Anyone done a Fly and Ride | GTAMotorcycle.com

Anyone done a Fly and Ride

chingo

chingo

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Interested if anyone has flown to a destination, rented a bike and rode the local roads.
If so, how was the experience, who was the rental from and how did you find a reasonably priced flight to and from the destination.
Was it during the week or did you do it on a weekend.
Trying to put together a trip for a few days to somewhere with really twisty roads.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Cheers
 
You mean like this?

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Ride Report: Two Wheelin' through the Canary Islands

¡Hola! from the Grand Canary Islands! We're currently hanging out just a couple hundred kms off the coast of the Western Sahara in Africa. However, these islands are autonomous communities of Spain, so technically, we're in the land of matadors, tapas and Antonio Banderas! Flying into the main...
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Absolutely.

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Spain trip

Nice find! For future reference ... They mention road number CA-9104 ... Here ... CA-9104 The town of Ronda is mentioned, that's off to the right of the map view above. And, this area is smack in the middle between Malaga (airport) and Jerez (WorldSBK). Hmmm. May do that! edit 1: Tumble at...
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IMTbike is excellent. www.imtbike.com

Between the first part of that trip in which I did my own thing, and the second part which was a Leod Escapes tour, I spent three weeks in Spain. Forget about trying to do this in a weekend or a few days. It's not enough.

I didn't care what it cost. Riding in Spain, spending 3 days on a world-class racetrack with world-class instruction ... priceless.
 
I've flown to the west coast and got a bike through twistedroad.com

Had a very nicely modified Ducati Monster for a week, nothing but good things to say about the whole process.
 
I looked up twistedroad.com I take it this is like the Airbnb of motorcyles, do i have that right.
How was insurance, also when you went out where did you start and end, was it same location?
Roads ridden? Any more details would be appreciated.
As stated exploring all options before i venture into this new experience for me.
 
Any reputable rental agency will have insurance through the rental agency itself. Same as car rentals, the process is no different. IMT bikes have full-coverage insurance. N.B. That is insurance for the BIKE. You still need insurance for YOU. If you are travelling outside Canada then you should get travel medical insurance ... same as for any other international travel. I bought it for my trip here: Travel Insurance | Best Custom Insurance Plans | Seven Corners

If you are doing any off-road or track riding then make sure you get the right coverage for it. Available at the link above. Essentially they charge you a bit extra but they remove the "high risk activities" exclusion that is present otherwise. Be careful with travel insurance bought through the usual big-name sources, or through your credit card or employment ... they may not allow you to do that.

So far I've done the Alps (no track riding on that one), Italy (rode Mugello for one day), Australia (spent 2 days on track at Phillip Island), and Spain (3 days on Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya). I want to go to Portugal. If you are going to fly somewhere to ride, make it worthwhile!
 
So true, when on two wheels you never know what might happen. Having great insurance is a definite must.
Thanks for the link.
 
Flew my bike outwest twice ( Vancouver once Calgary once) and rode for a couple of weeks then rode it home. It was about $1000 and fairly KISS.
Not sure it's available this year. Both AIrCanada and Westjet were offering. You could also fly your bike to Europe at the time...
Trade off is flight cost versus rental or having your own machine.

Any of these I think require spending time at destination tho a cheap flight to California or Colorado or even Calgary and rent just for you might do for a shorter time period.

There is always Pennsylvania and south for the twists :D
 
IMT allows you to drop off the bike at a different location than where you started (still has to be one of their shops!) although I didn't do that. I picked the bike up in Malaga and returned it in Malaga, then took the high-speed train to Barcelona and the second part of the trip started and ended there.

Shipping your own bike is another possibility although it costs something and comes with its own set of headaches, and it also assumes that you own a bike suitable for what you are going to do. I actually don't ... nothing I own has the possibility of carrying luggage beyond very basic tank-bag and backpack.

Plan your trip, at least to the point of having a general idea of roughly where you are going to stay overnight and what you are going to do and how much ground you are going to cover, and make sure it's realistic. I have found that 200 - 300 km per day in mountainous areas (only places worth doing this IMO!) is plenty. You will want to stop and look at things, take photos, go into towns and look around, etc. Allow time for that. And there's nothing wrong with having some wiggle room in your schedule, an extra day here and there, that you can do whatever you want with. Maybe it pours rain for a day and you just want to stay put, or maybe you run across someplace interesting that you want to explore. I had two free days in Barcelona between arriving at the train station and picking up the second-leg rental bikes. It wasn't enough! Barcelona is a beautiful city.

I booked the hotel in advance for the time that I was going to World Superbike, because I wanted to make sure I had a home base during that time.

I booked the hotel for the first overnight in advance, because I didn't want to go searching for someplace open having just gotten off the plane and picked up a new-to-me rental vehicle.
 
