Tamas in Taiwan pt. II

Tamas is an American robotics software engineer that has lived abroad for many years, currently in Taiwan. Tamas introduces you to the group of Taiwanese locals that he rides with. Their passion and enthusiasm for off-road motorcycles is remarkably similar to the glorious Golden Age of dirtbikes we enjoyed in North America during the 1970s. Pure, unadulterated joy.

When we last left our man Tamas he opened with:

“I don’t mix booze and bikes. It’s one of the few hard rules I follow in life.”

And ended with

“…I managed seventeen drinks before the end of the race, but wasn’t even close to 3rd place! I nearly fell while parking my bike after the race. Several people finished on a different bike than they started with.”

In order for that to make ANY sense you have to read Part One.

Crack a sparkling wheat beverage and enjoy:

While waiting for the next part of the event to start, people noticed there were still trucks full of untouched beer, which naturally led to…

Now that everyone was good and toasted, it was time for dirtbike-soccer ⚽️

At this point, I think it’s important to mention a few of the rules we were sent when registering for the event. I was not prepared for just how relevant they would be during the soccer matches:

In this competition you can insult others, you can hit someone on the head through a helmet (weapons prohibited), but you are not allowed to slap someone in the face and you cannot strangle an opponent’s neck for more than three seconds. If the opponent is addicted to suffocation sex, it will end badly.
You are not allowed to attack other people’s bikes. You can throw your own bike, but you are not allowed to insult yourself.
You can touch others through their clothes, but neither party is allowed to reach climax.
To avoid infectious diseases and prevent epidemics, do not use the tongue or body fluids to communicate (spitting prohibited).

“An effective move appeared to be stealing someone’s keys and chucking them into the bushes.”

Our team had the benefit of getting to watch some of the other dirtbike-soccer matches. Some players did everything they could to stay on their bikes, other players ran next to their bike for easier ball control. One team attempted to form a wall around their goal with their bikes, while members of another team focused on spraying alcohol in the eyes of their opponents. An effective move appeared to be stealing someone’s keys and chucking them into the bushes.

But of course, none of us were really thinking about strategy after winning 3rd place in the drinking competition.

When we were up for our first round of play, it was hard to figure out how to be useful, since everyone pretty much just piled their bikes on top of the ball. Somehow we wound up scoring the first goal.

The organizer’s wife later told me that at this moment she saw an expression on his face she had never seen before in her life. Photo: 鍾小龜

“Things really started to turn violent in the second round”

Things really started to turn violent in the second round, as the other team came at us hard and tied the game. Focus seemed to be shifting away from ball control and more toward controlling your opponents’ bikes – by putting them on the ground, hard.

Tensions were high as we went into the third round tied one-for-one. It was all on the line and the path to winning was clear: nothing would do but pure brute force. Several of us forgot there was a football match going on at all and by the time we had resolved our wrestling the soccer game had ended in a draw.

Dancing was not an effective strategy. Photo: 小卓

To resolve the tie, one champion from each team was elected to go at it in a one-on-one match.

Once the final goal was made, the tensions, insults and fiery emotions dissolved into hugs and smiles, as both teams came together again as good friends.

Our team never played against any of the others. I suspect that the sheer level of violence we displayed was enough to convince the organizers that we were unstoppable, and besides it was getting close to lunch time.

We went home the champions of Drunken MotoSoccer!

I am not proud of the things I’ve done. I used a friend as a ladder. I tried to steal someone’s bike right out from under them. Pretty sure I strangled someone for three seconds during the soccer match. I drank kaoliang which had a turpentine aftertaste, lasting for hours.

The name of the event, 酒機掰, roughly translates as “breaking alcohol machines”, but it’s also a pun in two languages. In Chinese, when spoken aloud it sounds like “978”, but in Taiwanese it means something very rude.

Events like this are the primary way the trails around Taiwan get any maintenance, the “978 route” is now one of the regular trails used by everyone who visits the mountain, and these “alcohol highway 78” signs are a permanent fixture.