First of all, what a pivot – from breeding eels to breeding bikes…

Secondly… how exactly do you flood an eel-breeding business?

Yes, this is the news that King Liu, the visionary founder of Taiwanese bicycle maker Giant Group, has died at the age of 91, the company announced on Feb. 16, 2026. He had quite the run, it has to be said, and hats off to the fella!

Liu was a true dude of the cycling world, with a name befitting his stature. He was the guy who started it all for cycling manufacture in the country, and he truly straddled the business here – he was the guy people looked up to and everyone wanted success like his – and not just in the bike industry, but manufacturing as a whole.

He started Giant in 1972 in Dajia, Taichung (coincidentally where I first worked when I came to Taiwan in 2010), initially producing bicycles for overseas brands before launching Giant in 1981, helping transform Taiwan’s bike industry from low-cost manufacturing to a respected global leader.

Under his guidance, Giant grew into one of the world’s largest bicycle makers, with annual sales of more than US $2 billion and millions of bikes sold globally.

It is said that Liu believed bicycles were more than just products, that they represented a meaningful way of life. Whilst in Taichung, where I lived for 7 years, I became friends with the guy who started the wheel brand H Plus Son, who was himself the son of King’s niece, and also coached his mother, around 60 at the time, to get her ready for a bike relay in a triathlon – so the bike thing runs in the family.

I always thought it was amazing was that so many people around the world thought, for a very long time, that Giant was an American brand – quite a feat of marketing that. Most ofter and with only a few exceptions (Garmin being one), brands launched by Taiwanese manufacturers create great products but lack the marketing to back it up – this was definitely not the case with Giant.

They made and continue to make some very good top end race bikes, unusual for a company that makes just about every kind of bike under the sun.

Giant produced the world’s first mass-produced carbon bike, the Cadex, in 1987. In 2021 Giant partnered with the government to provide the nation with its YouBike public bike rental system, and it has been a massive success in getting people on bikes – Taipei City alone recorded about 65,446,457 rides in 2024 according to posts from the official Taipei YouBike account.

The Giant Cadex

An aside: you’ll never see a YouBike left to rust under a bridge, they aren’t abused, and the system is rated as the most successful in the world. People who would otherwise never be riding a bike rent one for 30 minutes and get in their daily exercise on the wonderful Taipei City Bike Path.

I met him once at an event, and it was just a shake of the hand, but in his black glasses and with a relaxed smile, he had an aura about him. I heard too that when Eddy Merckx came out here to source manufacturers for his brand, the King took him out on a wild night – might be urban myth but, I do hope it’s true.

Chapeau, King.