Hills of Hong Kong: The Beast

As the second part in the series looking at the Hills of Hong Kong, here is "The Beast" on Lantau Island.

Probably only second to The Peak in notoriety amongst the lycra fraternity, this aptly named climb is found at the centre of Lantau Island, connecting the north and the south coasts of the island.

For most it means jumping on the MTR or grabbing a 'man with a van' to travelling out to Lantau Island, the largest island in Hong Kong. Lantau Island primarily consists of mountainous terrain and is often referred to as "the lungs of Hong Kong", because of its abundance of indigenous forest and relative scarcity of skyscrappers and infrastructure (despite being home to Hong Kong's international airport).

Tung Chung Road weaving its way up past Lantau and Sunset Peaks

The Route

Leaving the airport town of Tung Chung you quickly hit Tung Chung Road, heading south along a pass bisecting Lantau Peak (at 934m the second highest peak in Hong Kong) and Sunset Peak (at 869m the third highest).

The road rolls along gently for a brief time before hitting a small roundabout that signifies the start of the climb to the other side of Lantau, cresting at 295 metres above sea-level before plummeting down an exhilarating decent to Cheung Sha Beach on the south coast.



There are more 'hidden' black sections to this climb than it appears.... honest


The climb is a relatively short 2.6km with an average gradient of 10.2%, but that doesn't tell the full story, the last 1.5km rarely dips below 14% with numerous ramps hitting between 16 and 18%. There really is no let up.

The Climb

There are few roads in Hong Kong that I enjoy cycling up less than the Beast. It looms over every trip to Lantau. Despite arguably not really being the worse climb on Lantau, it is invariably the first climb of the day and is a brutal way to wake up your legs.

A gentle first 500m to 1km gives no clue as to the leg burning gradients that follow. A brief ramp flattens out before the true climbing begins at 1km with the gradients constantly flicking between 14-16%. With the road carved into the mountainside there is not much to distract your eye from the asphalt wall in front of you and the concrete slopes to your left.

Looking back to Tung Chung having tamed the Beast

A brief hairpin to the right at 500m to the summit provides a slight flattening of the road (still not below 12% though...) and a mental milestone allowing you to power the final steep ramp to the top.

The climb is unrelenting and, in all but the winter month(s), is exposed to the baking sun and humidty of Hong Kong. The climbing is difficult, but cooling yourself down and keeping your heart rate out of the red can be just as challenging.

Summary

In spite of its diminutive length and deceptive average gradient the Beast is a climb not to be taken lightly; even experienced cyclists have underestimated the demands, been found wanting and needed to unclip. It is a classic example of the short, wall like climbs that are Hong Kong's forte. It deserves its reputation and name!

Its Strava leaderboard can be found here.

Lantau 100

The holiday period over Chinese New Year provided the first real opportunity of the year to head out for a long ride and get a decent number of kilometers in the legs in one hit. Lantau Island would provide some (relatively) quiet roads with a number of challenging climbs. As with most climbs in Hong Kong, what they lack in length they certainly make up for in gradient!

JK and I were joined this time by Pt and Janice who were keen to give themselves a 'wake up call' and to kick start their training (having been focused more on running and other sports recently) - it certainly was always going to be a very challenging day so early in their training (not helped by Janice being under the weather too). Sacha and two friends (Casey and Dave - Dave only having bought his bike four days previously) also joined us for the majority of the ride.

Pt and JK getting ready for the big day...

Following what these days could be considered a lie-in, we all meet at Sunny Bay MTR at 8am to head off on the planned 100km ride (with ~2400m climbing). The first 12km along to Tung Chung was an easy warm-up along the gently rolling flats and a chance to get the blood flowing through the legs before we hit the bottom of The Beast - the most feared (although not the most difficult as it later turned out...) climb on Lantau. We had warned Pt and Janice that it was pretty brutal but I dont think anything can really prepare you for the relentless steepness of the climb - between 13-16% all the way to the top. The Beast will get its own blog entry at some point in the near future...

