Innovation on display at the Taipei Cycle Show 2025

For a number of years I travelled annually to the Taipei Cycle Show to see what cycle-related products and concepts were appearing on the horizon.

The Taipei show is the second biggest bicycle trade fair in the world, but the most interesting because most bike and bike-product manufacturers are based in Taiwan. Apart from the astounding array of products, the Taipei Cycle Show is an astonishing demonstration of what world-class innovation looks like in practice.

This place is the home of innovation

In Taipei, innovation isn't something that's ignored, paid lip-service to or done reluctantly. Taiwan's manufacturers live and breathe creativity and innovation. The network of manufacturers over there create a healthy natural playfield of competitive rivalry that spurs on creativity.

The Taiwanese government work in close partnership with manufactures to ensure that the global industry are invited and are genuinely invested in the succeed of the companies there.

If you want to do a trip that makes you feel completely and utterly suicidal about the absolutely pathetic-ness of the South African government's total absence of even a sliver of competence to drive economic growth in this country in a similar way - then this is the one.

Even if you know nothing about bicycles or innovation or economics - seeing how effortlessly they create the unthinkable over there is humbling to behold.

So when other regions of the world assume that a couple of policies here and there are going to magically turn-on manufacturing in their regions that are going to successfully compete with a place like Taiwan, the logical response to that lying bullshit bravado that spews out of the ignorant mouths of politicians and idiots (often times they are the same thing) is to simply laugh.

As they say so beautifully in Afrikaans: 'Daar is nie 'n fokken kans nie.'