events · hong kong

Twenty-five runners.
One trail.
Nothing a phone
can solve.

A trail race across Hong Kong's country parks — teams in colours, branded markers at every checkpoint, and puzzles built so that pulling out a phone gets you nowhere.

25runners
5checkpoints
7–55age of the field
3hours on foot
0questions a search engine answers
the day

How it ran.

Runners in team colours setting off up a flight of trail steps
The startEveryone off at once, up the steps, in team colours.
A team gathered at a country trail signpost
Real trailsWilson Trail and Hong Kong Trail — not a hotel ballroom.
A checkpoint set up on a picnic table on the trail
CheckpointsA picnic table, a marshal and a sealed envelope.
An illustrated route clue printed as a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces in a tube
The next stop, as a jigsawPieces in a tube. Build it to find out where you are going.
A competitor reading a printed task sheet at a trail checkpoint
Task sheetsPrinted, sealed, opened only at the checkpoint.
what we made for it

The kit.

A race is mostly print and logistics. All of this was designed, made and carried up the hill before anyone arrived.

Printed task cards laid out in colour-coded rows

The card deck

A colour-coded deck printed and sorted so each team gets the right envelope at the right checkpoint, and knows what it is before they open it.

Print · one deck per race
A printed clue sheet held at a checkpoint

Clue and task sheets

One sealed envelope per checkpoint. Written so the answer is in the place, the object or the marshal — never on the internet.

Print · sealed per checkpoint
A team crest showing a crowned lion

Team identities

Every team gets a name, a crest and a colour before the day. It is the cheapest way to make strangers into a team by the first checkpoint.

Identity · per team
Printed course markers and task cards laid out for assembly

The build

Every envelope counted, sorted and sealed the night before. The race only looks spontaneous.

Production · the boring half
An illustrated route clue printed as a jigsaw with pieces in a tube

Clues printed as puzzles

The next location, drawn as an illustration and printed as a jigsaw, handed over as loose pieces in a tube. There is no way to search your way past it.

Illustration · printed puzzle
the five cards

Every envelope is one of five things.

Teams learn the five card types in the first ten minutes, and after that the rules never need explaining again — the colour of the card tells them what kind of trouble they are in.

Blue — where nextThe next location, and nothing else
Yellow — choose oneTwo tasks offered, pick one, live with it
Red — one of youA single team member, chosen before they read it
Orange — head to headTwo teams against each other, one walks on
Scarlet — last one outThe last team to arrive is out of the running

Why it works

The design rules behind the day
More detail

A city race lives or dies on one decision: can a team shortcut it with a phone? If the answer is yes, the fastest team is the one that types quickest and the day is pointless. So every task is physical — a jigsaw, a token, an object to find, a marshal to convince.

The second rule is that nobody waits. Checkpoints are staggered and routes are designed so teams arrive at different points, which means no queues and no team standing around losing interest.

TerrainCountry trails, steps, park stations
The field25 runners, aged 7 to 55
TeamsColour-coded, named, crested
TasksPhysical only — jigsaws, tokens, people
MarshalsBriefed, positioned, timed
next one

The next one is 5 December.

Our first ticketed event. Teams across Central, three hours, same rules.

SAT 5 DEC A city race across Central Ticketed — details and tickets in early November

Want one for your group?

Corporate teams, family reunions, a birthday that needs to move. The route gets designed around who is running it.

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