All great info, and i must admit a little overwhelming, I had no idea about all the different ways I can make my dream happen.
Time to do some serious study and soul searching on how i want to approach this.
Couple questions
Insurance: what package did you get?
Transport Bike: do you have contact info for shipping bike?
IMT, do you recomend self tour, or full tour, (just want to ride, not visit history etc..) least not at first maybe when older
Any major precautions when dealing with twistedroad bike rental, since fro what i understand they are all privately owned.

Again thanks so much guys for the info

Cheers
 
I bought whatever insurance package made sense for the coverage that I wanted/needed. It's pretty self explanatory on their website.

Organised tour versus do your own thing is your call. There's something to be said for having a local guide who knows little local roads that you'd never find, and knows exactly which coffee shops and restaurants to go to, which hotels to stay at (and which ones have parking!), and who speaks the language (especially if you don't), etc. There is also something to be said for having a chase van carrying most of your luggage, so that you need only carry what you use during the day.

I haven't done one organised through IMT themselves. First trip was through Beach's European Motorcycle Tours | Beach's Motorcycle Adventures and the subsequent ones - owing to the possibility of riding on a world-class racetrack on a rental bike! - have been through Leod Escapes Motorcycle Tours with Track Time, Plush Hotels, Great Food, Awesome Roads

And, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. On all these trips but the first, I've done my own thing for a few days before the organised trip started. In Italy, I explored Rome for a couple of days on my own, walking, before the actual tour. In Australia, due to never having driven on the left side of the road before, I got there a few days early and picked up a rental car at the airport so that I could get the hang of this before hopping on a bike. I stayed in a small hotel in Katoomba NSW, and did little road trips and walking trips based out of there. In Spain, the whole week involving World Superbike, and the trip there and back on the first rental bike (out of Malaga), plus the train trip across the country and a couple days exploring Barcelona, was on my own before the organised tour started.
 
I rented:
-Road King in Cabo from the local HD dealership
-Street Glide in BC from eagle rider in Richmond
-Road Glide in San Francisco from eagle rider
-Road Glide Ultra in Los Angeles from Explorify through riders-share.com

All were great to deal with. Really no issues that would ever make me reconsider using them again. Explorify didn't have the Indian I reserved as it hadn't been returned on time. So they gave me an HD but didn't have the key (they don't require a key to run, just to lock) and wanted me to sign a thing saying I would lock it. After signing the paperwork for 3 different bikes I was on my way with no other problems.

If you look at twistedroad.com or riders-share.com they have nearly every every bike that you could ever dream of riding available in major cities. I chose a business that was renting through them just for piece of mind. I seen a review on one private bike where the tire was bald when they picked it up. The risk of a maintenance issue, insurance issue, etc that could throw off your trip before it even starts was a little too much risk for me.
 
Also, My preference is self tour. Start and stop when you want. eat when you want. The best taco I had in California was from the hot deli of a large mexican grocery store in Chino. I don't think that it would have made any tours.

Consider gear and air-travel as well. I bought my kevlar-plaid jacket just for this as I didn't want to wear or check my large leather Dianese. I usually carry my helmet (personal item), wear my jacket and get by with a backpack for a carry on for clothes.
 
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rented a CBR600rr in Honolulu, Hawaii as part of my solo graduation trip.
forgot the name of the place but theres 2 rental shops there.
I flew first to Kauai and had a car for that leg. Flew to Oahu(honolulu) and just ubered to Airbnb to drop off stuff and then to pickup bike. Only had a bike for that week. Great weather.
Windy mountain roads and amazing views. Only problem was the road quality there was almost third world quality.
 
Did it all over the world from Australia to Alaska. Not much to it man, go and rent a bike from rental agencies. Super easy to do in Asia/Europe/Australia. Much harder in South America, just have to look harder. Stupidly expensive in North America.

If you're thinking couple of days, look at the Maritimes, or fly into Quebec city, rent a bike and ride out east for few days.

I'm currently looking at the BMW GS school, they had a wicked program in Dubai that you can do a class with over a weekend. They used to provide the bike. I did the race school in Australia and it was well done, check it out:

RSE - Racing School Europe RSE - with Troy Corser

Racing School Europe offers full service motorsport schooling events in Europe with Troy Corser. We are Official Partner of BMW Motorrad. Events on GP tracks, Fly in and ride the S1000RR M package, Pillion rides with Troy, Classroom briefings, 1 on 3 instruction, video analysis.
racing-school-europe.com racing-school-europe.com
 
I did this in Sri Lanka when I was back packing back in 2017: Rent a tuktuk in Sri Lanka and India! - tuktukrental.com. It was a smaller company then run and owned by another person but still operate largely the same.

Don't laugh but it was loads of fun. It's definitely a slower ride but you get to enjoy the sights at a more chilled out pace, but maybe not now with the political situation. I did this for about three weeks and travelled across most of island except the north. One of the best travel experiences to date.
 
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