Looking for a commuter bike in Shanghai for a tall guy

[Tallpaul68]

The license may be a problem. If Fons is leaving China, and then doesn't actually transfer the bike to you, then i guess it would be ok. Because then at least the bike would be legal and registered, but you would not. That greatly reduces your chance of getting fines and something bad happening to you if you get caught.
If you can show that you have a foreign drivers license (even just the car) then thats at least something.
I say this because a friend got taken in last week for driving without a license, but the bike was legal and registered and everything. We had some chinese friend's help and we resolved it. But it could have gone very badly. However the police apparenlty kept asking him.. Do you have a chinese license for motorbike? -No. Do you have a Chinese license for Car? - No. Do you have a foreign license at all? -Yes, but not on me.
It's dodgy as hell, and its up to the individual officer on the scene to judge the situation, but at least you know that they can be lenient.

Honestly, Fons' Jialing sounds like a better option. Especially for the longer journeys, a bit more power and it would be better for your height i imagine.

For the license though...again, if you're properly starting from scratch... it will be all in Chinese (for the motorbike at least) I can only speak for Beijing, but you can't do both at the same time. You have to wait 1 year, 1st do the car license, and then do the motorbike one.
The car one can be done in English though...and french and a bunch of other languages. But the motorbike one...nope.
I also had a friend that drove a motorbike only on his Chinese car license, and he never had any problems, even at petrol stations.
But again, its all about the individual situation.

So, if I want to get both my Chinese car driving license and motorcycle license, I have to wait a year in between? Can I get the motorcycle one first or does it have to start with the car? Would it help if I got my motorcycle endorsement over the summer in the States?

[galenernest]

I know that in Beijing it made a huge difference by already having a US driving license with motorcycle endorsement... That is probably the easiest way to go... Just get your US State license when you visit home and then it's quite easy to get the car license w/endorsement in China... I did it in Beijing... Look into it for Shanghai..

[fons]

hi Tall Paul,
you could get driver permit 'E' alone first. the problem is the theory exam is in chinese only for moto exam. also if you have foreign driver license, normally you could get a translation. then pass a theory exam in english. let's say if you have US car & moto license. Then you could at least get a C1E chinese license.
i have PMed you. you could calll me and i will give you more info. my office isn't far from Jingqiao

[Tallpaul68]

Thanks guys,
It's too bad that this process has to be so difficult. It would be one thing if the process was hard and resulted in only people with good driving skills getting licenses...

Anyway, I'll plan to get my endorsement updated in the US when I'm home over the summer. It's too bad because that's not until June and I was hoping to pick up a bike before then and enjoy some riding this spring.

Hi fons,
I got your pm, I'll try to get a hold of you soon. I'm out of town until Friday evening. Thanks for the offer to help explain things to me, I can use all the help I can get to understand this.

Thanks,
Paul

Paul