South Lantau Update - Part 2

This is the second instalment of the South Lantau project update.

The first part introduced some context as to why the government is now building new trails, including a training ground, in South Lantau. Now its time to provide even more history and portray the mindsets  at the time before getting into the really cool stuff showing pictures of trails being built with excavators!

Slow growth and a bad reputation

Growth of the overall network has been irregular. After the AFCD banned mountain biking entirely in the early 1990s, the original HKMBA (founded by Rick Barton-Smith) managed to convince the government to allow mountain bikes on nearly 100km of trail, roads and water catchments dispersed across the territory.

The trail network expanded again after an Asian Games bronze medal in 1998 won by a very photogenic Brian Cook.  When asked by the media about his training he confessed riding  illegally in the country parks to prepare for the games. The government and sporting officials trying to bask in the glow of his success immediately lost face and a few months later opened up a few more trails in Tai Lam Country Park.

The "new" HKMBA takes over --- the perception of MTB is bad

In 2007 the HKMBA revitalised its leadership team starting with Robert (Bob) Smith and Kenneth Lam. When the new HKMBA team took over the trail network had not expanded  since Brian Cook’s medal and the conditions were poor — there were many black spots, such as “helicopter alley” also know as the “Rocky Horror” plus many badly eroded and unsuitable trail sections. In addition we were facing a mostly negative perception from all directions. Hikers often felt intimidated and uncomfortable  by bikers — many looking very menacing with body armour and full face helmets — approaching them on narrow trails  and  might naturally conclude that we don’t belong on the same trails fearing  that collisions and injury were inevitable; land managers thought we were responsible for erosion and trail widening; and mountain bikers themselves flagrantly ignored the rules and rode illegal trails, even building new illegal trails. In the comment sections of local papers mountain bikers often faced severe criticism  with many writers calling for us to be banned outright. 

With our backs seemingly up against the wall the new HKMBA team  undertook a number of measure that we felt would help reverse the tide including:

• Built up an engaged and active mountain bike community
• Revamped the HKMBA.ORG website including  trail guides, galleries and a riders forum
• Launched  a “Share the Trails” campaign to educate riders about trail etiquette
• Engaged numerous government departments, including the AFCD, to try to solve the problems and improve the conditions of all park users
• Reached out to the media to spread the gospel of mountain biking and why Hong Kong is an ideal place too ride a mountain bike
• Developed proposals to address the negative perception

Bureaucratic constipation

Its important to emphasise at this point that the HKMBA is an entirely volunteer run organisation.  Those of us who have volunteered do it both for our love of Hong Kong and the sport of mountain biking. Re-building the website alone took months of work by at least 4 volunteers.  Finding time to reach out to a government department takes a enormous amount of time writing letters and taking time off work to meet them (if they would agree to that). We were encountering significant resistance and it was quickly becoming clear that officials neither had  a clue or interest about the sport even when discussing development proposals with senior officials responsible for sport in Hong Kong all the way up to our local IOC representative who viewed mountain biking as some  kind of fringe ‘X-Games kind of thing’ not really being aware of its inclusion in the Olympic Games since 1996. The perceptions of the country park managers at that time were no better. One AFCD country park manager questioned  ‘why anyone would want to ride a bicycle on trails when there are plenty of good roads to cycle on instead?’.

The HKMBA persisted with its plan and continued trying to make a dent in the bureaucratic walls. We drafted a proposal specifically for Tai Lam CP to make the trail network safe and sustainable. It was ignored. We created our “Share the Trails” campaign and AFCD officials refused to even discuss it for over two years despite repeated pleas from the HKMBA that this was the simplest and easiest method to help improve safety and reduce conflict in their country parks.  It would have cost them peanuts to implement and the HKMBA was willing to do most of the work.

Mountain biking was — and remains — a very, very tough sell in Hong Kong primarily because the overall perception of the activity was — and still is — very negative. The numbers of riders have multiplied like rabbits but very little had been done by government to improve conditions and alleviate the negative perceptions of the activity in nearly a decade while under their management.  Erosion and conflict continued to get worse and worse. Both sides we boiling over. When we set out to revamp the HKMBA we thought that the problems we faced were not insurmountable and could be resolved with dialog but after a year into it, and without making any headway with an intransigent  government (AFCD primarily), we were going nowhere fast.

South Lantau Feasibility Study --- a game changing opportunity

None of us at the HKMBA had heard of the 2004 Concept Plan For Lantau. Then, out of the blue, Bob Smith received a inquiry from the  CEDD who were tasked with managing a mountain bike trail network feasibility study on South Lantau. The CEDD did not understand mountain biking nor what a world class mountain bike trail network should be like. Unlike other government departments at the time, the CEDD  were very receptive and appreciative of the HKMBA’s introduction to the sport and its needs. Bob immediately recognised the CEDDs limitations and convinced them that the mountain bike trail feasibility study must be conducted by professional and internationally recognised mountain bike trail experts. The CEDD agreed and wrote this requirement into the RFP. 

