Words By: Mike Nott
Photos By: Guida Verschut
For those of you not with the cycling zeitgeist, you really need to know about the current fat bike ascendancy in the region. If you subscribe to this magazine you’ll have read the epic tales written by Andy Whitaker and Ian Ganderton about doing fat bike crossings of the Wahiba Sands in Oman and the Liwa Crescent in the UAE.
These two trips are at the “extreme” end of fat biking. So where do you go if you just fancy an evening’s fat biking through the dunes with a like-minded group of people and with an element of self-competition? The answer to that is the Barsha TT Series. The TT is run fortnightly on a Sunday evening from 6:00 p.m. It’s held on the last remaining area of desert closest to Dubai that hasn’t been destroyed by golf courses and houses (yet). The area contains herds of gazelle, hares, dhubs and even a few camels; all of which you’ll see as you cycle round the area.
What do you need? A fat bike would be a good start, but if you don’t, speak nicely to Ian Ganderton, he’ll bring a spare bike for you to use. The TT’s courses vary in length between 5km and 7km and you will be given the coordinates of the route prior to the day of the event. You’ll need to enter these into your GPS and you then navigate your way round the course; doing either one or two laps. There is a one minute interval between individual riders or you can choose to go round in a group of your making. The whole thing should take less than an hour; considerably less if you put the hammer down for one lap.
If you fancy a go, have a fat bike, want an evening out in the local dunes and want to come, join the “Arabian Sand Bikers” group on Facebook and watch out for the events to be announced and sign up. Ian Ganderton can be contacted through the Facebook group.
