a cycling retrospective

I do like coincidences, especially when they reflect something positive about my life. For example, I had my best year rock climbing the year I turned 50, when I climbed more routes graded ‘extremely severe’ than in the rest of my entire climbing career, which was particularly special because I did it all with my son Siegfried, then just 17 years old. And I’ve just had my best year cycling—the year I turned 75—all the best parts of which I did with my wife Paula. Of course, it is just that: a coincidence. When I look back to the year I turned 25, there’s nothing that I could classify as an achievement.

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When I bought my first bike, in February 1998, it was on medical advice. Actually, this isn’t quite true. I’d consulted my doctor the previous summer because several decades of running down the sides of mountains had inflicted quite a lot of damage on my knees, resulting in my being barely able to walk.

My doctor recommended that I get an indoor exercise cycle, and although I said that I would do so, I didn’t follow his advice because I reckoned that I’d be bored stupid within five minutes. However, that winter, I went out to Hong Kong for a month, and during that time Paula and I hired bikes for the day in Tai Wai and rode them out to Plover Cove. An easy ride by my current standards, but I could feel the improvement in my knee condition immediately. Consequently, the first thing that I did when I returned to Penrith was to buy a bike.

I quickly worked out a 20-mile route through the countryside northwest of Penrith, but because at that time cycling was a purely therapeutic exercise, I did no further exploration. However, a few years later, I took part in a charity ride that followed a route north of Penrith, and with some modifications, I had a second route that I could follow. I still had a car then, and I measured this second route at 27.3 miles.

For the next few years, these two routes remained the only ones in my repertoire. I used to ride the longer route against the clock, and I once did it four times in under 100 minutes over a seven-day period. In 2014, I decided that I would do the 20-mile route each day that it didn’t rain. However, I reckoned without the driest September on record and ended up cycling this route thirteen days in a row!

Around this time, I started to explore further afield. There is a crossroads on the 20-mile route where it turns left to follow the road through Greystoke Forest. One day, I decided to continue straight on and see where I might end up. I ended up tackling quite a tough hill, details of which can be seen in Twenty Miles of Bad Road.

Two years later, in 2016, I finally got around to checking out Hoghouse Hill, which I then incorporated into a 25-mile ride that included as many hills as possible, albeit not the one that I described in Twenty Miles of Bad Road. However, both these new routes were ones that I would do just once each summer.

This changed last year, when for the first time, having just retired, Paula was able to spend the entire summer in the UK, and we ventured south of the A66. As you can see from the following map, there is quite a network of minor roads in the triangle defined by the A66, A592 and A5091:

We’d started off by following the minor road that branches off the B5288 south of the village of Greystoke. Although not steep, this road is almost continuously uphill until it reaches the A66. And as you can see, all that height gain is lost almost immediately this major traffic artery is crossed:

This photo was taken on a subsequent ride through the area that followed our first foray here, during which we turned left at the obvious crossroads south of Hutton and continued through the village of Dacre. The next photo is a view looking back from this crossroads the way we’d just come:

…while this is where our route went next:

Finally, this is the rather tough climb out of Dacre:

However, it was our next ride through this area that endeared it to Paula, who loves the views of Ullswater:

This is a still from a 360-degree video shot by Paula this summer from the A5091 looking down towards Ullswater.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, I wasn’t doing much cycling in Hong Kong each winter between 2000 and 2005, mainly because I didn’t have my own bike, and this situation scarcely improved when we moved into an apartment in the village of Sai Keng, #3 in the Shap Sze Heung (’fourteen villages’), in the Sai Kung area, although I did cycle to Sham Chung, in the Sai Kung Country Park, regularly. It was here that I met Tom Li, whose pan-fried noodles became the main incentive for a 72km round trip from Fanling after we moved there in 2008.

However, for the next two or three years, apart from our Saturday ride to Sham Chung, I did little more than ride up and down the Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road that runs alongside the Ng Tung River during the week. This changed in the winter of 2011/12, when I discovered a way to cross the main railway line into China (Across the Tracks), and a year later, I found a way to cross the expressway that had initially seemed like a barrier to further progress and could take me even further west (Journey to the West).

The following winter opened up more possibilities. As I mentioned in Across the Tracks, the area northwest of Fanling had been part of the so-called ‘frontier closed area’, but that status was rescinded at the beginning of 2013, and we were eager to see what the cycling possibilities were here (The New Frontier).

