Spotted a new motorcycle rental joint on the corner of Roosevelt and Keelong. Lordy they got real bikes in there! Didn’t have time to pop in and check it out but I did glimpse what looked to be at least half a dozen bikes lined up, none of which looked below 750cc.
Anyone checked it out?
HG
A friend tells me that it is in fact a club. Joining fee is around NT$8,000 and daily hires are somewhere between NT$2,000~4,000.
Don’t know about what license you need.
HG
I wonder are the bikes insured ? Wouldn’t like to drop one and have to pay for it.
Yeah, they’re insured. Didn’t know it was a club though – that’s not what the guy told me. He said if you have a license and the money, you can hire the bikes.
I was in there last week and they had a 600cc Hornet that was pretty well dented up at the front end. Ouch!
I haven’t heard it’s a club either. I just know that you can rent a R1 for 4000NT.
Wooohooo!!! 
Taurus
I rented a 250cc Honda Hornet from them on Monday. As I don’t have a license for the heavy bikes, it was the only bike of theirs I could rent. If I had the license, I could also rent the Honda CB400 super four. To rent any of the other bikes you have to join the club, which costs NT$3600, and that includes a coupon for NT$2000 on renting bikes, and if you want them to process the heavy bike license they’ll get it for NT$6500 instead of NT$8000. You have to use the training facility in Xindian in that case, however.
The daylight rental for the Hornet was NT$1600, which means from 10am to 8pm of the same day. They have daylight and 24-hour rates. You start out with a full tank of gas and return it with a full tank of gas. You must pay for any damage you cause as well as full rental fees for the time it takes to repair said damage. The staff was friendly and helpful; don’t know how their English is. Their website is at http://www.moto-team.com.tw and their phone number is 02-27368065.
The Hornet rode like a dream, by the way. Not that much faster than my usual ride, but oh so much smoother and solid as a rock at at speed. Didn’t care much for the seat, though. I took it up Zhishan Road to Wanli and then up around the coast, then up over Yangmingshan from Danshui, down to Beitou and back through town. Pictures:
http://www.poagao.org/hornetrip.jpg
http://www.poagao.org/hornetrip2.jpg
A more detailed account on my website at
http://www.poagao.org/archive/2003_07_20_Archive.html#105887795500177122
All in all, the guys at Shankouzu seem pretty friendly and competent. I’m thinking of getting my heavy bike license, and it might do to go through them. That said, there are heavy bike dealerships popping up around the city. There’s one on Xinsheng South Road just south of the Taipei Grand Mosque, and another on Fuxing South road on the east side a little ways north of the NTU back gate that has Triumphs, including a sweet looking Bonneville. I’m seeing more and more CB400s and Hornets parked around the city as well as more yellow plates in traffic. If you get a new bike, however, you’ll have to deal with keeping it from being stolen, which means no parking it just anywhere, and a secure parking place at home if not also at work if you ride it in to the city. It might be better to wait a year or so, or until used bikes become more common on the market.
you couldn’t be more right about that one… my mate had his CBR600F4i parked smack bang in front of his shop, in clear sight, not 5 meters away from his desk, disc locked and all… checked later and the bike was still there, but some dodgy bastard had nicked the licence plate…
oh, and you’d be hard pressed to notice a significant difference between the power of a 250cc 4-stroke engine and a 135cc 2-stroke or 150cc 4-stroke… there’s more horsepower there, but precious little torque… which means you’d notice better near red line performance thanks to the 10-15 extra horses, but the mid to low range will still lack any significant grunt… the CB400 Hyper V-Tech however has a better go of things, especially around the 7500rpm mark when the V-Tech kicks in and it feels like someone just hit you from behind… but the all round hands down finest bike in it’s class in the world, and perfect for Taiwan to boot award goes to the new 2003 CB600 Hornet… Sheer class…
I really think there is little in the world to match the joy of cruising the mountain twisties of Taiwan on a real performance bike… My '03 CB600 Hornet should be shipped from the Honda factory in Spain just in time to get here before the Chinese new year break, and I for one can’t goddam wait!!! 
You’re right about the 250cc/4-stroke and 135cc/2-stroke, the power seemed roughly equivalent. However, both seem far more powerful than any 150cc 4-stroke I’ve ridden here (Yamaha FZ/FZR, Zing 150, Majesty, and a few Harley wannabes whose names escape me at the moment). But perhaps foreign 150cc 4-stroke bikes are better-made. The Hornet’s power seemed a lot…meatier I guess. I’d definitely go for the 600cc version. The only thing is that, once you have anything over 500cc, tax becomes a big problem if you’re not rich, so I’d probably go for a 400cc bike here if I got one at all.
My Yamaha Dragfire (Harley wannabe, or maybe that should be Harlette) gets left in the dust by the FZ/FZR and the Majesty until about 90kph, but at that point, it begins to creep up and they find it hard to catch me at top speed (plus, they’re hanging on with both hands by that time, while the stability of the Dragfire means I can still pick my nose with my free hand). Those Zings, Kings, Huskies, etc. pull away from me in 1st and 2nd but after that they’re sucking on my exhaust.
There’s some kind of ginormous scarlet & chrome Kwaker fatboy thing in the shop across the street from my office on Keelung Rd that is by far the sexiest bike I’ve seen here. I haven’t been to see it yet, though – it’ll only depress me. As for sportbikes, why the excitement over a rice rocket – 600cc or not – when there’s Ducatis on Hsinsheng S. Rd.?
But I’m saving my shekels for one of those 70s reissue Bonnevilles – it’ll be my fourth Bonnie.
tax… insanely disproportionate extortion money to protect SYM and Kymco’s toy scooter market… 
still nothing one can do to overcome the ignorance and corruption of Taiwan’s banana republic legislature… just pay up and ride hard…
Actually to my thinking the tax on a CB400V-Tech is just over NT$7K a year, plus the +/- NT$2K licencing fee payable every 2 years… since the CB400V-Tech is actually 399cc capacity it falls into the 250cc to 400cc NT$7K+ per year class…
Now the CB600Hornet being strictly speaking a 599cc capacity bike, falls neatly into the 401cc to 600cc class, which costs about NT$11K per year plus licencing fee payable every 2 years… if it were 601cc say hello to NT$23K+ annual licencing fees in the 600cc+ class… :shock: but it isn’t… so licencing at NT$11k per year is not too far ahead of the CB400, in terms of performance however the CB400 is left rather forlornly in the dust…
To me the '03CB600 Hornet at just under NT$1000 per month in tax is by far the best bet… 96horsepower, 6.2kgs of torque, 180 section back rubber, quality nissin brakes, perfect handling and geometry, 0-100km/h in 3.56 seconds, 160-0km/h in 6.54 seconds, top speed 239km/h and it only weighs 176kg so it’s light and manueverable in traffic…
plus, there’s no expensive V-Tech services, no impossible to tweak/service in Taiwan fuel injection computers, no suspension you need an engineering degree to get set right, no NT$25k fairing to get scratched… just pure unsurpassed performance and style…
yikes… i’m starting to realise why my fiancee is getting nervous about my bike’s impending arrival… i’ve go to calm down a bit… 
