Rental/Hire of Motorcycles (not scooters)

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

My first post… and thanks to Maoman for all the sys admin it takes to keep this site up.

I would like to rent a motorcycle adaptable to touring Taiwan. I use a virtual office (Dopod tethered to my notebook) when bicycle touring or motorcycle touring. My clients in Taiwan are in Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, and Kaoshiung. My Mandarin is intermediate, spoken and written. My next trip (Nov.) I plan to take “the long way” between business meetings … riding a m/c. Taipei to Taichung via Hualien and Taroko/Sun Moon Lake.

In Japan and Korea, it has been easy to rent m/c, e.g., CBR1300, for touring. The Scooter Lobby has made it a different story in Taiwan.

So… I could (and currently plan to rent) a 150cc (I think it’s a Yamaha FZ150), and strap a kayak bag full of gear across the pillion seat. I know how a loaded 150 would deal with mountains (i.e., slowly). Should I abandon hope of finding a larger bike with touring ergos (no Hornets, Ninjas, etc.)? The ideal bike would be a Suzuki 650cc Vstrom (or its larger brother). Stroms have great touring ergos for my height (6’2" / 188 cm). Having read every post on the forum I could find about motorcycle rental in Taiwan, it appears that touring bikes are not available for rental, so I pose the question:

Does any shop in Taiwan (regardless of city) rent a touring type (no stress on wrists, upright posture, leg room like an enduro bike) bike with side cases and top case, with at least 250cc displacement? If so, please post the name, phone/email, and whether they would rent to a foreigner. (BTW, I know that Jeremy at BikeFarm doesn’t have anything to rent larger than a 150cc … if he did, my post wouldn’t be necessary.)

If no shop rents such a bike, what would be the closest match with a “touring type” m/c I could find? For instance, a Suzuki DRZ400S dual-sport has the ergos, is street legal, and would take a kayak bag across the rear of the seat… but (based on what I’ve read) DRZs aren’t sold in Taiwan.

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Hi and welcome.

Are you the person who emailed me about a week back? He asked some similar questions, and I replied, but the email bounced. Anyway, here’s most of the reply I sent, as I think it could be of use to you in any case.

[quote]Most rental places rent out scooters, but I guess some of the rental shops might have small motorbikes too. That would be 125cc or 150cc machines.

There are also a couple of places that rent out bigger bikes. Regarding licensing: it’s always hard to get a straight, consistent answer about this kind of thing, but I believe that unless your International Driving Permit states very clearly that you’re allowed to ride big bikes (cc/weight) then yes, you’ll be limited to 250cc and below. Of course your license still has to state clearly the motorcycle entitlement – you couldn’t just use a car license, for example.

Perhaps if you waved a convincing-enough piece of paper at the big bike rental people, they’d let you rent a big bike anyway. And it’s probably about the same financial risk as renting a 250. For various reasons, 250s here are nearly as expensive as 400s, 650s, etc. And insurance coverage is generally very poor. You basically end up guaranteeing the whole cost of the machine. For this reason I personally wouldn’t rent anything bigger than a 150 or a Taiwan-made 200, which are much cheaper machines. It’s up to you what kind of risk you want to take. A good bike to rent would be a Hornet 250, but they’re over 200,000NT new I think, and if you damaged it you could end up paying most of that amount!

You’ve got plenty of time. How about when I next talk to Eric, my old mechanic in Taichung (and still the one of the best mechanics I’ve used here), I ask him if he ever does rentals? He has some interesting small bikes in his shop, and might be willing to rent one out I guess.[/quote]

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joesax, yes, that was I who emailed. Sorry about the bounce… I’ll email with my new address. It was your story of the “FZ150 that could” that prompted my efforts to start renting m/c in Taiwan. It is so easy in the States and Europe … Waikiki has at least 6 rental shops, mostly 600s and liter sport bikes, but also BMWs and the usual hogs.

Please talk to Eric. I would rather start out from Taichung, do SML, Taroko, E. Rift Valley, Alishan, and end the “touring rental” in Taichung, then go to Taipei and just rent a scooter in Keelung or Danshui if I have time.

BTW, my meetings in Taichung are in Waipu Hsiang. Any suggestions about a hotel with broadband access on the sea line between Taichung and Waipu?

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Yeh, it’s a bummer but Taiwan is not a great place for motorcycling enthusiasts in general. No riding in ‘car lanes’ (or pretty much anywhere in view of a car driver), no direct left turns, no riding on expressways or freeways. The first three issues were supposed to be fixed for >550cc bikes as of August but the Legislators who get fat hongbaos from Kymco, Sym et al have put this back to ‘maybe December’.

As for renting, I recently took the Taiwan big bike test with the idea of occasionally renting 650-750cc machines for touring, but in the end decided the lack of insurance was way too dangerous and just bought my own. The options are renting a gutless Taiwanese 4-stroke or making sure you have a few hundred k set aside in case you roast a big bike.

Believe me, I feel your pain. I rented bikes across the UK, US, Canada and Japan without any trouble, and that was from 18-23 so I was a very high insurance risk. It feels great to be back on a real bike again but there’s just something missing from the experience when I have to try and wedge it into the left-turn-scooter-boxes and have cars trying to ram me because I’m in the inside lane.

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The object of my big bike rental is now a Ninja 650R, since it appears that Stroms aren’t imported.

Do any shops, anywhere on the island, rent 650Rs?