Around this time, I also developed a ride that I named ‘the long and winding road’, which starts from a ‘resting’ pavilion on ‘journey to the west’. A few years ago, I took an Australian friend around this route, which he described as ‘thrilling’. And that was before I added ‘the spiral ramp’ and ‘the iron bridge path’!

I never used to do any cycling on Sundays, for reasons that I cited in Across the Tracks, but the ‘frontier closed area’ status of an area northeast of Fanling was rescinded in 2016, and that became yet another area for development (The Final Frontier), a process that is ongoing (see below). However, because there is a lot of industrial traffic on key road sections during the week, this ride is possible only on Sundays.

I started last winter by compiling a list of more than a dozen narrow path segments that I’d worked out in the previous two or three years with the intention of shooting videos, but that never happened, largely because I was finding more and more new paths. In fact, I uploaded 34 videos to my YouTube channel in the first five months of 2021, which reflected just how many new paths I was finding. Here are three of the best from ‘out west’:

…while here are two from ‘the final frontier’:

At my age, I find it difficult to go out cycling on consecutive days, although this might have something to do with the distance I cover each ride. A few years ago, I went out cycling 99 times in seven months, but the average distance per ride was just 61km. If you check out this table (I like to keep detailed records), you will see that I managed just 65 rides over an eight-month period, but if you do the maths, you will see that the average distance per ride was over 85km.

The distance highlight occurred in March, when I did three 100km+ rides in the space of five days.

*  *  *

During the summer, we started by doing the established routes, and I’m not sure at what point I thought we should try to do a different route each time we went out. All I had was an Ordnance Survey road atlas (scale: three miles to the inch) to plan each route. Paula was happy for me to do that planning, and I would show her the route we’d just done when we got back home.

We explored the Ullswater area more thoroughly, including one ride that took us along the full length of the lake to the hamlet of Hartsop before returning the way we’d just come. The following five images are stills from another panoramic video shot by Paula that was spoiled by her thumb intruding into the top left-hand corner:

Obviously, I’ve cut out this blemish. The last image shows the hill we’ve just cycled up.

Here are two more photos taken in this area. The first shows another hill that we’ve just cycled up:

We didn’t take many photos in other areas, but this is one taken north of Mosedale, about 10 miles west of Penrith:

In fact, we went out in all directions: as far west as Mungrisdale; as far northwest as Durdar; as far north as Armathwaite; as far southeast as Crosby Ravensworth; and as far south as Shap (Hartsop (above) was the furthest we ventured southwest). Unbelievably, we passed through no fewer than seventeen villages that I don’t think I’d ever visited in my entire life, including four—Stockdalewath, Raughton Head, Gaitsgill, Wreay—that I’d never even heard of!

As I’ve already mentioned, the main highlights for Paula were the rides around Ullswater, but the highlight of the summer for me was the ride I planned to coincide with my 75th birthday. You can follow it on this map:

We started by heading out to Cliburn, southeast of Penrith, then continued via Temple Sowerby, Newbiggin, Culgaith, Langwathby, Little Salkeld, Glassonby, Kirkoswald, Staffield and Armathwaite, returning via Calthwaite, Hutton End and Newton Reigny. Before setting off, I’d also checked Google Maps, from which I learned that a hill north of Kirkoswald had a name (‘Potter’s Bank’). This was a clear indication that this hill was a bit of a brute. In fact, just before we reached the bottom of the hill, a woman walking along the road shouted out “Good luck”! There were three other hills on the route of similar intensity.

I had thought that I might have been just slightly over-ambitious with this route, which we could have cut short if we needed to, so when we got home, and I was relaxing with a beer and a generous spliff, all I could think was “Wow! We did it.” Not bad for 75.

Having mentioned not going out on consecutive days above, in early September, I noticed that we were about to get two days with the temperature above 20 degrees, and it seemed a shame to waste one of them, so we didn’t.

So that was summer 2021. We went out cycling 23 times, each time doing a different route. And Paula described it, on several occasions, in one word: ‘wonderful’.

