Spent a good 20 minutes chatting with Jimmy yesterday too. He was actually very accommodating, answering my questions about import taxes and duties (69% markup on an imported bike, plus 30,000 in "fees"). He claims that he can get any bike you want these days and the lineup of bikes in his shop seemed to support him: BMW F800GS, Duke 990 (beautiful!), R6 and the star attraction of the day a brand spanking new 1198 I saw being unboxed out front before its happy new owner. Said owner then raced it up and down Huaxiang Lu with a Lamborghini and a BMW in dire need of a new muffler . Surreal. Jimmy again said that he is now fully legitimate, providing 100% legal bikes. I guess he is doing this quite successfully as the shop had quite a few people there while I was wandering around. I got to sit on the bike TB has the photo of on the top left. Very uncomfortable for my 6' frame.

There is another shop on the same road in between Joy Motors and TP China. I have no idea if it is connected to either but there was a large selection of Yamahas, Ducattis, and Hondas for sale. A brand new NC700 was listed at 78000 and a 2011 CBR250 was 38000. Very tempting but I have no idea if they were legit. A new NC700 in Canada is 8799-8999. Too good to be true? Most likely.

Further down is a shop doing intensive custom work on jeeps. I thought modifying motor vehicles in China was very illegal? Apparently not on Huaxiang Lu, though perhaps these are for track use only. I don't believe that either.