BIKING IN HONG KONG: WHAT CAN BE DONE

With Mountain biking in the media spotlight, now is a good time to take advantage of the positive imagery of biking and push to improve our status.

We all know the trails are becoming over crowded and there is a need to open more trails in HK. The government departments need to understand our requirements so that the sport can develop

Here is a thread to vioce your opinions, to discuss what you think can be done.

Whether it concerns of overcrowding, trail maintenance, opening of new trails, locations of possible new trails or simply a good old rant, have your say here, BUT KEEP IT CLEAN (ish)

cheers
BB

BB, thanks for this prompt.

For sure more "proper" trails would be great, in addition an easier means of accessing them.

Ad hoc chamges are admirable, as long as they refelct the majority of users veiw and desired use of that trail. Its a great shame that some of the best trails and lightly used by walkers, are the illegal trails in Tai Lam, so i am told anyway.

what would also be really good is if there was a central meeting point maybe on TMS, a Cafe where riders could meet, hook up etc that would be great.

i hear Paul from Tuen Mun was due to open a shop in Ho Pui village, this could have the desired effect for those doing DH shuttles.

I suppose asking for a chairlift from the Gold coast ( well one that does't loose its carriages

would be a bit much to ask.

having just come back from Lake Garda, where cycling is a way of life., i struggle to see how HK can become like that until people respect bikers on roads or until we can get about easily without polluting vans.

WHAT WE NEED:

1 - A MTB comity dedicated to represent MTBikers front of the the state departments (AFCD, LCSD, CEDD, Land Dpt.).

2 - A clear opening plan: With in Priority Yuen Tuen Ancient trail, South Lantau trails and installment to ride Lady Clemente's ride and Sir Cecil's Ride on HK island.

3 - A REAL Downhill trail connecting the AFCD road above Ho Pui to Ho Pui DH trail. This trail is necessary to reduce the conflicts between hikers and bikers, and would be the opportunity to have a real shuttle from BBQ area to top.
AFCD was interested in finding solutions to have a DH trail only.
This project must be financed between the AFCD and the LCSD, people from the Cycling association must help.

4 - A real campaign to lobby the hikers groups (who are blocking and making difficult all AFCD initiatives for the last 15 years).
This campaign must demonstrate bikers are not interested by the same trail as hikers (we're looking for contour trails, they are climbing to peaks and ridges). This campaign must target all the outdoor shops in HK (not so many) with leaflets and over promotional items. Does anyone ready to through a couple of 1000 to finance it? (maybe a found raiser)

5 - For all relationship with hiker groups it is absolutely necessary to find a CHINESE spokesman as well as people who can be active in Chinese Language forums. The hikers groups are not listening are Gwellos! They see MTB as foreign sport because it's always been supported by foreigners during meetings and trail opening campaigns. This observation is coming straight from AFCD top officials.
Also, there is a huge gap between the main cycling discussion source (HKSI forum) and foreigners due to language barrier.

6 - New trails are necessary. Trails designed to accommodate bikers and hikers. There is vast area that could be developed - All the ridge going to Lion Rock up to Shatin. The mountains North and South of Tuen Mun.
Such a project can only be carried by the LCSD. Maybe HK riders should lobby for the LCSD to create a trail building team, equipped with appropriate machines.

For now there is only 40 Km of real trail legal to ride (I'm not counting the small 4 km stretch lost miles away from any access (dragon back!).
It's realistic to get 150 km of trails open in HK without touching a shovel.

we have to get organised, set up schedule and introduce proposal to afcd,
in order to keep mountain biking above ground, which is very important to promote mountain biking and support racing

hi shaun, havent seen u for long..and so as julien, so bad, julien have to move to san fan...but anyway, i want to keep the things on and push it deeper.

count me in to any discussion or commitee, i have time to help.

Hey Shawn,

Didn't we write some kind of manifesto back in the day, when we were planning to get a website going? I'm afraid that my copy would have been on the laptop that got re-formatted ... anyways, I seem to remember that we all came up with some good points on what issues to push and so on.

Brandon

Although I have no time to help, I totally support from my heart the mountain bike sport and the need of more mountain bike trails in Hong Kong. Why can't let pubic to see the beauty of Countrysides by the most environmentally friendly means. See all over the world that there are amble of awesome mountain bike trails for fun, leisure and the promotion of image of the country. It is an excellent exercise for health.

Keep our fingers crossed !!!!

Check out the AFCD link http://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/country/cou_how/cou_how_vis/cou_how_vis.html for the next regular AFCD liaison meeting with country park visitors. Mountain biking is one of the hot topics in the discussions according to AFCD. Not entirely sure if you need to be formally invited or can anyone show up (some of you have attended before) but yes do need more locals attending so senior mgmt doesn't think its just a bunch of rich gweilos complaining. If open to all definately encourage as many as possible to show up and express viewpoints on how to improve the situation in HK as being over 50% country park their is massive potential in this place.....

i'll try to get some more chinese...
but i think we have to be prepared and have something eyecatching to present...
so as they'll know we are going for it, not like the hkca....

