Busted! Kam Sheung Rd to Yuen Long to... the middle of the nowhere.

You'll recall last week I rode my bike from Sheung Shui KCR East Station across the breadth of the New Territories to Kam Sheung Rd KCR West Station, in my most recent bicycling adventure.

On Saturday I went back to get my bicycle.  As I mentioned in that last blog,  I wanted to try this route back along Fan Kam Rd.  Wisely I decided to ride a bus along that route on my way to Kam Sheung to make sure that rode was going to be bike-able.

It turns out that it wasn't...  not that the hills were too much or anything like that,  but rather because it was a narrow winding mountain road with little or no sidewalk or bike path area for most of its 7 mile length.  Doh!

The scenery was interesting in some places, as it passes through Lam Tsuen Park ( click for more).    Like my previous ride though, there were a LOT of industry lots and junk / scrap yards...  i guess they gotta put them somewhere.

One interesting variation was this:

Next to what was labelled the HK Fire Fighters Academy was a peculiar junk yard,  it was full of old, junked fire trucks and ambulances.  Pretty cool.  Worth going back and taking some pictures.

So Fan Kam road was out,  and worse yet, by the time i got to my bike it was getting late... so instead of trying to ride all the way back,  I just rode along the KCR West line to the next stop, Yuen Long, about 2.5 miles away.  Kind of a short ride,  but it was mostly uphill, so I got a good sweat going anyway.

As a minor consolation, I also got to finally see what the KCR Light Rail looks like:

I left my bike there at Yuen Long station and luckily found a fast, direct highway bus back to the KCR East line and back home. (and then went to Central for the Audiotraffic show).

Sunday afternoon I thought I'd make up for my disappointing ride the day before:  I got to Yuen Long station, got my bike and headed back along Castle Peak Rd (the way I came over here the previous week).  Except this time I stuck to the other side of the road,  rather than getting a view across the border to Shenzhen, instead you get nice views of Lam Tsuen park:

That's Tai Yo Yan peak (I think).   There's hiking up there... I should go sometime (one the summer is over!)

All was going well,  I was about 3 miles out from Yuen Long station... the road was pretty empty and I was alternating between riding along the curbside and going up on the sidewalk (depending on traffic, the width of the road and the quality of the sidewalk).  Occasionally I had to jump the curb to get up or down,  but since I have a mountain bike, its not too tough....

Except I guess I did one curb too many cause I blew my tire out...   worse yet it was the back tire (which means you gotta take the chain off to fix the tube).

doh, double disappointment!  Lucky for me it happened right near a bus stop,  so i locked up my bike there and waited for a bus to Sheung Shui station. 

To make sure I didn't forget where my bike was, I took a picture of the bus route:

Chuk Yuen baby!  (Corey Yuen's long lost brother?)

In case my prose is not clear enough,  I did another map on gmap-pedometer (w/ labels by photoshop):

Here's the link. 

Tomorrow morning I have to go to the bike shop and buy a new tube and a pump (or a can of compressed air)....  take the bus out there after work, find my bike, remove the tire, replace the tube, reinflate and ride the 6 miles back to Sheung Shui.    Keep your fingers crossed.