Police investigate a fatal bike crash in Sha Tin in the early hours of 15 August (Photo: HK01)

The victim, 33-year-old Mr Tse, was riding this Yamaha XMAX bike (photo: HK01)

A pool of blood and a frenzied pile of surgical gloves, gauze and paramedic swabs were the only clues to a desperate fight for life on a Sha Tin residential street early this morning, after a scooter rider apparently lost control of his Yamaha and careened into the heavy barriers.

Mr Tse, 33, was riding a Yamaha XMAX scooter down Sui Wo Road, a steep, closed-ended residential street popular with cyclists and bikers, just before midnight last night (14 August) when he apparently lost control and rammed into the crash barriers. Police do not know if other vehicles were involved and have appealed for witnesses to come forward.

Police say a passerby called emergency services – ambulance crews rushed Tse to Prince of Wales Hospital, already unconscious, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

Tse was the third person to die on that street in the last 7 years: in 2013, a 51-year-old cyclist lost control descending the steep hairpins, hit the roadside divider and died after hitting a concrete ditch cover; in 2015, a 20-year-old stable assistant on a provisional motorcycle licence crashed his friend’s Kawasaki into a wall after losing control on that same bend.

Sources say the Hong Kong cycling team regularly train on the road: and according to Strava, 2,165 people have lodged almost 35,000 record attempts up and down the winding hill.

Some 2,626 motorcyclists or bike passengers were killed or injured on Hong Kong’s roads in 2019, according to Transport Department figures.