Bike Rental in Cuba

[Bruell]

Hello

Is there anybody out there who has experience in renting a bike in Cuba.
I'm planing a self guided trip in Cuba for a view weeks only.
So it makes no sense to ship the own bike to Cuba.
If prefer to rent some Travelbikes (small Enduros or BMW GS) but no Harley's.
My wife likes small roads which are ending very often in mud, dirty and dusty track's.

All I have found is renting big bikes and guided Tours.

Every hint and tip is welcome.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Axel

[markharf]

As far as I know, it's still not possible to rent a motorbike in Cuba--only scooters are available, with lots of official restrictions on where and how far they can go.

There seems to be an exception for renting directly from foreign nationals with residency in Cuba who own their own bikes, but I'm not really familiar with how that might work. Locals who own bikes are not allowed to rent them to tourists.

The other exception is that you can pay for a guided tour, including both guide and bike. I ran into a few of those tour groups, and they sure didn't look like my style of travel at all.

It's also possible to ship your own bike into Cuba via Stahlratte (or any other boat), as I did. The TIP and licensing procedure seems to be getting pretty streamlined these days, with lots of bikes arriving on each Stahlratte sailing.

Hope that's helpful. Again, if you've learned anything different please describe it. My information was current as of a couple of years ago.

Mark

Mark

[Bruell]

Thanks Markharf,

I have heard also about a travel agency located somewhere in south-america.
They have some Bikes (BMW's) there. They move them by request to Cuba for rental. But I can not find this agency by Google.

But never the less this procedure is similar to your knowledge that only foreigners are able to hand over their Bikes for rental in Cuba.

Thank's for your reply.

Axel

[gatogato]

I rented one of the scooters there. They are Chinese made and the most I could get up to with it was 60 kms/ per hour. They are hard to find last minute in Havanna. Varadero has a fair number of scooter rental places within walking distance of each other near the beach there. I rented it for 5 days I think and drove it around half of the island. I want to say it was $30 US per day.

Maintenance wise it was in fairly good shape I thought, but you want to be careful with the types of terrain that you attempt to tackle with it. I took it to Trinidad and it did not like the mountains/ hills nor cobblestone roads very much. You are not supposed to go outside a 100 km radius of your rental location. It is kind of funny because it is the same government run car/scooter rental agency all across the island, but each cities rental fleet operates like it is a separate company.

I hear it is much easier to temporarily import your own motorcycle into Cuba now, but in my opinion, although it would definitely be fun to do, I think it would end up being as expensive as a Darien Gap Crossing. That is too much money to spend on transportation in one country imo. I was happy enough with the scooter experience.

The best way to do Cuba in my opinion is in a group of 4. Together you can pre-book a car rental and pre-book all the Air BnB places that you stay at. Cuba is one country where it makes sense to do all the pre-planning for your trip ahead of time. You will enjoy your time over there more if you do that. The reason for this is because of the communist system, and because of how touristy it is over there. The average Cuban citizen makes $8 US per month so there is quite the well established system to separate tourists from their dollars over there. Beware of the taxi drivers! lol