Shanghai Inner Ring Number Plate Price & Registration Process

**euphonius** · 02-18-2011, 04:57 AM

Dear Shanghaifingers,

I suspected as much. So he's building a bit of a monopoly on motorbikes, at least in central Shanghai, and can play games with pricing. That would explain why he thinks he can charge 2000 rmb above list price for Raptors. They look so cheap next to the bimmers and benellis!

Dewsnap, did you manage to check out the shop in Changning Lu? If they actually have Raptors there, it would at least give you a stronger footing when bargaining with the Pubei mafia.

good luck!

**Fred** · 02-20-2011, 10:50 AM

If we're talking about the shop on Changning lu, it seems that it's the same one that was listed as a "Honda motorcycle" shop before, roughly at the corner of Changning road and Zhongshan road, but it's not a motorcycle shop anymore, only e-bikes and scooters there the last time I went to (3 months ago) looking for the Honda bikes....

Now the Honda-Sundiro bikes are very close to this place, at the corner of Zhongshan road and Wuyi road, but no Regal Raptors...

**dewsnap** · 02-20-2011, 11:32 AM

If only i'd seen your post before i left.
I've just made the long trek to Changning Lu only to find e-bikes.
The only Regal Raptor outlet now in Shanghai is on Pubei Lu, and they only had 3 bikes in their store today.

**Fred** · 02-21-2011, 01:07 AM

Aaargh, hate it for you, I wished I could have replied sooner ! ;-))

So they really have a monopoly in Shanghai...

**Wrangler** · 03-03-2011, 02:18 AM

Here's another good reason to get your plate. A buddy took a pic of this and another similar bike getting confiscated on Wuzhong lu. Riders were in full gear. NICE bike. Ouch!

**barnone** · 03-03-2011, 02:37 AM

Wrangler,
Can't get the bikes back?

**euphonius** · 03-03-2011, 02:50 AM

I've been inside a vehicle impound yard in Shanghai's Zhabei district -- and cast my eyes on what surely were thousands of unlicensed or fake-licensed bikes. The operator of the yard told me these bikes are eventually scrapped. If you are not legal, I doubt there's any (legal) way to get your bike back.

But it gets even better. I met a very nice guy this week who was riding a decent little 125cc scooter, with legal Hu A plates. It was stolen a year ago, and he began the process of applying for replacement plates. Then he got a call from a police station in Jiangsu province a couple hundred km outside of Shanghai. His bike was there; please come get it. And indeed he got his bike back -- with plates intact -- but only after being obliged to lavish gifts on the local police: meals, booze and 4k rmb in cash. He said he had no evidence that the police were working with the thieves, or that the police units confiscating bikes might themselves be in on the racket, but he strongly suspected as much.

It's widely believed among urban motorcyclists that there are teams of criminals who drive around town in trucks and fall in behind bikes they want to target. When the motorcyclist reaches his destination, and the bike is exposed, these guys need only 30 seconds to hoist the bike into the truck and be gone. If a passerby questions them, which is extremely unlikely in China's "don't get involved" culture, they do not act like criminals. They'll say something convincing like, "repair crew; bike won't start," and finish the theft unhindered.

No one knows if there is official involvement in this, but the guy I met said he strongly suspected there was. The Harley folks told me that many H-Ds had been stolen this way.

stay safe out there!
cheers

**Lao Jia Hou** · 03-03-2011, 03:34 AM

I'm curious to find out how many premium bikes are stolen in China - I bet it is a lot - but I also bet that the actual number is tremendously under-reported ("excuse me trustworthy officer, but my illegal bike appears to be missing").

And also, the confiscation / scrapping of an unlicensed premium bike ... really? I kinda doubt that the "scrap yard" is going to crush a BMW or Harley or Ducatti or whatever. If the whole bike doesn't zoom out the back door, I bet the parts do ... and probably end up in a Franken-bike, sold as yet another unlicensed bike. I've heard stories that the guys down in GZ can create anything you wish. They have to get the parts from "somewhere" and I also kinda doubt the parts are imported.

Scary stuff thinking about the apparently very real possibility of a bike getting stolen.

By the way, what happens if a valuable, legally-plated Shanghai plated bike is stolen? Can you get a new plate?

**euphonius** · 03-03-2011, 03:51 AM

Originally Posted by Lao Jia Hou

And also, the confiscation / scrapping of an unlicensed premium bike ... really? I kinda doubt that the "scrap yard" is going to crush a BMW or Harley or Ducatti or whatever. If the whole bike doesn't zoom out the back door, I bet the parts do ... and probably end up in a Franken-bike, sold as yet another unlicensed bike. I've heard stories that the guys down in GZ can create anything you wish. They have to get the parts from "somewhere" and I also kinda doubt the parts are imported.

Richard, when I visited that impound yard I was still recovering from being knocked out cold in a motorcycle-inflicted bicycle crash, so I didn't look closely. It was also after dark. What I did see, however, was hundreds upon hundreds of scooters of the type that menace pedestrians, bicyclists and anyone else who ventures onto the streets of Shanghai. Yes, the selfsame bikes that I fawned over in a previous post from Jiaoji Lu, known to me as scootertown. Many of the bikes I saw were the garden-variety-mirrorless-and-held-together-with-packing-tape type, but there were plenty of the tricked-out type with all their fancy exhausts, shocks, saddles and lighting. Lots of them had HK8888 plates or similar, some had legal-looking plates that presumably were fakes, but most had no plates at all.

Good riddance, I say.

I did not see, perhaps tellingly, any premium big bikes. You are probably right that these had long since been parted out the back door, or allocated to police departments, or maybe even sold back to their original owners...

Originally Posted by Lao Jia Hou

By the way, what happens if a valuable, legally-plated Shanghai plated bike is stolen? Can you get a new plate?

Yes, you can. I've not met anyone who's done this, but, yes, with proper police reports and probably a lot of fuss, you can get your worth-their-weight-in-platinum plates reissued. OK, I have a vested interest, having coughed up the cash for my plates, but I have to say it's not a bad system. The plates I bought for 42k are supposedly now worth 46k, and can be transfered to any legal bike or car. (Plates already assigned to cars cannot be reassigned to a bike, however, so the pool of available motorcycle plates presumably is shrinking. Good for those of us who have them. Not so good for those who want them.)

cheers