As motorcycle season has arrived in some parts of the country, others are still looking at snow on the ground. Many will head south for a vacation at Daytona Bike Week or another warm destination. It is difficult to take your motorcycle with you from your snow covered home town. For Daytona Bike Week or just a weekend ride in Phoenix, renting a motorcycle might be the solution. Having rented several times, the experience has been similar each time. So we decided to share our experiences
If the state you’re renting in that doesn’t require you to wear a helmet, the company renting you the bike will. In fact, on two occasions not only did they want to make sure we had a helmet with us and were wearing it when we left, the helmet had to be DOT Certified for the insurance company they had. Take your motorcycle helmet with you, I hate the thought of wearing a helmet somebody else has sweated in.
Be very picky about the pre-trip inspection you will have to do.
We rented two motorcycles to go to Daytona Bike Week a couple of years ago. During the pre-trip inspection I felt underneath the crash bars and could feel they had been dragged along the pavement. There was clearly damage to the crash bars, I requested it to be put on the inspection form. The shop owner told me “They are crash bars, they go from bike to bike, so they might have damage”. I insisted that he put on the damage on the form, he reluctantly did.
When we returned, he did the post bike inspection. As he felt under the crash bars he said “the bars are damaged, this bike has been down”. I pointed it out on the pre-trip inspection in which he looked at and then said “oh ok”. If I hadn’t insisted I would have had nothing to back me up.
Make sure your oil is at the proper level when returning the bike. Yea, I know that sounds kind of simple. Most shop owners check your oil level as one of the very first things they inspect during post inspection. The contract almost always has a clause about you keeping fluid levels at the correct levels.
Finally on one episode, we put the deposit on the bike over the phone. When we were at the shop they ran the deposit again and took the rental fees. We ended up having double the amount on deposit then we should have had on deposit. The shop owner told us this is just the way they do business. Now we have a pre-paid credit card we use for rentals. We put the amount of the deposit on that card and the amount the rental will total. If they try and charge over that amount for any reason, there is nothing there for them to charge. Protect yourself.
I don’t mind renting a motorcycle, I have just learnt that you need to be more cautious when renting a motorcycle than you do when you are renting a car.