Biking around New Zealand

Hi,

Hubby and I are looking to bike around NZ, North and South Island for 3 weeks in April 2014.
I’m doing a bit of research online and I was wondering if anyone has done anything similar or would recommend a hire company out there.

I have loads of family out there that I have never met so we are looking to hire only. Not really up for one of the guided tours, and we’d be happy to camp to keep costs down.

Ideally we’d want to pick up the bikes in the North Island and drop off in the South.

Please feel free to recommend which bikes would suit us. Hubby currently has a Honda CBF600 (6ft1, commutes 30+ miles a day), I am a newbie riding a Honda CG125 for 18 months and about to take my DAS.

Look forward to hearing from you! :slight_smile:

Plewsy

I toured NZ with a pal for 4 weeks in 2006.

We hired a couple of naked SV650 bikes with panniers
in Christchurch.
We just hired the bikes and stayed in cheap accommodation,
mostly back packers hostels and also with friends, no
guided tours leaving us open to explore and stay places
we particularly liked as and when we found them.

The tourist information network is brilliant for booking
on the fly and we were never stuck wondering where
we would stay nights.

We both found the SV a superb bike for the roads there.
Plenty of torque and a forgiving nature makes them great
fun on the winding mountainous roads.
You’ll not need anything quicker in the South Island but
may find more sporty bikes better in the North but
anything more than the SV650 was very pricey.

I ride an R6 and my pal has a 675 Daytona in the UK.
And I’ve now got an SV as my commuter bike.

I’ll look up the name of the hire shop if you’re interested.

Oh, just re-read your post…

They will almost certainly want to see a bike licence with
a minimum of 2 years biking on it.

We were lucky…

They told us about the 2 year requierment when we got there!

I showed them my licence with 30+ years biking on it
and then they didn’t really check my pal’s which was
lucky as he had just passed his DAS that year !

Thanks MikeDaBike

Good to know about the 2 year minimum in advance.
And I’d still like to know the name of the hire company.

Plewsy

Just PM’d you I just got back from riding there
its awesome
m

+1

Here’s the hire co we used, it was John Rains I spoke with…

http://www.motorcycle-hire.co.nz/