*  *  *

The rest of the year has been something of an anticlimax. Having to spend 21 days in quarantine upon returning to Hong Kong severely dented our fitness levels, although we were slowly getting back to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, I aggravated an old lower back injury at the end of November and wasn’t able to do any cycling. However, Paula and I were out on our bikes again yesterday for the first time in a month, and I didn’t feel any adverse reaction. It was only a short ride, as far as the Kam Tin River (56km), but I’m ready for 2022. It can’t possibly match 2021, but I’ve still got a long list of videos to shoot, and areas that I want to explore next.

a morning walk

In a recent post, I mentioned being unable to ride a bike as a result of aggravating a long-term lower back injury, but at least I can walk, meaning that when I finally get back on my bike, I won’t have to deal with quite the same degree of loss of fitness as I had to put up with after enduring a tedious 21-day quarantine when we came back to Hong Kong in September.

Although we have quite a few walking options from where we live, in a village a short distance east of Fanling, we usually head south or east. However, Paula had said that she wanted a longer walk, so I thought that if we headed west, following the Ng Tung River, and return via the Shek Sheung River, then that should meet her requirements.

Unfortunately, our local river isn’t quite the scenic delight it was a year ago, with work on the so-called Fanling North bypass now steaming ahead:

To say that this bypass is unnecessary is an understatement. Ma Sik Road, which runs alongside the line of high-rise apartment blocks that you can see in some of the photos below, is a dual carriageway that joins Sha Tau Kok Road, also a dual carriageway, which is the main road east out of Fanling. Where’s the need for another bypass?

Anyway, the first new obstacle to be negotiated on our way downstream is a temporary footbridge:

I have no idea why part of the bridge has been caged off, which makes the usable part uncomfortably narrow if you happen to meet someone coming the other way. The sign reads ‘Please dismount and push’ and is repeated every 2 metres across the bridge—an injunction that the majority of cyclists ignore:

It feels very strange to walk along too: the red, black and grey sections are made up of rubber pimples of different sizes!

Having crossed to the north side of the river downstream (see below), the new road will recross the river just upstream from the temporary footbridge. This is a shot of the work done here to date:

It is still possible to capture a few picturesque scenes as we make our way downstream. This is a view of the first permanent footbridge from the south side of the river:

…and this is a shot of the river, looking downstream, from that first footbridge:

Construction work on the downstream crossing point of the bypass, next to the second permanent footbridge, can be seen in the distance. And this is what it looks like from a much closer viewpoint:

This is an even closer look at the construction work here, first on the north bank:

…then on the south bank:

There is currently no construction work downstream from this point, but there will be, eventually. This is a view of the river from a point downstream from a minor road that crosses the river:

The high-rise buildings in the distance are in Shenzhen.

And this is a view of the bridge carrying Man Kam To Road, a major highway into China, looking back upstream:

The section downstream from Man Kam To Road is quiet and peaceful, but it eventually comes to an end at the main railway line into China. However, it’s possible to cross the railway via a tunnel:

When I first started exploring ‘out west’, this is the way I came. Being on a bike, I didn’t notice whether there was a sign here, but on foot, you have time to check out this kind of thing. The sign on the left reads:

WARNING
TO PREVENT ACCIDENTS
PLEASE STAY AWAY

I remember when I first started using this tunnel, I wrote to the local district council to ask whether it could arrange for the floor of the tunnel to be concreted. It is broken and rife with potholes, but nothing was ever done to rectify it. However, the tunnel isn’t the problem here. This is:

I estimate the slope angle at around 35 degrees, but the difficulty on a bike here is not just the steepness. It’s a 90-degree turn onto the start of the ramp, so it isn’t possible to hit it with any momentum, and if you do stray offline and hit one of the lumps on either side, you will stall immediately. In fact, the first time I cycled this way, I assumed that it was impossible, so I would get off and push my bike up the slope, but I eventually gave it a try, and to my surprise, and delight, I managed to ride up the ramp.

I wasn’t always successful though. It didn’t help that my tyres were often wet after riding through puddles in the tunnel, and I occasionally failed to hold the line and ended up hitting one of the lumps. Anyway, I found a much better route west years ago, and I no longer cycle this way. However, I still pass the exit point, and I’ve noticed that it remains popular with recreational cyclists, so I assume that accidents do happen here. I’m not about to disclose the alternative though, because it involves cycling through a squatter area, where large groups of cyclists would be a nuisance.

The path then emerges onto a Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road just downstream from the confluence of the Sheung Yue River (right) and the Shek Sheung River:

Until a few years ago, we used to see a feral buffalo regularly further up the Shek Sheung River, and, naturally we called him ‘Bill’. I took a photo every time we saw him, which you can see in Buffalo Bill, although, sadly, he’s no longer around.

