i’ve been riding in Taiwan for four years now, mostly on my trusty kymco 150cc mini cruiser, but also on real bikes…by ‘real’ i mean almost anything with capacity over 150cc… A Taiwanese mate of mine owns a bike shop, and he’s a damn good mechanic if you catch him in the right mood, but more importantly he has a passion for biking and he owns several bikes and more than knows his way around servicing them too…
over the years my 150cc has become more and more lackluster, a combination of wear and tear, the physical limitations of a tiny engine, and my ever increasing desire for performance that can do these wonderful taiwan twisties justice has seen me knocking more and more often at the door of my local bike rental shop…
now taking a proper bike out into the mountains of taiwan is an extremely dangerous thing to do… the ride itself both in and outside city limits is infinitely safer than any 150cc or below toy machine can offer, but the danger lies in the fact that once you’ve tasted the unadulterated joy of a real bike, with real tyres, real torque, real brakes, real control and performance… the 150cc experience is forever tainted, a kind of bland watered down version of the experience you know is possible… now don’t get me wrong i’m not of the “ride it like you stole it”, unhappy at less than 100mph school of thought, but i find i can far better appreciate the quiet slow cruise along looking at the butterflies in the grassy verges, and bing lang grove covered hillsides if i’m sitting on something that I know has the acceleration, handling, cornering and braking of a finely honed piece of Japanese engineering artistry, than on some half assedly slapped together, corners cut at every turn (<–intentional), de-engineered to a price point, just barely scraping adequate functionality level, taiwan designed and made knock off… i’ll admit however that the reasons behind this preference have a lot to do with knowing that i can, should a particularly delicious set of nice wide sweeping curves present themselves, cane it like a moron whilst leaning it over so far that said roadside butterflies are swishing only inches away from my visor as the scraping foot pegs leave lovely curves on the asphalt… er… lucky its a rental then…
renting bikes in taiwan is however far from ideal, the locals who run these type of rental shops seem to go for 1.) bigger = better, and 2.) supersports bikes only unless that contradicts rule 1.)… hence the massive number of over sized, but under horse powered BMWs and rediculously fast in a straight line Suzuki hayabusa 1300’s in Taiwan bike shops… not to mention the fact that you have to practically sign over rights to your first born child before they let you even see the keys, but i guess that’s understandable considering the risk…
buying a bike in taiwan… actually a fairly simple process, or at least it would be if it weren’t for the fact that two parties unavoidably involved in the purchasing process, are out to lie, cheat, scam and rob you blind… namely the dealers and the government… the dealers are all putting ‘at least’ NT$100K profit on each bike, offering some vague lies about 100% import duty, tariffs etc. and presently the competition isn’t enough to drive the prices down to a more realistic level… next in line to beat the prospective bike buyer over the head and make off with their cash is the government… NT$50K for the same pollution test that costs a couple of hundred for smaller bikes, NT$23K+ annual licensing fee for any bike over 599cc, over 1000cc will cost you over NT$30K per year, restrictions about where you an ride and park… all add up to a very thinly disguised govt. policy to continue their underhanded protection racket with Kymco and SYM, despite their signing WTO free trade agreements to the contrary…
personally i’ve given up and i’m going to import my own bike from Japan… the process is actually quite easy and since i deal with import/export a lot at work anyway i’m not too concerned about the details… all told i will save around NT$110K on my 2004 CB600 Hornet which is the perfect bike for riding in Taiwan… unlike the FireBlade in the pic below… absolutely brilliant bike, completely unsuited to taiwan’s roads, but still a barrel 'o laughs to blast down the 136 to Pu Li… and yes, i realise that not wearing any kind of protective gear other than a helmet is stupid, but it was hot as hell that day etc. etc…