This was a game changer. Once the Lantau study got rolling  (Scott-Wilson was the contractor) the AFCD would finally meet professional mountain bike trail experts from the United States who understood both the concerns of the bikers (they themselves are passionate advocates for mountain biking) and the land managers and its these same specialists who would eventually help the AFCD solve their mountain bike “problem” while also acting as mediators between Hong Kong’s mountain bikers and the AFCD thus brokering a new era of constructive engagement and dialog between Hong Kong's mountain bikers and the government. 

And this is what can be achieved when the AFCD  and Hong Kong's mountain bikers work together...

Mountain Bike Volunteer Day - Sunday 25 Nov 2018

Register now: Call Ms Tang at 2475-2244 on or before Friday 23 Nov 2018!

The AFCD and the HKMBA are partnering to put on another trail work day. This is presents a great opportunity to learn about building and maintaining sustainable trails, meet people from all walks of life and get your hands a bit dirty!

The link to the AFCD event: http://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/country/cou_wha/Mountain_bike_trail_volunteer_day_2018.html

See you there!

South Lantau Update - Part 1

This is the first instalment in a series focussing on the trail works in South Lantau. Its a long and painful story — not quite a Russian novel, but not far off.

Anyone who has visited the mountain bike trails on Lantau immediately sees both the amazing opportunity and challenge — the landscape and scenery is unparalleled in Hong Kong however the mountain bike trail “network” on South Lantau remains very fragmented, difficult to reach, and difficult to ride (except for a few locals who know all its nuances). For some parts of the mountain bike network its a stretch to actually  call them real mountain bike trails as they lie on concreted Water Services Department (WSD) catch water roads. The official trail network also includes the coastal “trail” from Mui Wo to Chi Ma Wan, which is also now mostly concreted  and passes through a few, small villages which don’t necessarily welcome the mountain biking traffic. Despite hiking trails criss-crossing the island, riders living in Discovery Bay or North Lantau remain cut off from accessing the trails unless they take a ferry or brave the roads.

Background

In the early 2000s the government of Hong Kong consulted residents of Hong Kong and Lantau about how Lantau should be developed. In 2004 the Concept Plan for Lantau (Concept Plan 2004) was released and acknowledged the fragmented cycling network: “The existing trails are proposed to be improved and new sections be added at certain locations to form a continuous 37 km network”. Later, in 2009, a  HKD$10 million mountain bike feasibility study  performed by Scott-Wilson and overseen by the CEDD recommended a minor refurbishment of Chi Ma Wan, the addition of a small connector trail (also known as the “French Connection”), the addition of railings along the catch water,  and a new mountain bike training ground be constructed high above  Mui Wo on a formerly “disturbed area”. The study also included site seeing trips by CEDD and AFCD personnel to Singapore and Whistler, British Columbia, Canada so that they could meet land managers and better understand the activity. The HKMBA was not satisfied with the study outcome and felt it did not meet the original concept vision nor the needs of mountain biking community on Lantau or Hong Kong. It certainly did not deliver on the vision of a ‘continuous network’ proposed in the 2004 concept plan nor did it significantly expand the trail network to reach 37km.

Many years passed since the release of the study recommendations and the government of Hong Kong did absolutely nothing to improve the mountain bike trails on Lantau.  Then in 2015 the CEDD contacted the HKMBA to inform us that they would start implementing the study’s recommendations. By this time there was was an entirely new set of faces at the CEDD, most of whom had no knowledge of the past study nor any experience with mountain biking or trail building. The HKMBA proposed to the government that since so much time had passed and that since other trails projects in Tai Lam Country Park  had proven the viability or mountain bike trails that they expand the scope of works on Lantau beyond what was recommended by the  study. The HKMBA also met with high level officials from the Home Affairs Bureau in the hope that scope of works could be expanded. It was for naught — the scope would be restricted to the original recommendations despite our pleas.

Trail building is typically a grassroots kind of affair. Mountain bikers may feel that a new trail might  be appropriate in a certain location so after talking to their peers they would propose the trail to the land manager (ours is the AFCD). Together they work out details (alignment, approvals, etc)  and often construct it together with the bikers participating on a volunteer basis.

The mindset  of the HK government struggles with natural projects — they understand big projects like bridges, railways, tunnels, and so forth.  But when presented with the relatively simple challenge of building natural, sustainable trails that do no involve rebar, concrete or complex engineering plans then they are almost completely out of their element. So were the contractors that they hired for the job — they also had no idea about natural trail construction. Foreign trail building experts from the US, UK and Singapore were hired to advise despite the fact that Hong Kong’s ancestors from 500 years ago perfected the art of sustainable trail building leaving their mark on popular trails like the Yuen Tsuen Ancient trail.

More to come in the next instalment...