Belated Biking Catchup 5 - 'Watch that first step' or 'I almost threw up!'

Last time I blogged about my biking trip, I had left my bike in Tuen Mun after unsuccessfully trying to ride around the west coast of the New Territories.  For those who may have forgotten, the road through the West N.T. Landfill was closed to public traffic and I was forced to turn back.

Never to be one to give up, I went back and studied the problem on Centamap - I found a solution:

yes, according to this map, there was some sort of narrow mountain road that goes from Tuen Mun to the other side of the landfill with the closed road.  Hypothetically it should be pretty easy, right?  :-P

I even checked the topographic map and the altitudes they were talking about (few hundred meters) didn't sound so bad... should be able to handle it. :-P

note:  i'm not sure why this map labels a 'firing range boundary' through that whole section,  there is a small police gun firing range to the north, but nothing through  the part where this road is ( and of course there's a much bigger firing range over in the eastern part on the NT near Fanling that I passed by last summer...)

So with my new route identified I had a pretty ambitious route planned -

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2746911

starting w/ that road,  go across to the coast....

and then an easy ride around to Yuen Long. 15 miles, not the furthest i've tried to do in one day.

But of course things are never as easy as you think they're going to be.

starting off in Tuen Mun, trying to find the start point of my mountain pass route....  doh, those hills look bigger than i remembered. :-P

after a few minutes of fumbling with my phone's GPS, I found the spot... wow, thats not really a 'road',  is it? no cars...

yikes,  kind steep! I hope it doesn't go straight up! :-O

well so much for that hope, it was quite steep!

not just steep,  super steep!

I always complain that the hills never look as steep in the photos as they look when you're there trying to bike up the hill, so this time I tried to combat that with this extremely well timed photo:

as you can see from this photo of this unwitting passerby,  at this point the road was at about 30 degrees! 

I'll admit it,  after a few hundred meters up from the bottom in low gear I had to give up and walk my bike up the hill.  As you can see in these pics, there were actually a LOT of people climing this hill.  I wasn't sure exactly where they were going (probably to visit relatives' graves sites up the hill side I'm guessing!?), but I'm ashamed to admit more than one or two passed me on the way up.  (hey, I was pushing a bicycle!)

after about 20 minutes of huffing and puffing I came upon these two guys sitting at this rest stop. Although they didn't speak English, and their Mandarin was pretty non-existing, I decided to ask them how much further it was.  Luckily they said I was most of the way to the top...  at least thats what I thought they said.  they asked where I was going and I told them I wanted to go all the way over to the coastline. 

They confirmed that this path actually went through, but the guy warned me that there was something wrong with the road.  I didn't quite understand him, but the pantomime implied that the road was very narrow.  I realized he was referring to something I had read about on the net before about another biker who had come through a similar path around the landfill. 

despite (or because of the short stop to talk to those guys,  I pushed on aggressively and made it up a few more bends... then I hit the wall.   Never before in all my steep biking have I gotten that out of breath and ever gotten that close to vomiting...   

(I had to stop and park my bike and walk around to get my breath back)

Eventually I made it to the top

pretty much everywhere this path is not steep uphill or downhill it turns into a dirt road.

Was the view worth it?! 

at one spot there was a guard rail  with some inspirational messages left by hikers...

I even saw this recently planted alivenotdead.com sticker.  amazing how far this site has reached!  :-D

equally amazing,  two older guys on mountain bikes passed me coming the other way

apparently I am not the only person crazy enough to try biking up here...

I guess because of the altitude and exposed location,  the terrain up here was quite bare.

at one spot there was a bunch of buckets and water bottles.  I guess its hard to get water up here so someone collects rain water (which technically is frowned upon in HK for fears of mosquitos growing in the bucket...)

off to the side, you can see the West NT Landfill.  I think thats a giant plastic cover over everything there.

the site of my rejection last time.  :-P

Finally I reached what I could best describe as the 'crest' of the mountain road where things stopped going uphill and started going down...

which not surprisingly got pretty steep at some points too.  but of course much easier going this way!

After a stretch I came upon this sight...  whats wrong with the road down there?

uh-oh,  thats not good...

yes, for some reason about 95+% of the road was washed out...  I had to precariously skirt around the side...

Watch that first step! :-O

(i decided to walk the bike rather than try riding it)

note to the transportation department:    next time buy the thicker black plastic mesh... :-P

As I headed down the view across Deep Water Bay to Shekou (western part of Shenzhen) became visible.  it was a bit hazy but you can just make out the rafts out in the water used for fishing nets.  You can see the Western Corridor bridge on the right too.

as the road descended further there were some very messy spots with rough gravel and rocks.  I had to be careful to control my speed so I didn't wipe out.  :-P

eventually i reached a real road:

by real I mean there were actually cars down here and it was relatively flat.  I road this around the coast line, which is mostly just small communities and single family homes typical of these remote areas.

it wouldn't be an etchy biking blog without at least one random semi-feral dog photo...   note that up here NONE of the dogs are fixed...  

Rest of the ride was not that special,  but after the mountain climbing part, the almost throwing up part,  the perilous crumbling precipice part and the dangerous gravel downhill slopes,  i was satisfied with flat, unremarkable riding. :-P

passing under the Western Corridor Bridge ( 深港西部通道) that connects the Western part of NT to the western part of Shenzhen (which is a great for people trying to go to Shenzhen airport). 

I passed through

Tin Shui Wai(天水圍新市鎮) on the way to park my bike at Yuen Long:

or as I like to call it... the City of Misery (悲情城市). :-P

(setting for Ann Hui's multi-HK Film Award winning film ' The Way We Are', aka '天水圍的日與夜' and its sequel,  'Night and Fog', aka '天水圍的夜與霧')

Anyway,  a good, tough ride.  There's a few more mountainous rides in HK I want to try... so this is good prep for that, if nothing else. :-P