I kind of desperately need to find a place to hire a 125cc bike in london (preferable able to deliver and pick up the bike to me).
I have asked a few places but told me that nobody will rent a motorcycle to a 21 year old who just has a CBT, due to high insurance.
Buying one isn’t really an option as the cost of the bike as well as insurance would be way too high.
Does anyone pls have any advise? I have booked my A2 lessons but they strongly advised me to get some experience first.
I think there’s two different things here
Think of it this way, in the eyes of their insurers you haven’t passed your full test. You are (as you say), practicing… I doubt insurers that insure businesses en masse will do it. I could be wrong.
I also think if you do find someplace that will be willing to rent to you, the charge will be so high that it might make the cost of buying a 125 comparable. Because when your instructors talk about experience, I don’t think they mean a week or a month… they generally mean more. Did they mention what points to focus on?
Could the other option be to just have more lessons (if that’s doable)?
Do you have a friend that could lend you a bike that you insure in your name?
One other thing to consider. Yes buying a 125 is an expensive initial outlay, but once you’re done with it you can sell it. You might lose a bit of money, but probably not as much as you think so it might make sense, especially considering how much people are likely to charge you for a hire.
Of course it all depends how much money you have aside so I don’t want to assume anything
If it helps, you don’t need to get experience but it all depends on the person. I never got any riding experience between CBT and Full licence, but by then I had been driving a car for 7-8 years so was familiar with road layouts and car behaviour etc.
Side point, I also crashed a lot in my early years of riding, but mostly in a comical, non painful way 
+1 If i was a gambling man I’d wager buying a used 125, from a dealer to be sure, to be sure its roadworthy, is the more affordable option.
Plan on riding it around for a year, no need to rush into a bigger motorcycle especially in London with the 20 mph Khanage speed limits. Insuring it will be cheaper than insuring a bigger motorcycle and you’ll gain experience, hopefully earn some NCB and grow in motorcycle confidence all at the same time.
After a year when you’re ready to get a bigger motorcycle you’ll have the old 125 to trade in or sell on, its a win, win, win plan
I managed to hire a 125 back in the mists of time before doing my DAS, i was already riding a scooter every day, just got a ybr for a week to get used to gears. I hired it from somewhere near shoreditch, i think it was called city bike service but that was 15+ years ago so its very likely shut down now.
Yeah back in the day everything was simpler… I was even able to afford (as a relatively young man) a 600cc three year old bike in Angel with no garage, no NCB or motorbike history.
Scootech do
FYI. 20mph limits are UK wide.
Thank you for that and welcome to LB.
You seem to be missing the point, the 20 mph speed limits I referred to are the London wide Khanage introduced by TfL over recent years. Those 20 mph speed limits have now spread across virtually the whole of London inside the North and South Circular Ring Roads. Nowhere in the UK can compare with this Khanage, not Birmingham, not Manchester, not Cardiff, not Glasgow, not Edinburgh not even the whole of Welsh Wales, nowhere.
Fwiw, i dont really have a problem with 20mph limits in London.
I thought tfl could only set the speed limit on roads they control though (so red routes) and councils set the rest?
That is correct as I understand it. TfL got the Khanage ball rolling in The City of London and beyond from there it spread London wide faster than The Great Fire of 1666, picking up momentum with safety camera enforcement devolving to the local authorities.
Is it actually making much difference to journey times? During the day average speed is probably well below 20mph anyway.
At night it may theoretically increase journey times by 30% but in practice there are so many junctions and traffic lights that it probably doesn’t have that much effect either.
I haven’t noticed any ‘Khanage’ on my commute, i think ‘CARnage’ is probably a more appropriate description of most London roads if we are punning.
there’s a lot of people unhappy that private cars and bikes are no longer at the top of the list when city planning priorities are decided.
London has got a lot better for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users, at the cost of car journeys becoming a bit slower.
Cars dont make sense for inner city travel, they benefit the driver at the cost to everyone else making allowances for it.
I’ve hired a geared 125cc bike from this website a few months ago right after I had my CBT
https://www.motorbikehirelondon.com/models-prices/
They can deliver and collect the bike for you. You just need to be there to sign the agreement.
