Sheung Shui to Kam Sheung

Last Saturday I rode my bike from campus to Sheung Shui up near the China border.  I had been planning on doing another ride on sunday, but we had record storms that day (flooding, lightning, you name it).

I was busy Monday and Tuesday, so my bike has been sitting up in Sheung Shui since Saturday.  I locked it up good and had the cover on, AND parked under a footbridge,  so it was fine. 

The question was, where to ride today?  Back home or onwards and upwards?

As I mentioned in that blog, I had been contemplating going across the New Territories to the Yuen Long region, via this route along Castle Peak Road ( the longest road in HK!):

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1001540

I left campus around 5:30pm and headed up to Sheung Shui by KCR.   I took the route shown there.  including a few detours, it was about 1.5 hours and 10 miles.

Riding wise it wasn't so great, at least not for the first few miles.  Castle Peak road had a lot of traffic, namely large trucks and buses on their way to the Lok Ma Chau vehicle border crossing.

But along the way i noticed China was getting closer. You could spot the skyscrapers in the distance:

Still pretty rural here, just a few buildings poking out behind the hills.

Once I got to Lok Ma Chau, China was clearly in view:

don't let the verdant spillway here fool you,   this place wasn't very peaceful or rural... everywhere were else was full of truck parking lots, scrap yards and storage centers.  At this point I was regretting riding out here.   Everytime a truck went by I was getting a healthy dose of exhaust and dust!

But after the border crossing road,  things calmed down dramatically and it became good riding.  I was particularly amazed by this scene:

Nothing special you say?  its just an empty stretch of road you say?

Yes, exactly!  This is Hong Kong (the 3rd densest place in the world population wise!)  Where can you see a 1/4 mile of empty road? no people, no cars, no buses, no trucks.  impossible!

(note, there actually were people down there waiting for a bus, you just can't see them). :-P

From this point on the ride was a lot more enjoyable.  The highlight was probably when I reached Mai Po:

Which you may be able to see from the map is made up a bunch of fields (rice fields?)  and is extra close to the SZ...  i took a pitstop at a water treatment plant that had a nice access road / walking area.  The sun was just setting and I snapped a few pics:

This kid totally saw my taking a picture, but he rode his bike into the frame anyway:

From here on,  the ride was actually really good, the roads were uphill from these lowlands, but smooth and not very many trucks and buses.  Later on it even got to dedicated bike paths.  Eventually I reached my destination, the Yeun Long region of the Western New Territories.  The reason this was my destination was cause this is where the train goes.

Thats a KCR West train on the elevated tracks crossing over the Kam Tin River.  (and a full moon!)

Took me a while, but i eventually found the Kam Sheung Road station and locked up my bike.   You can take bikes on the train, but this train line doesn't actually connect to the train line by my house, so i don't even know how i'd get the bike back.  As it stands right now, I'm hoping to try riding back on Saturday or Sunday on this route:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1001763

its only ~7 miles back to Fanling, but the problem is all those mountains you have to cross!  i'm not sure if its even bikable... i'll find out soon (and let you know how it works out).

Bonus Pic: 852 FOR LIFE!