South African ADVrider.com members

Cheers!

Hi Gents,

I will be staying in Capetown for a couple months this summer for work so I can't bring the XRL... Do you have any recomendations about who to rent a bike from while I am there to do some siteseeing on the weekends? Perhaps some places are better than others? Do you recommend I pay for a guide? Will SA honor my US driver's license for the motorcycle?

Thanks for any input.. see you soon.

I am leaving him home:

http://www.capebikerentals.com/cape-bike-hire-rental.htm

Hi,

I just returned from a tour in the Cape Area, and used this crowd to hire a bike - had no issues, so they get a tick from me.

No need for a guide - ask them, and they will put you in touch with their tour operator - top class stuff we got from them.

You will need to get an International Driver License - which we get from the automobile club (RAC / AA etc).

If you're in CPT for a few months, depending on the bike, rental will cost quite a mint.

What about buying a relative cheapie and selling on departure? Arguably far less hassle than renting.

I suggest buying rather. You will always be able to resell it again. Let me know when you are settled. Ill go show you the woods.

Yo SA ADVriders! I've been riding and surfing my way down the west coast of Africa for the last 7 months from London and due to land in Cape town in about 3 weeks time - ride report is here Round Africa with a Surfboard

A friend is coming from California to join me to ride to Tanzania together and we want to find him a smaliish used bike for < $2000 USD. Maybe a Suzuki DR250 or DR350 or Honda XR250 or 400. If anyone knows a good place to look or knows someone there with one for sale, the info would be much appreciated....

John from Pretoria and my newly aquired 2005 GS1200

Hey All: I'm heading to Cape Town tomorrow and rented a BMW 800 from GS Adventure rental in Cape Town. I'll be dinking around on 31 May all day on some GPS tracks they've laid out for me. If there is anyone bored and wanting to run the loop or show an out of towner a few interesting things, I'd be more than happy to buy a couple of rounds of your best beer of choice.

cheers.

Hiya Devish, I'll be more than happy to show you around Cape Town. Send me the tracks/interesting places they told you about. You wanna come to our club (BMW Motorcycle Club Cape) meeting on the 27th of May at 8pm while you here? I may be able to get a few buddies to join us on a ride.

Kevin
kevin@pixelsandbits.co.za

Thanks Kevin. I sent you an email. Looking forward to it.

Cheers

Howzit, I suggest Gumtree, OLX, or 'sell my bike', something like that, online.. I know those little XR's are hard to come by around here, but you should find a suitable ride for your buddy

The result of meeting up with Heath in Cape Town - don't ask a Kapie to show you around Cape Town

https://picasaweb.google.com/113543285933889391468/DassiesfonteinWithHeath31May2014?authuser=0&feat=directlink

That was a great day and one I'll remember for many years. You guys have some awesome places down there but your traffic circles are bass-ackwards. Already making plans with the missus for a trip back. Gotta find a wind tunnel for practice first. I thought kansas was windy. Cripes.

oser If any other 'out-of-towners' need an escort around Cape Town, especially on some dirt feel free to contact me, I'l always keen for a reason to go riding

At least we don't have trains that get blown off the tracks

http://www.kmbc.com/news/strong-winds-derail-train-in-central-kansas/25872498#!URKbk

Just got back from your amazing country. Can't believe I've been in South Africa many times and only now got into the back country. Great great time. I'll do it again with my friends except with a different rental company.

Where did you go, what did you see? What experience did you have with the rental company?

We headed out of Capetown toward the coast but before we got there we decided to bypass crowds and bad weather so headed north and then west again. It is hard to remember all of the places we were since the Afrikans names don't stick in my mind. The best place we did was Del Hiel "The Hell"



Awesome! Found a secluded camping spot at the bottom that was great. In fact three of us camped the whole way. We love your country. The South African Riders we met were great.



We found a company to rent from that had good bikes and would put on Heidenau Tires. Since they were the first company I found I went with them instead of someone like Karoo. I've rented a lot of bikes over the years and at every point along the way this was a high maintenance and difficult endeavor.



Just when I was ready to switch companies things seemed to get resolved so I stayed the course. Then after everything was paid, we were informed the day before that the panniers that we had aggreed to and rented weren't available. When I told him this was our agreement and we needed space for all our camping gear he kick saved a workable solution. But again, difficulty was the name of the game.



When we got back from the trip we had more surprises as we got dinged on everything imaginable financially. He charged for worn down rear brake pads. That is right... worn down rear brake pads.



I should have seen the signs. Before we embarked on our journey I found out he doesn't know much about bikes when I realized he didn't know how to read a BMW sight glass. There was only a bubble of oil in the bottom and he said that was normal. I've put 100k miles on GSes over the years and do my own maintenance. I said it wasn't normal and put more oil in for him.



Since he doesn't know anything about bikes, when we got back he took all three bikes to a BMW dealer and had them go over them with a fine tooth comb and then paid them their rate to do things that didn't need to be done. Then he charged each of us a $90 service charge. and then a $40 service charge that wasn't the BMW tech hourly rate. I have no idea what the $520 was for but since we had to prepay a $5,000 deposit via paypal we had no recourse.



I could go on and on but enough negative vibes. Bottom line is I wouldn't reccomend Africa4Adventure.com to anyone.

Die Hel (The Hell) is one of my favourite places in South Africa

I hope you rode all the way to the end of the kloof, really beautiful down the far end.

:eek1 wow sorry you had a bad experience, if you want I can follow up for you whether this is what others also experienced from Africa4Adventure.com and try and get to the bottom of this? Generally the bike rental companies offer a good service, I never hear of complaints.

Kevin
/\/¯¯¯¯¯\/\
R1200GS-WP