I emerged at the other end of the patch, I had nipped out a passageway that I could ride fairly easily through by keeping my head down and elbows in. At its highest and widest it was just over six feet high and four feet across.
Months later, during the summer, when the trail was long completed, I had to continuously work to keep that tunnel of thorny foliage free and clear of new growth. The vines never stopped trying to sprout back into the middle of the passage; but instead of cutting them back, what I did was redirect the new vines back into the tunnel wall.
A remarkable thing happened one day when I pulled my bike over to do some maintenance on the vine patch passage. I always skulked around first to reconnoiter the area before going to work on any part of my trail. I’d freeze my body for at least a minute, and then, slowly turning, I'd scan a full 360 degrees.
On that day, I walked out to the edge of a meadow not far from the north entrance going into the thorns. My eyes spotted a place in the 4-foot high grass that had been disturbed by something or someone bigger than a dog. Visually, I followed the trail of displaced grass to a spot that seemed even more depressed. Slowly and as quietly as possible, I made my way to the tamped down area.
There, only a few hours old, rested a pair of dappled fawns, resting in the spot where they had been born. There was still some slightly bloody remnants of their birthing on the grass beneath them. I decided my trail could wait till another time and I left them to their momma; I’m sure she was waiting anxiously for me to go away.
My time in those woods, either working on or riding my single-track, was continually punctuated with wonderful nature moments like that. Its no wonder that I was out there almost every chance I could.
As I said up top, sorry if this series is starting to get a bit tedious, but that two-year period from November ’91 until August ’93, when I developed, maintained and rode that delightful trail is the source of a lot of really cool memories that I feel a need to capture here. So, bear with me, coz there’s more to come…
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Bicycle Memories, Part 6, The Problems and Solutions of Building a Single-Track Trail
I left off in the previous post explaining how my initial attempt at trail building turned out to be all for nothing. A strange thing is that I couldn't even recognize most of the route of it, much less see it. After just two days leaves and twigs had already covered over my efforts.
Then, while walking along over where my mislaid track should have been, I noticed something that switched on the old Eureka light bulb. There was one section that I still recognized as having been my intended trail. It was where I had to pick up a rather large rotten log and move it out of the way. Seeing it, I remembered that the path was parallel to it.
So maybe that was the answer! I could place branches and fallen logs end-to-end to mark one side of the path. I tried it and after 20 or 30 feet I knew it was perfect. There were plenty of fallen branches, twigs, and logs available; it was just for me to line them up. The first of many problems was solved—now the real trail making could begin.
Once I knew how to effectively delineate its course, I decided to make the initial trail head behind the massive Little Rock AFB commissary. There was a good spot at the commissary entrance cattycorner from the popular base Burger King. From the very back right parking lot it was just a matter of riding through a grassy area, turning to the right and into the woods where my trail would begin. From that point onward no one would be able to see the trail or me traversing it. Staying out of sight on my "unauthorized trail," especially while I was constructing it, was part of my goal.
Almost every day after work I’d head out to reconnoiter and trail build. The routine was simple: I’d figure out the general direction and then freeform the specific twists, turns, obstacles and jumps as I went along. It was hard, but it was a blast. Everyday brought new challenges and tasks. Three hours working on my trail went by like 20 minutes.
It was amazing that after riding back and forth over it a dozen times how the trail became quite traceable. My bike’s wheels rolling over the exact same surface over the identical inches-wide spot soon made it seem as if the trail had always been there rather than for just a few days.
I endeavored to make the single-track as challengingly difficult and therefore as “fun” as I could. I scouted ahead to find interesting bits of terrain to maximize the enjoyment by increasing the effort and adrenalin required to negotiate it. For instance, I never just followed a ridgeline; instead, I zigzagged directly down its slope before looping around a large rock or tree for the return back up. I never hair-pinned to lessen steepness like the Park Service does on its walking trails. I always sought to maximize gradient, never to lessen it. Doing that made for some hair-raising rides when flying directly downhill with trees, branches and foliage flashing past; while climbing straight back up caused the heart to pump and the breath to come in gasps. Awesome!
