Braking point: Hong Kong cyclists and politicians call for improvements after chaos of city's first Cyclothon event

A shortage of manpower, a lack of signs for cyclists and poor traffic control all contributed to the chaos of the city's first Cyclothon over the weekend, according to participants, district councillors and lawmakers.

Legislator Gary Fan Kwok-wai, who was among 1,300 cyclists participating in the 10km ride on Sunday morning, said improvements were needed if the event was held again, including increasing the number of workers and training them better.

"There was a lack of staff and they were quite inexperienced," said Fan, a NeoDemocrat who sits on the Legislative Council's transport panel.

Fan said he and other participants arrived in Tsim Sha Tsui to rent their bikes from the organisers at 7.15am - 45 minutes before the event started - and were still waiting at 7.50am. "There were only two staff responsible for helping more than a thousand participants get their bikes," he said.

Right from exiting the MTR station, Fan said, the directions were not clear enough. "The organisers just told us to exit at Tsim Sha Tsui J2 [to get to the meet-up point], then there were no signs. We saw many people wandering around with their bicycles, with some of them walking in the opposite direction."