This page is under constant progress – I just keep adding bits as I go along. Please ignore the bits that don’t make sense, which should make for a short read…
Taiwan Visits
I’ve been going to Taiwan since 2003, and it’s still something I feel like a exited kid about, over two dozen trips in and I always find it as interesting and exiting as my 1st trip… I must be sad…
This page is something I’ll come back to over time, as inspiration and ideas come to me. Eventually I’d kinda like this to be a “How Not to do business in Taiwan”, as it’s a topic I feel I have particular experience and relevant first-hand case studies of… 
When I first started to go to Taiwan on my own to represent my company, I found the whole experience to be a very steep learning curve. Not so much a culture shock, but it took some time to understand the sub, hidden pittfalls (and there are many…) and complications that come when you are dealing in a very precise product, being made by someone in a factory 000′s of kilometres away, also speaking in their second language…
That ‘culture clink” is still something that affects my every-day work with TW, and it’s something I keep on learning about.
When I am in TW my main aims are often very mixed, some visits are for:
QC, in which case I will spend some days sifting, measuring, weighing, colour/graphics checking.
Product development
New Vendor inspection
Taiwan Show
Every year the news filters through the cycling WWW grapevine, about the secretive bike industry trade shows that sell the trends for the bike “they” hope you’ll be riding next year.
In a razzamatazz of glitz and glam, products are displayed “ for the first time” and drunken nights out on the tiles end with “private shows” that you don’t want to tell your wife about.
So I thought I’d try and bring you a slightly different angle on the goings on behind the scenes, and in case you’re trying to guess the show, no, we’re not in Vegas!
Welcome to the Taipei International Cycle Show, the worlds leading exhibition for domestic and foreign producers of bells, whistles, frames, forks and next years must have kit.

Like a pack of predatory animals on their seasonal migration route, every spring the movers and shakers of the bike trade flock en masse towards the island that is the modern home of the bike industry, Taiwan, just offshore from mainland China.
Held some six months before Vegas, this publicly less well-known show is where the real business deals are forged. Most of the visitors here are those faceless backroom product geeks, marketing and buying managers for all the worlds bike and accessory brands.
It doesn’t matter if they represent a big, small or Multi-national Corporation, they come here for the same reasons. Schmooze, booze, mumble comments about business and above all, buy, buy, buy.
Much more than a sleazy Vegas lap dance; this is the Private Show that actually sets the trends for the bikes, prices and technology of bikes for the upcoming two or more seasons.
It does have to be said though, that if it sounds like fun, well it is, but while the time zone and product may change, all shows are basically the same around the world. After a few sweaty days, in another vast exhibition hall, lots of late nights and early starts, you end up feeling pretty worn out, and, to be honest, utterly sick of bikes.
What makes this different though is the journey, since leaving home we’ve flown via two regional airports, then long haul into Hong Kong and then finally into Taipei. And the exhibition itself is in the spectacular shadow of the Worlds tallest building, the “Taipei 101” meaning we get to stay in the heart of the city, which like all cities, is busy, noisy and really quite hard work to get around.
But peace and quiet is a rare commodity here, as this is where for four, all-too-short days, we meet with our suppliers and sub-assemblers, to discuss business, new products and talk face-to-face with contacts who we normally only ever speak with on Skype.
The Taipei show itself is an enormous affair, with about 800 stands and 20,000 visitors from all corners of the world, selling every kind, colour, material and graphic of bike components you can possibly imagine. And then you’ll discover variations you didn’t even want to imagine, even in sweaty nightmares.
For Taiwan, like it or not, is the home of our industry, and with good reason, as the expertise, skill and experience of the people you’d meet here are what advances our bike trade and makes products affordable.
But I’ll move onto that subject another time, for now, happy cycling!
Photo’s
I’ve over 4500 snapshots of my two dozen Taiwan factory visiting trips in iPhoto. There are a few that I’ll share with you – many other are too specific for me to show, as you might be able to work out who or where they were taken of. Taiwan Factory Flikr feed here
I’m not whistleblowing or trying to compromise my industry here, which I suspect some of my industry colleagues will possibly think if/when they stumble across these photo’s. Instead I want to share the respect I have for these superb crafts and business people.
If Western bike companies want to keep the fact that they do business in Taiwan a secret, then that is their choice. But they ALL come out here, some for just a head-badge and some cable guides, others for the full service…
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