On my own tiny scale I felt like a road-building engineer as I came across new problems requiring new solutions. The terrain was amazingly varied in that relatively small area sandwiched between Flightline Drive and Arnold Drive. There were three different swamps, two large areas with dense patches of “Wait a Minute Vines,” three sorts of hill areas and a really cool stream that ran through a channel that in some places had 5-foot banks.
The three swamps and two thorn patches took the most time, effort and figuring to sort out and complete. One of the swampy areas ran through a thicket of 12-feet tall swamp willows. I had no choice but to figure out how to run the trail directly through it for about 100 feet.
You can’t just run a mountain bike trail through swamp mud. It ruts down ever deeper until it becomes impassable. Then it came to me: Rice paddies! I’d seen them on my visits to Southeast Asia and in Vietnam War documentaries. I remembered walking on narrow paddy dikes and realizing that they were made from the dried muck of the paddy. Could it really be so easy?
I bungystrapped a combat shovel and a pickaxe to my bike and headed to the swamp to see what I could do. Resigned to getting soaked and splattered, I wore my oldest combat boots. Right off the bat I ran into a problem with the willow tree roots. They were thick and matted, making it tough digging if not impossible. Shortly thereafter, I learned to search for semi-rootless pockets and dug as much of the free mud as I could from each one and began to pile it up on the embryonic dike.
It was slow going. I’d throw a shovel full of mud into the dike line and watch it melt back into the water. Eventually though it began to stack up enough so that I had a mound of oozing muck snaking through the shallow waters of the swamp. It felt like I was actually accomplishing something when it reached about a dozen feet long. Let's see, only about 60 feet to go! Yikes! A good thing about digging all the holes is that they began to drain the water away from the dike. Encouraged, I kept at it.
Then another idea came to mind. I got it after remembering how parts of the Great Wall of China had been built from layers of grass and earth. There was a pine copse not so far away carpeted deep with fallen needles. The next day I brought a heavy-duty hefty trash bag and began to use the pine needles between layers of muck. That did the trick.
In no time the muck dried into solid clay and in two weeks I had a perfectly rideable foot-wide foot-high dike meandering through the dank swamp. I was gratified that even during the wettest of times it held up and stayed at least several inches above the highest water level.I was proud of that problem/solution, but there were plenty more to come.
Then, while walking along over where my mislaid track should have been, I noticed something that switched on the old Eureka light bulb. There was one section that I still recognized as having been my intended trail. It was where I had to pick up a rather large rotten log and move it out of the way. Seeing it, I remembered that the path was parallel to it.
So maybe that was the answer! I could place branches and fallen logs end-to-end to mark one side of the path. I tried it and after 20 or 30 feet I knew it was perfect. There were plenty of fallen branches, twigs, and logs available; it was just for me to line them up. The first of many problems was solved—now the real trail making could begin.
Once I knew how to effectively delineate its course, I decided to make the initial trail head behind the massive Little Rock AFB commissary. There was a good spot at the commissary entrance cattycorner from the popular base Burger King. From the very back right parking lot it was just a matter of riding through a grassy area, turning to the right and into the woods where my trail would begin. From that point onward no one would be able to see the trail or me traversing it. Staying out of sight on my "unauthorized trail," especially while I was constructing it, was part of my goal.
Almost every day after work I’d head out to reconnoiter and trail build. The routine was simple: I’d figure out the general direction and then freeform the specific twists, turns, obstacles and jumps as I went along. It was hard, but it was a blast. Everyday brought new challenges and tasks. Three hours working on my trail went by like 20 minutes.
It was amazing that after riding back and forth over it a dozen times how the trail became quite traceable. My bike’s wheels rolling over the exact same surface over the identical inches-wide spot soon made it seem as if the trail had always been there rather than for just a few days.
