Biking - Tai Mei Tuk group trip

Yesterday I went biking with my friends Nat, Drafus and Alex.  Drafus and Alex had recently bought some snazzy folding bikes and were eager to try riding on some of the many paths in the New Territories I often ride on the weekends here in HK.  Nat rented a bike at Taipo and I brought my bike up by train as I have been doing since buying this newest HK bike a few months back (cause I'm tired of them getting stolen!).

It was late by the time we got started, but that's OK, it means less dangerously inexperienced riders clogging the way.

Alex and Drafus,  not used to such spacious riding venues.

Last time I rode through this way last week I noticed this giant construction project in what looks like a giant Buddhist temple complex.  It took a while to figure out at the time, but looks like they've already started taking the scaffolding down, its getting more clear.  Its a giant, 249' Guanyin statue!

And no, contrary to popular believe, its not part of Li Kashing's tomb -

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2011/08/httpblog-beliefnet-comnewsp6353.php

Once we got to Tai Mei Tuk you can see much of Tolo Harbour.  That's Ma On Shan on the opposite side (I used to live over there when I first moved to HK in '06).   Unfortunately a bit hazy by this late in the afternoon.

The upside of the overcast weather was no sunburn and a nice early sunset.

The main thing to do out here is ride along the dam that separates the Plover Cove Reservoir from the harbor.  It's a nice straight shot about 2km.

Here's a timelapse video I took on the Dam:

By the time we got back to the main recreation area we got some nice sunset views: 

(with a little help from some iPhone app filters).

I didn't run my GPS app the whole time, but I estimate we did about 20km total.  Not too hard for me but took its toll on my novice ride mates.   by the time we got back to Taipo they were pretty toasted.    We recharged with a healthy dose of Pizza Hut.  (probably negating all the calories they burned). 

I'm a total scofflaw... for various reasons they require you to take your front wheel off your bike when entering the MTR system....  of course trying to manuever a bicycle with one wheel while carrying another wheel makes the bicycle much more ungainly (and dangerous).   so I try to ignore this stupid rule whenever I can.