It's a good idea for anyone interested to attend the Country Park Liaison Group just to keep up the profile of mountain biking, but don't expect too much practical to come from it. I've been to a couple. The attendees are a mixture of representatives of the big local hiking groups, asking for more toilets and pagodas, and villagers with property interests in the Country Parks, trying to get roads put in so they can sell up to property developers. Plus the occasional biker, stroppy gweilo or others with a particular axe to grind. It's just a talking shop, and we could shout all we liked about new trails, but no decisions would be made. Your comments will be minuted and given due consideration (!) I have to admit that, having attended these meetings, I came away with a bit of sympathy for AFCD (no, really!) - certainly the senior guys are constantly forced to resist demands to, for instance, put wash basins at the top of Sharp Peak or build an expressway to Tai Long Wan. The problem is:
a) they are frightened about annoying the big local influential hiking groups who resent mountain bikers using "their" trails; and
b) the local AFCD people on the ground in the parks are quite old-school and have little idea about mountain biking - e.g driving vans the wrong way up a race course...doh!
By the way, a lot of the worst trail "improvement" is actually carried out in rural areas that are just outside Country Parks, by Home Affairs Department under the Rural Minor Works programme, otherwise know by some (although not me, of course) as the "making up imaginary work to keep small local contractors happy" programme.

Totally agree with Mike - those meetings are just a chance to blow off steam; kind of a perfunctory exercise in democratic civic participation. And yes, I strongly suspect that developers have paid representatives at all such meetings, and these regulars want nothing more than to pave every bit of green as far as the eye can see and beyond.

If you have time, and want a bit of a lesson in how bureacracy works, go to the meetings, gweilo or local, and give these poor AFCD guys another side to the story. They're on our side of it, for the most part, and I get the impression that it's a daily battle for them not to cave in and let the tycoons build highrises in every bloody square foot of the territory.

So you can kind of see why approaching it by saying "Build More XXX" is a bit offputting from their perspective, whether it's "bike trails" or "signposts" or "toilets" or "luxury flats."

Keep it natural,

Brandon

idealistically, the mountain belongs to everyone: hikers, campers, hang gliders, and extrem mountain uni-cycle.... whatever, things without and engine to make noise and foul chemical smoke. I believe mountian should be unrestricted in all areas.... the mountain bike don't damage the enviroment and run over hikers.....people do that. Mountian bikes usually don't kill themself in the mountian.
I feel if we have a higher level of licencing scheme, the holder of this particular higher level permit can travel where they choose. An all access pass to think of it.
To obtain this licence/permit, you have to take tests, something like a driver licence test. Make it tough so that the test can pretty much show the holder of the licence have enough knowlege and attitude of your everyday park rangers. Wouldn't that be cool???
These new riders would have the knowlege of different protocal in case of forrest fires, land slide, a bit of first aid if he meet a hiker in trouble. They will report trails condition and can give reports to park rangers......
If there is such a scheme I will be the first one to join. Idealistcally it is good idea, cause then you have thousand of volunteers patroling and keeping things in order in the mountains........and these are fast guys.
Alice do live in wonderland.... sometime you just got to believe......

As MB and brandon said - a lot of what happens at meetings are purely going through the motions, butr i think its important to have a preseance there

i would be willing to go to the next meeting time permitting- it would be great if more people could come especially locals and not just stroppy gweilos

as far as i can remember we need to invite ourselves by contacting them and asking to be on the invite list so that they can have time to print out a special little name tag (which you dont even get to keep!!!!)

i suggest we start a list of willing peeps who can make it

bb

Nice in theory, but how do you demonstrate to a civil servant that you know how to ride well enough not to need a heli-lift off the mountain? I wouldn't trust the AFCD's implementation of this, and it also wouldn't be appropriate for pitching HK as a regional and international attraction for riding - imagine how long it's going to get this permit. Anyone ever tried to join the LCSD's programs, say, for kayaking? You've got to book a course three months in advance [actually, you join a 'lottery'] for training, no matter how good you are, and do this three times before you can be certified in order to rent a kayak from them. What we need is a 'day pass' option, such as at the little booth where there's always a guy ready to lift the gate for cars on the MacLehose, where you pay 20 bucks and off you go. Most people can't be bothered dealing with a permit, especially people who are here for a week-long visit, and this is a great way around it.

by the way I was referring to ratcat's idea above, which is good thinking ... keep the ideas flowing! - I second Shawn's idea - put me down for it if you guys hear of an upcoming meeting.