I endeavored to make the single-track as challengingly difficult and therefore as “fun” as I could. I scouted ahead to find interesting bits of terrain to maximize the enjoyment by increasing the effort and adrenalin required to negotiate it. For instance, I never just followed a ridgeline; instead, I zigzagged directly down its slope before looping around a large rock or tree for the return back up. I never hair-pinned to lessen steepness like the Park Service does on its walking trails. I always sought to maximize gradient, never to lessen it. Doing that made for some hair-raising rides when flying directly downhill with trees, branches and foliage flashing past; while climbing straight back up caused the heart to pump and the breath to come in gasps. Awesome!
On my own tiny scale I felt like a road-building engineer as I came across new problems requiring new solutions. The terrain was amazingly varied in that relatively small area sandwiched between Flightline Drive and Arnold Drive. There were three different swamps, two large areas with dense patches of “Wait a Minute Vines,” three sorts of hill areas and a really cool stream that ran through a channel that in some places had 5-foot banks.
The three swamps and two thorn patches took the most time, effort and figuring to sort out and complete. One of the swampy areas ran through a thicket of 12-feet tall swamp willows. I had no choice but to figure out how to run the trail directly through it for about 100 feet.
You can’t just run a mountain bike trail through swamp mud. It ruts down ever deeper until it becomes impassable. Then it came to me: Rice paddies! I’d seen them on my visits to Southeast Asia and in Vietnam War documentaries. I remembered walking on narrow paddy dikes and realizing that they were made from the dried muck of the paddy. Could it really be so easy?
I bungystrapped a combat shovel and a pickaxe to my bike and headed to the swamp to see what I could do. Resigned to getting soaked and splattered, I wore my oldest combat boots. Right off the bat I ran into a problem with the willow tree roots. They were thick and matted, making it tough digging if not impossible. Shortly thereafter, I learned to search for semi-rootless pockets and dug as much of the free mud as I could from each one and began to pile it up on the embryonic dike.
It was slow going. I’d throw a shovel full of mud into the dike line and watch it melt back into the water. Eventually though it began to stack up enough so that I had a mound of oozing muck snaking through the shallow waters of the swamp. It felt like I was actually accomplishing something when it reached about a dozen feet long. Let's see, only about 60 feet to go! Yikes! A good thing about digging all the holes is that they began to drain the water away from the dike. Encouraged, I kept at it.
Then another idea came to mind. I got it after remembering how parts of the Great Wall of China had been built from layers of grass and earth. There was a pine copse not so far away carpeted deep with fallen needles. The next day I brought a heavy-duty hefty trash bag and began to use the pine needles between layers of muck. That did the trick.
In no time the muck dried into solid clay and in two weeks I had a perfectly rideable foot-wide foot-high dike meandering through the dank swamp. I was gratified that even during the wettest of times it held up and stayed at least several inches above the highest water level.I was proud of that problem/solution, but there were plenty more to come.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Bicycle Memories Part 5, Making a Single Track Trail
After months of a double transformation—my hybrid into a true mountain bike and me into a mountain biker—an idea slowly took shape in my head. I was tired of constantly looking for decent trails to ride; so, why not just create my very own off-road trail right there where I lived on the base?
Why not indeed! Well, there was one very obvious reason why not: I knew that getting authorization would be next to impossible.
From my years in the service, I knew that asking permission to do such a thing would bring a big fat “No!” And even with a “yes” the red tape would have been overwhelming. I knew that the base commander, or more likely one of his minions, would be consumed with knowing the “risks” of such an undertaking. Risk aversion is the motto of the U.S. Air Force—"the royalty of risk aversion.”
Truthfully, the idea of actually trying to get permission was but a fleeting notion anyway. I decided to just go for it.
I knew exactly where I wanted to put the trail. There is a mostly undeveloped area right in the middle of Little Rock Air Force Base (LRAFB). It’s a fairly large block of land, just over ½ square mile, consisting of fields and woods. One side of it borders the flight line, while the opposite side is delineated by a main drag called Arnold Drive. Base housing, where I lived, was directly across Arnold Drive from it. The only structures in this, my chosen trail-making-area, are on its perimeter; the most notable being the base commissary, Arnold Drive Elementary School, the “cop shop,” Wing Headquarters, and the Base Lake Shoppette.
