Trikes

In moving from old, traditional Tainan to new, modern Taipei, I thought there were some old things that I wouldn't see any more. In particular, I was surprised to realize that there were lots of tricycles and three wheeled motorcycles. Tainan is on a flat delta into the ocean so very flat, an ideal terrain for bicycles and underpowered motorcycles. Taipei, surrounded by mountains, I thought shouldn't be so favorable. But it turns out that the center of Taipei is located at the bottom of a basin surrounded by mountains and so tricycles and underpowered motorcycles do just fine.

The basic machine looks like this. When do think they were built? Some have a hand lever brake and all have a long chain back to the rear wheels. The spokes seem quite modern but I believe these bikes were built in the 1950's.

They can be used for all kinds of jobs, like selling home cleaning devices.

But most of the time they seemed to be used for collecting recyclables. If there was ever an industry working on small margins, it has to be the recycling job. An internal combustion machine would really cut into any profits.

Although these trikes are old, they keep on running. Sometimes it's hard to know whether the driver is older than the trike.