Let me know too, I would be happy to go. Prior to any meeting an agenda should be drawn up so we are all "singing from the same hymm sheet" in terms of things we would like to see done, which in my view have to be:

- Justifyable
- Realistic
- Challenging to HK "myths" ie we ruin trails, we are non courteous/ dangerous to walkers.
- have some info/ figs from bike friendly countries like Canada/ Italy etc re trail usage.

Our voice needs to be united, otherwise we are wasting our time.

BB agree we need some local riders to come too to show its a locally enjoyed activity, this I agree will carry more weight.

brandon...yeah....of course in theory only.... but just something to keep in mind. realistically, we've got a problem. Gov don't like to see blood. Well actually, us mountian biker too, in fact we don't like it more then any gov officials. In the statistic department, people will get hurt. More seriuosly, the down hill folks will cause more attentions. and when more and more pople joining this sport, more cases of injuries will eventually show up and that can cause an image problem. I feel we have to grade the trials for better risk management. Open up easier alternative trails beside a "black diamond" vertical down so people don't have to pressure themselves into doing stunts more difficult then they can handle. (i.e. like dragon's back.... the contour alternative is nice....now that will get the statistic department a bit more favorable on our side. and even if people do injure themself it is totally at thier own risk....There is a reason for the standard ski slope color scheme....yellow to black diamond.....

pls see below

Ratcat, I think using Dragons back as an example of what is acceptable and comforting to officials is an example of what we don't want to happen in HK.

I agree some form of grading would be good, but which bike savy person in the Govt would do this grading, and what would be deemed too dangerous, the land slide on route to the Ho Pui DH that was once signed off as closed?

Dragons back is an example of a decent beginners ride, but also one that is unexiting, too short and very hard to get to. The trails in Tai Mo shan, both legal and illegal are examples of great trails in my opinion.

This can, and perhaps will go one of two ways, we attempt to engage the relevant authorities in a structued, united and targetted manner, employing a diverse section of our biking community, that being local riders, gweillos, DH, XC, Dirt Jumpers etc to get the point across. Should this fail to have any impact ( which history and recent efforts would suggest it will ) I can see the other option, which is to ride more illegal trails more often, thereby creating more conflict with other park users, to become more prevalent and the norm.

This would be sad, as the community here is trying to engage and talk openly and in a constructive manner with the govt authorities, should this fail there seem to be limited options.

Jes, yes I agree with you. And the solution is to open up more trails. The hoi pui area is a great since it has a bit of everything....and opening more trials is the answer but how do we get them to do it is the problem. I have no answer to that problem. But grading exisiting trail may have a positive effect on mountain biking's image. It make this sport more organized and more well behaved.
All legal trails are ridden illegally before they are legal. That's the catch. and it is fun to think of, all these trails are originally made by villagers and hikers from long ago.....
well wish i can help more.....but this is a tough situation......

i heard from afcd officials that there will be a meeting with hkca and sm other guys on 8th dec...unfortunately, i have to work, any interested party please e-mail afcd to ask to join it...

Just a quick question - has anyone out there been caught riding "illegal" [i.e. non-designated-for-biking] trails? If so, when and where were you riding, what was the penalty, and did you contest it, etc.?

Thanks,

Brandon

Brandon,

This is a good topic to start. The honest truth is we all ride illegally. Some of the best trails are not yet open officially and will never be. If one of us honest enough to start a thread on this topic that would be great. The title should be "Don't ride the forbidden, but if you do these are the things you should consider" or whatever, kind of long.
Illegal does not mean irresponsible..... it may just mean having problems with following absurd instructions.

can you ellaborate a little deeper.!?
i cant really understand...

kcrc,

Honestly I pack more milage on illegal trails then on legal ones. Usually, I ride at night with a few friends to advoid officials. There are trail in whoch you can see a large and clear 'no bike allow'. And there are trails ini which not regulated by any sign post. Like the one froom Tung Chung to Tai-O in Lantau.
I think whether riding on legal or illegal to me makes little diffrerence. If all mountain biker can have good manners on the trail, more people would be sympathic to bikers. For example, whenever i see hikers, I don't go zig zag through them. I stop and get off my bike, take a drink of water and give them a warm smille. People on bikes intimidates whether it is in motion or not.
Maybe all I am saying is, better manners and repect for other folks on trail will give us a more civilzed image and will pay off in the long run.
What inspire me to say this is that I saw a few biker on legal trails whipping pass hikers and making them nervous. This is bad.... we all share the same trail...precious whether legal or illegal......
Unless somehow HK can sustain a commercially run bike parks like if they have in Europe or North America restricting hikers, the sharing bit is here to stay for ever.....

Am I making sense....hum had a bit too much to drink and the blues this morning.....


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