The exact route that the trail would take was still hazy to me. I didn’t even know how I was going to make it. Most trails exist in nature because of constant traffic, either by humans or animals. Therefore, natural trails exist more by accident than by design. So, how was I to form one artificially? I didn’t have a clue.
On a cold overcast afternoon in mid November ‘91, I took a ride on my mountain bike out to the area that overlooked the flightline. That was as good a place to start as any. There was a natural opening into the trees from a grassy area right next to a massive patch of blackberry canes that I thought would be a good place to experiment with trail building.
I pedaled to the spot by coming up a steeply meandering access road used by base police vehicles on rare occasions—I say rare since I’d never actually seen a vehicle on it. For years I had used that road to train on by running up and down it’s 150-yard length. I’d sprint to the top, recover my breath while jogging back down, and then sprint back up. I would do that for about an hour. Except for the very bottom, trees and foliage obscured me from view as I ran; yet it was just a few hundred yards from the organized chaos of the busy LRAFB flightline.
The trees, mostly oaks with assorted other broadleaf types sprinkled in, grew thickly in that area. The ground was covered with a layer of fallen leaves. They rustled noisily as I walked. The leaves gave me an idea: Could I use them to mark the intended trail?
But first there was the course of the trail to figure out. As a trial run I mentally mapped out a short segment of the intended path. For now, "as simple as possible" seemed to be the best bet. I knew I wanted to route it from point A to B, so now, how to do that so I could actually see it to ride it?
Scraping my feet along the ground, I spent hours kicking the leaves out of the way. If you can see a trail then it exists, or so I thought. As I progressed I realize that the course’s track was developing its line mostly as the terrain would allow. I hadn’t expected that.
At all costs I wanted to steer clear of cutting down trees or hacking off limbs, and over the next five months I never did. But from the outset there was a problem—many of the branches and saplings were simply in the way. Avoiding one set of problem branches and saplings would just take me into the path of a new set. Solving this “knotty” problem without reverting to sawing or hacking turned out to be fairly easy. The answer to my problem was what I came to think of as “tree shaping.”
The “tree reshaping” process I came up with resulted from the old “necessity being the mother of invention” thing. If branches poked out into the path of the trail I folded them back, taking care not to damage them.
Of course, green wood tends to snap back; to prevent this, I had to bend and braid them. Over the weeks and months I developed three or four different techniques to do this. For instance, sometimes I’d take branches from two adjacent trees and weave them together out of the way. For others, if I couldn’t weave them, I would tie the branches together.
Saplings were usually easy to deal with. For them, I’d pull them back behind other trees or saplings, and to make sure they didn’t return to their original position I’d combine that “pull back method” with weaving to lock them in place. In late April ’92, by the time I finished with the last leg of my trail, I easily accomplished that kind of “reshaping” several thousands of times.
But much of that was in the future. On that first day, all I really managed to get done was to kick a few leaves away down to bare earth for about 70 feet of pseudo-trail.
I wasn’t able to return for two days, but finally I headed back out to my 48-hour-old trial trail to see how it looked. But there was a problem. For the most part, I couldn’t find it. The trail had disappeared from sight. The blowing wind along with more fallen leaves had completely reburied it. All that leaf kicking had been for nothing.
So, it was back to the drawing board. Leaning against a massive 75-year-old oak tree I balanced on the seat of my bike with arms folded and pondered, ‘How do I make a trail?’
The answer was surprisingly easy once I found it...
Why not indeed! Well, there was one very obvious reason why not: I knew that getting authorization would be next to impossible.
From my years in the service, I knew that asking permission to do such a thing would bring a big fat “No!” And even with a “yes” the red tape would have been overwhelming. I knew that the base commander, or more likely one of his minions, would be consumed with knowing the “risks” of such an undertaking. Risk aversion is the motto of the U.S. Air Force—"the royalty of risk aversion.”
Truthfully, the idea of actually trying to get permission was but a fleeting notion anyway. I decided to just go for it.