Had we been cycling home from this point, we would simply have followed the cycle track that starts where the DSD access road ends, but being on foot, I thought that we should cross the railway via a footbridge that leads to a tight cluster of nine villages that now form part of northeastern Sheung Shui. My aim was to show Paula the historical buildings in the area, which I’d visited several years ago but I knew Paula had never seen. These will be the subject of a future post, but here is a view of the front of the Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall, which was built in 1751:

After our tour of the local history, our route home would take us across the forecourt of Sheung Shui Fire Station, and just as we were about to cross, we became aware that a fire engine was about to pull out:

I did think that more appliances were getting ready, but we had time to both cross the forecourt and the road. Then I looked behind, and a second appliance was on its way out of the station:

After taking this photo, I put my phone away, but I should have known better. I knew that the standard protocol for urban fires is for multiple appliances to attend, no matter how small the reported fire. Had I waited, I might have captured a photo of three fire engines in a line roaring off down the road.

The rest of the walk home was uneventful.

another fine mess on the ground

‘A mess on the ground’ has been a running joke between Paula and me for several years now. It has developed from a conversation that Paula had with a fellow passenger while travelling to Fanling station from our village. She happened to remark that the cotton trees (Bombax ceiba) were looking particularly beautiful that year. The reply?

“Yes, but they leave a mess on the ground!”

There aren’t any cotton trees in our village, but there is a line of bauhinia (Bauhinia variegata) trees, which produce Hong Kong’s ‘national’ flower:

The red in the top right of this photo is produced by bottle-brush flowers.

I took the photo more than a month ago, and for the past week the flower petals have been falling to the ground more and more frequently. In the past, I’ve often thought how nice it would be to see this pink debris accumulate. Unfortunately, however, this never happens, because one of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department’s employees based in our village sweeps everything up first thing every morning before carrying out her other duties. She probably thinks it’s a mess anyway.

However, yesterday was different. We’ve just endured two days of constant rain, the first for two months and the result of being hit by the outer rain bands of the remnants of Super Typhoon Rai, which had ravaged the southern Philippines a few days ago. The constant rainfall accelerated the fall of flower petals, and I don’t think any of what had accumulated on the ground had been swept up while it was still raining.

We were on the minibus from Fanling station to Siu Hang, a village on the other side of the Ng Tung River, when I looked out of the window and saw the result. We were due to alight about 25 metres further along the road, and when we’d done so, I said that I simply had to go back and take some photos:

This is a close-up of the area of interest in the previous photo:

I walked around the trees in an anticlockwise direction, stopping to take photos at key points:

The previous two photos are of a separate line of trees on the other side of the entrance to the car park.

You may have noticed bars of sunlight in some of the photos. It was quite late in the day, and when we got home, I decided to go up onto our roof and take some photos of the sunset:

Not especially noteworthy, you’re probably thinking, but this is a view looking northeast! I particularly like the orange cloud blanketing the mountain ridge in the distance, which is in mainland China.

These are the first and last photos that I took looking west:

Thanks to the ubiquitous air pollution here, sunsets like this are not common, but they are nowhere near as rare as the kind of mess on the ground that I documented above.

an unexpected discovery

Whenever we go out for a walk or a bike ride, Paula usually leaves it up to me to decide the route, but a few days ago, I thought that I should leave it up to her to determine the route for that day’s walk. She opted to follow our local river downstream, where in the past we could simply follow the Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road that runs alongside the river.

The first part of this road, which is gated off and therefore only accessible by cyclists and pedestrians, is straightforward, but it is soon blocked by construction barriers, next to a temporary footbridge that allows people to cross to the other side of the river, where there is a makeshift road that was constructed by slathering concrete onto the ground. It isn’t ideal, because it allows access by motor vehicles to the ‘development’ area.

As we walked along this road, I happened to ask, rhetorically, where the goats go now that the area has been denuded of vegetation. There is a large herd of free-range goats in the area, which I saw a couple of weeks ago before the area being cleared was blocked off.

“There!” said Paula, pointing to the river bank under the first permanent footbridge that crosses the river.

I was reminded of an incident a couple of years ago, when it was still possible to walk into Fanling by a direct route. I happened to remark that I hadn’t seen a squirrel for ages. As if it had heard me, we immediately saw a squirrel scurrying up a nearby tree.

