It was the late sixties, when, long before any bike lanes ever existed in HK, I used to ride on the main roads of HK Island on my Phoenix鳳凰牌 bike which was a gift from my father. The bike was of the same type most commonly used by the family-run groceries store for delivery of heavy items like rice & cooking oil. It was robust, heavy and the cheapest bike available. I was not yet a teenager and not tall enough to be able to sit on it with even just one foot reaching the ground, my legs were barely long enough to reach the pedals. I had to mount or dismount leaning against a wall.
A few years later, I liked cycling so much that, I hated the mass of amateurs who flocked to Ting Kok Rd in Tai Po on Sunday and were blocking the road. Many a time I played hooky(逃學) to cycle on weekdays in order to have an unobstructed ride. But the general traffic was much heavier, with lots of trucks on the 2-lanes 2-way main thoroughfare Tai Po Rd. Unlike the amateur bikers, truckers would not sway or fall over.
I bought an old & rusty bike for 50 guilders while working summer job in Holland and had cycled a fair area on it. I took it back to Cardiff. One day when I was riding across an intersection on my way home from campus, the handlebar fell off from the stem 'coz of the rust. Fortunately, I could steer the bike even without holding the handlebar.
I have almost never been on a bike, except a couple of times, in more than 30 years. Last week, a friend who I got to know while studying Spanish at CUSCS last year, Anthony - a triathlon athlete, told me he'd join a multi-days fund raising biking event in Japan organised by a China-focused charity. It rekindled the passion inside me for that hobby of mine I enjoyed so much in my youth. I had lunch with him yesterday, and seeing no rain this morning, Anthony kindly agreed to be my guide for cycling around Tolo Harbour. Initially, we talked about trying a return route of 20km. We ended up doing exactly 40km. From Tai Po market to 泥涌 via Ma On Shan, return, then to the Industrial Estate on Ting Kok Rd and return to Tai Po market. We started around noon and finished at 15:15 incl 45min lunch at 泥涌. It was quite a distance. From my home in Whampoa to the San Tin yellow coach station via Tolo highway, my car's odometer shows 38km. And the distance between CLK airport and Hunghom is marginally shorter than that.
Anthony sprinted for a couple of minutes, stopped, took out his smart phone and snapped these pics of me.