For others following along @brienjohn helped me reproduce this. In the end it came down to using “Boshiamy” text input method, I’m now working on fix.
The Boshiamy text input method allows you to type in Chinese in default mode, and in English when the caps key is on.
Bike wasn’t handling text inserted by this method well. The situation is improved in the latest Bike preview release, but there are still problems.
Improvements:
- Row type shortcuts should now work
- Formatting pallet single key shortcuts should now work
- Fixed crash when typing at end of horizontal rule
Remaining Problems:
- Undo doesn’t coalesce, so you must undo character by character
- Type at end of horizontal rule inserts character twice, but better then crash!
- Autocorrections (other then smart row types) generally don’t work
- Probably other issues
I’m not sure if I’ll manage to fix many of the remaining problems, at least not in the near term. I could likely handle it better, but the text input related calls that the Boshiamy method makes when typing in English mode are a different pattern then most other text inputs, and it breaks some of my assumptions.
It also seems to break assumptions in other apps. For example when I type using Boshiamy in Safari address bar autocomplete doesn’t work as nicely as it does when typing with other text input methods.
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Jesse, you’re right. The problems you’ve found with this particular input method are pretty common when used in many apps or input environments (but most of them don’t crash…). And to be honest, it is not a major input method in Taiwan nor in any Chinese-speaking countries, even though it’s probably the best for speed typing (and relatively easy to learn). I’m grateful that you’re willing to dig into this issue. And as long as Bike won’t crash, I can bear with other inconveniences. I’ll try my best to help if you want to fix the remain problems in the future 
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( It does seem quite niche. I haven’t seen any problems with the 繁體 or 简体 IMEs provided by Apple)