Taming the Beast... a view from the top

Once at the top I was shortly followed by JK, with Sacha not too much further behind (slightly surprised that he had been so comprehensively schooled 'by a girl'). Casey then followed, but it was a while before Pt, Janice and Dave emerged - shoes in hand and pushing their bikes having been beaten by The Beast.

Sometimes its quicker to walk...

From the top of The Beast we all took the awesome decent down to Lower Cheung Sha beach and then another 10km of rolling terrain towards Shek Pik Reservoir. From Shek Pik we then headed up towards the Big Buddha - 4.5km at an average gradient of 8.5% but with long sections at over 15% - a real grind! It was beginning to get really hot and sunny too. Again I hit the top, shortly followed by JK and then Sacha, with Casey and Dave not too much further back. We waited, and then we waited a little more, but still no Janice or Pt. After weighing up the options we decided to head back down to see if anything had happened only to find Janice and Pt just around the corner with 100 yard stares and shoes in hands again. Janice was really not well!

A painful pilgrimage

I had been keen to try a climb up from Sham Wat that I had never done before, but it was pretty clear that, other than JK, I was alone in that wish. As a compromise everyone except JK and me headed down the decent to Tai O to get a little extra rest. We headed down the narrow decent to Sham Wat.... only to meet around 150 mountain bikers in various stages of delirium weaving wildly up the single track road as they winched themselves up at an achingly slow pace. No idea what was going on, but they were everywhere!

On hitting the bottom, and having seen how steep the decent was, JK and I headed back up the Sham Wat climb knowing it was going to be tough. It was definitely the toughest climb of the day - no wonder only a handful of people have been up and down it! We really had to grind our way up (JK managing to shake off the crazy guy on a Brompton-type bike that seemed hell bent on not being overtaken by a girl).

After pausing for breath we headed down to Tai O, collected the others (asleep on the seafront) and headed through the narrow and winding streets of Tai O to the most amazing coffee shop (name unknown, but not sure I would mention it if I knew), which much to my dismay was shut for the 'holidays' despite there seeming to be some fat gweilos in there... we settled for a place across the street (Melt) and tucked into pies/cheese toasties.

Melt... an aptly named cafe

On trying to leave Tai O we had to battle through Lion Dances and more smelly mountain bikers. At this point Pt and Janice jumped in a cab (sensible given how unwell Janice was at this stage) and Sacha, Casey and Dave said they would be heading back to Tung Chung meaning that JK and I could head off at our own pace - which we did, leaving Sacha (mistakenly) grinding up the climb out of Tai O in his big ring, heading towards Mui Wo.

A money hungry Lion

The ride to Mui Wo was pretty uneventful, tracking our route back to Lower Cheung Sha and then taking in a couple of additional minor climbs along the way. On arriving in Mui Wo and JK getting 'another' sugary drink we bumped into Pt and Janice waiting for a ferry back to Central. After a brief chat we headed back to Lower Cheung Sha beach to meet Vicky for a well deserved late lunch at The Stoep (a pretty hit and miss place in my opinion - for a place that specialises in BBQ meat they seem to cremate most of their menu... - cant argue with the beach side location though).

Vicky and JK eating burnt food

Photos only girls take....?

After inhaling some food, drinking a sizeable amount of sangria and having a snooze under the afternoon sun on the beach we set out again leaving Vicky (to a pretty arduous journey home, involving buses in various directions, taxis and the MTR) and headed back up the 'Reverse' Beast - the slightly friendlier sibling of the first climb of the day. A fast descent down the other side towards Tung Chung and then a final 12km along the flat back to Sunny Bay to break the 100km mark and we were finished for the day. 

A brilliant day and the first real big training ride of the year. Over 100km covered with more than 2400m of climbing in glorious sunshine (but not the too hot and humid Hong Kong weather of the summer). Glad I am not in the UK right now suffering in the snow and cold - Hong Kong is offering the best base miles right now...

The Dark Knight and Ida get a well deserved rest

For those that may be interested the Strava link of the ride is here. JK's slightly more witty blog of the day can be found here.