Anyway, I waited until we were well downstream of the footbridge before taking this photo:

The goats must have reached here by jumping the fence between the river and the road at some point. Along this section, the DSD access road no longer exists, although there is a path, which few people know about, on the far side of the construction area.

Further downstream, a minor road crosses the river, and beyond that there is currently no construction, so it remains a pleasant location for a walk. However, I’ve only ever cycled along this section, so although I was aware of this tree, I hadn’t noticed that it has completely engulfed the fence:

This is a view looking downstream, in which you can see a bridge that carries Man Kam To Road across the river:

This road is a major highway that leads to the border and carries a lot of freight traffic into and out of China. When we reached it, I learned that Paula’s plan had been simply to double back the way we’d come. Why not follow Man Kam To Road south and come back by a different route, I suggested.

That turned out to be a mistake, a serious error of judgement, because the pavement running alongside the road is extremely narrow, and having big trucks roar by isn’t pleasant. However, after a short distance, I spotted a path leading off to the side that ran alongside a large nullah (storm drain):

The streetlight was an encouraging sign.

“Look!” I said. “There appears to be a park ahead on the right”:

At one point, the path, which had been running tightly alongside the nullah, veered away to the left:

…and we were immediately confronted by a truly impressive banyan between the path and the nullah:

“Bloody hell!” I exclaimed.

You will probably understand my reaction. It certainly knocks the banyan in the forecourt of the Big Tree Temple, which I described in my last post, into a cocked hat! The large leaves around the base of the tree are elephants’ ears.

Here the path crosses to the other side of the nullah:

…and here both the path and the nullah turn abruptly to the left:

I imagine that most readers will know someone who had a rubber plant in a pot in their living room. Well, this is what they could become if allowed to grow unchecked, complete with prop roots:

There are several rubber trees like this along the perimeter of what I’d originally thought was a park but eventually realized was a school’s playing fields:

This cannot possibly be a government school. I base this opinion on two factors: if it had been a government school, the playing fields, which boast two football pitches and a hockey pitch, would have been built on; and no government school would include the word ‘innovative’ in its name.

All this time, I’d been wondering whether we would eventually reach a dead end, which is quite common with DSD access paths, and we’d have to double back:

Fortunately, though, there is a continuation path:

I invariably photograph impromptu wayside shrines that I come across, like the one near the start of this continuation path, but it was only when I looked at the photo I’d taken here that I spotted something odd:

This is a closer look at the main area of interest:

The figure on the left is obviously the Buddha, but why are there only two of the three immortals? The left-hand figure is Luk, who is usually portrayed with a winged hat, which symbolizes power and influence—such hats were once worn by civil servants—but he can also symbolize prosperity, the character on the cup in front of him. Next to him is Sau, who represents longevity, which is also symbolized by the peach in his left hand.

The missing immortal, Fuk, is usually portrayed with a scroll in one hand and a small child in the other, which suggests that the Buddha has been assigned this role here. This does seem odd though, because Fuk is usually associated with good fortune, the third component of an ideal life in Chinese culture. The figure on the right is an anonymous goddess. Notice that the cup in front of Luk, which probably contains rice wine, is larger than the other cups. The supplicant here clearly prioritizes prosperity, which probably reflects the location—an unofficial squatter site.

And notice too the child’s toy, which may be a model of the Space Shuttle or a delta-wing military aircraft. The significance of this is completely beyond my ability to explain.

After a short distance, this path emerges onto Tin Ping Road, which I’ve cycled along dozens of times, but I never noticed this (left of the parked car):

Of course, my oversight is because I don’t consider it prudent to look around me when cycling along urban roads.

This is a satellite photo of the area I’ve just described:

The two yellow X’s show the start and finish of the route, starting from the more northerly X and looping around the school playing field, indicated by a blue X. The Ng Tung River can be seen towards the east and in the northwest corner of the photo.

By the time we’d returned to the DSD access road on our way home, it was getting late, and I took this photo looking downstream from the first permanent footbridge across the river, having followed the little-known path that I referred to above:

After we’d crossed the temporary footbridge mentioned above, I took these last photos, which show the temporary footbridge:

…and which seem like a fitting finale to an extremely interesting excursion that exemplifies why I love Hong Kong: you never know what will be around the next corner.