Cycling / Bike Touring

Hong Kong is not the first place most people picture on a bike, which is exactly why the New Territories cycle network is such a pleasant surprise. From Sha Tin, a dedicated, mostly flat cycle track shadows the Shing Mun River and then the shoreline of Tolo Harbour all the way to Tai Mei Tuk and the great dam wall of Plover Cove Reservoir, around 22 kilometres one way with the water on one side and the Pat Sin Leng ridge on the other. It is car-free for almost its whole length, which makes it accessible to families and casual riders rather than only the lycra crowd, and it strings together riverside parks, old walled villages, the temples and markets of Tai Po, and waterfront seafood at the far end. The reservoir itself is a quiet novelty, a body of fresh water reclaimed from a sea inlet by damming the cove, ringed by hills that hikers climb for the sunset. A guided ride adds the local texture the track alone does not give you: which village to detour into, the history of the Hakka settlements and the reservoir engineering, and a lunch stop worth stopping for. Autumn to spring is the season, when the humidity drops and the harbour views are sharp. This is the mellow, green, water-level side of Hong Kong that most visitors never see.

Pulau Ubin is the closest thing left to old rural Singapore, and a bicycle is the way to see it. Ten minutes across the water by bumboat from Changi Point, the island is a throwback to the 1960s kampong life that the mainland has entirely built over: wooden stilt houses, abandoned granite quarries turned into jade-green lakes, fruit orchards, and forest tracks where wild boar, long-tailed macaques and hornbills still roam. You rent a bike at the village jetty or join a guided ride and follow dirt trails to the Chek Jawa Wetlands, a rare intertidal ecosystem of mangrove, seagrass and coral rubble crossed by a boardwalk and a viewing tower. The riding ranges from easy flat lanes to rooty, hilly single track, so it suits a gentle family potter or a proper off-road workout. It is a genuine nature-and-heritage escape twenty minutes from a global city, and cycling covers far more of the island than walking ever could.

Andorra packs more famous climbing into 468 square kilometres than almost anywhere in Europe, which is why the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana keep coming back. Every road out of the valley floor goes up: the Coll de la Gallina and its brutal Els Cortals d'Encamp ramp, the long Coll d'Ordino, the Port de Cabus gravel wall, and the Port d'Envalira, at 2,408 metres the highest paved pass in the Pyrenees. You can link half a dozen category-one cols in a single ride and finish back in the same valley. Pro teams train here in summer for the altitude, the roads are quiet and well surfaced, and it is a place to come and climb rather than roll along flat. Local operators will guide the cols with a support car.

The Codru hills are the most rewarding place to put Moldova under your own wheels, because the country is small, quiet and made for a wine-and-village pace. Roads roll through oak forest and vineyard between the capital and the cellar cities, with almost no traffic once you leave the main highways and a constant supply of monasteries, roadside wells and family wineries to stop at. It is gentle touring rather than mountain riding: short days link Chisinau, the Codru forest reserve and the underground cellars of Cricova and Milestii Mici, and longer routes run south-east toward the Stefan Voda vineyards and the Nistru. A ride here is really a way to travel between tastings and traditional meals, arriving at a cellar sweaty and hungry rather than by tour bus. For a rider who wants distance without altitude and culture at every stop, rural Moldova is an easy, underrated choice.