I knew exactly where I wanted to put the trail. There is a mostly undeveloped area right in the middle of Little Rock Air Force Base (LRAFB). It’s a fairly large block of land, just over ½ square mile, consisting of fields and woods. One side of it borders the flight line, while the opposite side is delineated by a main drag called Arnold Drive. Base housing, where I lived, was directly across Arnold Drive from it. The only structures in this, my chosen trail-making-area, are on its perimeter; the most notable being the base commissary, Arnold Drive Elementary School, the “cop shop,” Wing Headquarters, and the Base Lake Shoppette.
The exact route that the trail would take was still hazy to me. I didn’t even know how I was going to make it. Most trails exist in nature because of constant traffic, either by humans or animals. Therefore, natural trails exist more by accident than by design. So, how was I to form one artificially? I didn’t have a clue.
On a cold overcast afternoon in mid November ‘91, I took a ride on my mountain bike out to the area that overlooked the flightline. That was as good a place to start as any. There was a natural opening into the trees from a grassy area right next to a massive patch of blackberry canes that I thought would be a good place to experiment with trail building.
I pedaled to the spot by coming up a steeply meandering access road used by base police vehicles on rare occasions—I say rare since I’d never actually seen a vehicle on it. For years I had used that road to train on by running up and down it’s 150-yard length. I’d sprint to the top, recover my breath while jogging back down, and then sprint back up. I would do that for about an hour. Except for the very bottom, trees and foliage obscured me from view as I ran; yet it was just a few hundred yards from the organized chaos of the busy LRAFB flightline.
The trees, mostly oaks with assorted other broadleaf types sprinkled in, grew thickly in that area. The ground was covered with a layer of fallen leaves. They rustled noisily as I walked. The leaves gave me an idea: Could I use them to mark the intended trail?
But first there was the course of the trail to figure out. As a trial run I mentally mapped out a short segment of the intended path. For now, "as simple as possible" seemed to be the best bet. I knew I wanted to route it from point A to B, so now, how to do that so I could actually see it to ride it?
Scraping my feet along the ground, I spent hours kicking the leaves out of the way. If you can see a trail then it exists, or so I thought. As I progressed I realize that the course’s track was developing its line mostly as the terrain would allow. I hadn’t expected that.
At all costs I wanted to steer clear of cutting down trees or hacking off limbs, and over the next five months I never did. But from the outset there was a problem—many of the branches and saplings were simply in the way. Avoiding one set of problem branches and saplings would just take me into the path of a new set. Solving this “knotty” problem without reverting to sawing or hacking turned out to be fairly easy. The answer to my problem was what I came to think of as “tree shaping.”
The “tree reshaping” process I came up with resulted from the old “necessity being the mother of invention” thing. If branches poked out into the path of the trail I folded them back, taking care not to damage them.
Of course, green wood tends to snap back; to prevent this, I had to bend and braid them. Over the weeks and months I developed three or four different techniques to do this. For instance, sometimes I’d take branches from two adjacent trees and weave them together out of the way. For others, if I couldn’t weave them, I would tie the branches together.
Saplings were usually easy to deal with. For them, I’d pull them back behind other trees or saplings, and to make sure they didn’t return to their original position I’d combine that “pull back method” with weaving to lock them in place. In late April ’92, by the time I finished with the last leg of my trail, I easily accomplished that kind of “reshaping” several thousands of times.
But much of that was in the future. On that first day, all I really managed to get done was to kick a few leaves away down to bare earth for about 70 feet of pseudo-trail.
I wasn’t able to return for two days, but finally I headed back out to my 48-hour-old trial trail to see how it looked. But there was a problem. For the most part, I couldn’t find it. The trail had disappeared from sight. The blowing wind along with more fallen leaves had completely reburied it. All that leaf kicking had been for nothing.
So, it was back to the drawing board. Leaning against a massive 75-year-old oak tree I balanced on the seat of my bike with arms folded and pondered, ‘How do I make a trail?’
The answer was surprisingly easy once I found it...
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