The whirring of the wind in the spokes is the only sound to be heard as women cyclists shoot across the Hsi-Lo Bridge that spans the biggest river mouth on Taiwan's western seaboard. They are at the end of the first day of a round-island tour.

A few years ago, no bicycle would be on the bridge, unless on a lorry bound from the factories of the Taiwanese company Giant, the world's largest bicycle maker, to the port of Kaohsiung for export.