Why do I love to ride?

It’s super convenient and my way of unwinding down.

I just love being outside and seeing new places and exploring different parts of where I am without necessarily putting in a lot of effort to walk. With a bike, you can cover more ground moving at a slightly faster rate in a lesser amount of time. On those bad days, If i go out for a ride, those headaches and all of what I was thinking about goes away temporarily. Sometimes, I feel like I am in a movie going through the streets. That strong wind pushing against me maneuvering through the people, the cars, and the pedestrians.

But biking is also my main way to commute to places.

I know if I am going somewhere relatively close (and close can be different depending on how you may see it). But for example, if the location is close enough, I will walk. If it is kind of close, but not too far, I will definitely ride a bike. If the weather is good or if I am in a good mood, I will ride. If the location is too far, raining too hard, or if I am in a rush, I will either take the bus or the train. These modes of transportation are relatively quicker, but biking is more fun. And its almost always my first option over anything else. I barely take the subway. I feel like I take it mostly on the weekends if I am really going places.

I just love to hop on and just ride. It helped me learn and understand the streets of Taipei at a much faster rate. If I was just taking the train everywhere, I don’t think I would have been familiar with the streets as much as I do now.

For example, when I go to school, I know a few different ways to get there. If I am not in a rush, I will take a slightly different route just to take a look at a different part of the city. Google Maps and I go a long way together, so if I see somewhere that looks interesting along the way, I will mark it down on the map and try to visit at another time. Plus, going the same way every day is boring for me. I get bored easily. This is just one of the many things I like to do to spice up my commute.

The shop I bought my bike from, Faith Gear Fixie, I learned about from a random person I met over the summer. It took me till December to visit because your girl was scared.

Knowing that English isn’t Taiwan’s national language, you always just can’t expect everyone to know and speak English well (and I hate to assume otherwise). I knew most likely that the people at the shop may not know it. For that, I talked my self out of not going, until I had enough. I was not sure if I would be able to communicate in Chinese properly to them. And that’s real. When you move to a new country and learn a new language, but have to use it in real life scenarios to get something done, anxiety goes up the roof. You are not sure what to say, what to ask, how will they respond, will they laugh? will they understand? So many things run through my head before I have to speak Chinese to someone. But the more time I went without a bike, the sadder I was.

Turns out that I was overthinking it and the experience overall turned out really good. The guy that was at the shop at the first two times I visited, only knows Chinese but I understood the important details and got what I wanted across to him.

Beautiful, silver aluminum frame. Purple handle gripping tape, and silver all over. This shop is awesome for they specialize in fixed gear bikes which I am all about and all of their bikes are custom made from scratch. You can walk in and choose preset bikes as yours or select which parts you want for your bike to come together as one. Simple as that.

A lot of their customers are locals and many others are travelers who hear about his shop through Youtube and Instagram.

Overall great experience working with them. The owner can speak English so if you don’t know Chinese, No problem. Open every day from 1 PM till 10 PM except Mondays (they are closed). They are very personable and caters to what the customers need and will go out of their way to help you. Don’t be shy to pop by when if you have a chance.

And if I decide to pick up and leave Taiwan, my bike is coming right with me.