Bike rental in Europe

[surfinspacegirl]

Hi everyone

I've been lurking for a while now and it's high time to blow my cover.

My parents are driving back from the UAE to Poland this spring/summer (I hope I'm still doing trips like that when I'm 70+!) and I'm hatching a mad plan to go join them for 2 weeks of motorcycling nirvana in Europe....

So far my thinking is to fly into Italy, rent an ST4 and ride with them for a week or so, then break off for some serious Alpine shenanigans for another week

My question is; has anyone been to Europe and done this kind of thing, i.e. rented a bike and ridden on their own? Can anyone recommend a bike rental place? Doesn't have to be in Italy - I can quite happily rent in France, the UK, Germany etc and ride down.....

Cheers all

surfinspacegirl

[Dysco]

The Horizons unlimited site http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ listed one Italy specific site http://www.biancoblu.com/ for rentals and one worldwide http://www.hctravel.com/europe.htm. Horizons unlimited it a resource for people traveling worldwide by motorcycle and they usually list the best stuff in the links section.


Hope it helps,

Mike

[Anonymous]

I have not heard of any places in particular (I found some ducati/priller rental places in Italy when I researched this a couple years ago but don't have those links anymore), however it's something I really want to do as well so let us know what you find out!

I really want to cruise Italy on a bike for a week or two, and other places, I don't really have anything planned out yet but it's on my list of "to do"...

[Hozerking]

Being Hungarian and visiting Eastern Europe every couple of years I can tell you that you probly don't want to ride a sportbike on the roads over in the old eatstern block! (at lest not yet) the roads suck!!

The scenery is awesome, I was acutally born in the Transylvanian alps the view there is awesome, kind of like switzerland but without the nice roads!

Alps in nothern itally to Austria are also beautifull unfortunatly that last time we went throught there we in a car and I was a passanger. but the roads there are awesome! worthy of sportbike heaven.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the traffic "etiquite" it different in Italy! in otherwords noone really follows the rules but everyone know that none follows the rules! I saw a semi truck run a red light in the presence of a cop and others cars which had the right of way.... bot nothing happend cause by some crazy esp they all know the guy was going through the light!

Beautifull place! I definitly recomend going! As long as you stay near tourist stuff eveyone will speak english surprisingly well but if you want to get of the beaten path you had best learn to say tow-truck in Italian.. LOL... an incredibly beautifull place high on my list of stuff to do!

Have you looked into those guided tours? I was looking into that stuff a while back and there are tons of stuff like that.

-al

[surfinspacegirl]

Just FYI, for anyone who's thinking down these same lines: rental of a Duc ST4s with unlimited mileage and all insurance works out about $100/day if you do one-way, e.g. pick up in Rome, drop off in Milan.

I didn't bother checking Eidelweiss, as they're a little too "organized" for my travelling taste