My husband and I plan to rent 2 motorcycles in Chiang Mai from June 27 til about July 5. Any places to use? Avoid??
We have heard that many places require you to leave your passport, which we are really not comfortable doing. Any success in getting around that?
We are road tripping with a several others up through the mountains but not leaving Thailand.
I would really appreciate recommendations.

Also - about gear - can we just buy some cheap gear there, and then leave it with our friends for their use? We are not keen on bringing all of our stuff, as this is only 8 days of a longer trip (we don't want to schlep our stuff around).

We have also heard that the big shops are Pop, Mr Beer, Tony's, Mr Mechanic, and C&P. Anyone recommend??

Thanks in advance!

I have rented at C&P and POP several times at both and had a jolly good time and not experienced any problems whatsover with those. I have although heard of people having had problems with POP (didnt get back all of the deposit)
POP has an enormously amount of bikes to choose from, and C&P have a limited amount of models and bikes.

It should be possible to pay a bigger deposit for the rented bike and then you dont have to leave your passport at the rental shop. I have done that once but I dont exactly remember how much that was, but I think it was around 5000 baht for a 250 dirtbike some years ago. If youre a couple you could maybe leave one passport behind and have the other at hand as its in general neccesary to get a hotel/guesthouse room around in Thailand.

You can certainly buy some cheap bike clothing and helmets in Chiang Mai, for example at Helmet2Home and other shops. But the quality is not up to western standards for most of it. I personslly would have considered bringing my own stuff in.

The rentals shops usually have helmets and jackets to go with the bike but to find something thats suitable and of quality is not very likely.

Check out the two forums for expat riders in Thailand/Asia: Rideasia.net and GT-Riders.com

__________________
In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

Thank you for the response! All good information. Good thought about the one passport, though I am so programmed to not part with my passport. Have you seen any issues with the police requiring fines or bribes if you don't have your passport on you?
Also do you think we need to reserve in advance if we use Pop? It would be great to just show up and rent whatever they have on hand. We aren't picky and are both experienced riders/mechanics. Thanks again

I have never heard about police giving out fines to tourists that dont carry their passports on them. There was a big discussion about this matter a few years ago as one big police boss said that it should be mandatory for tourists to carry their passports on them at any time. But he had to swallow his words, a lot of drunken tourists on a night of barhopping carrying their passports is not a good idea. A good copy of your passport with a copy of visa page or the stamp into the country should be sufficient.
A passport is usually requied to get a hotel/guesthouse room. Accomodation owners have to report to the authorities what guests they have - so they do this by copying your passport.

I dont think you have to reserve in advance at POP for renting in June. They seem to have a big surplus of bikes even in the busiest months of december/january/february.

__________________
In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

Ah ok. Very good. Glad to hear he ate his words on that. Seems like such a stupid idea. We will definitely have multiple color copies to hand out as needed.
I'm relieved we shouldn't need to book bikes in advance either. That's great.
Hey have you ridden in the mountains north of Chiangmai? Any advice? Other than don't be an idiot

Hi.
Pai is a nice ride and lovely caves that you might be able to canoe through if water level okay this time of year.
Nice National park a good ride away too. Im not sure but I think it may be burning season so expect a lot of smoke in mountains, not good for asthma.
I always keep my passport, you may need it for ID and will need it if you decide to border cross at Golden Triangle.
I always book a room using old driving licence.
Gear should be available with bike but may be poor quality and worn out. Shop stuff cheap but not something you would take home. Dont be tempted to ride without gloves or some sort of armoured jacket / over jacket. Give way to idiot locals in trucks / pick ups trying to kill you on the blind bends.
Enjoy ride and drink lots and then some more

Sent from my GT-I9295 using Tapatalk

__________________

The road goes ever on and on...and I must follow if I can

Nah - June/July is rainy season so I dont think theres a lot of burning goin on at that time.

I have been riding a good bit in northern Thailand so I could give some advice but it depends what youre after? Just stay off one and two digit numbered roads as much as possible. The 3 and 4 digit roads are much more entertaining on a motorbike.

Maybe something like this:

Day 1. Chiang Mai to Sukhothai via R11 and F101.
Day 2. Explore the old temple ruins in Sukhothai first half of the day. Second half ride Sukhothai - Mae Sot via R12, R1 and R1175.
Day 3. Mae Sot to Mae Hong Son along R105 and R108.
Day 4. Mae Hong Son to Pai on R1095. Visit "Long Neck" villages, other etnical villages such as Ban Rak Thai which is a village of mostly chinese decendents in a very besutiful setting up in the mountains, visit the huge and nice cave of Tham Lod.
Day 5. Pai to Doi Mae Salong or Tha Thon or Mae Sai, via Fang R1095, 107,
1089 and 1130
Day 6 Mae Sai to Golden Triangle, Chiang Khong, Phu Chi Fa and Chiang Rai via R1290, 1020, 1155, 4018, 1020, 1152. Many nice and interesting sightseing spots, opium museum at GT and view point at Phu Chi Fa.
Day 7. Chiang Rai to Nan via Chiang Kham and Tha Wang Pha, first visit The White Temple outside of CR, then R1020, 1021, 1148 (maybe the best motorbike road in Thailand - you will be dizzy after that one!) and 101 down to Nan.
Day 8. Nan to Chiang Mai via R1091, 1251, 120 and 118. Lots of twisties.

In Nan you can stay several days and do daytrips to different locations. You could of course do the loop I mentioned in the opposite direction if you like, and cut and/or add roads and destinations as you want. Its just an example of a route for a week or so....

__________________
In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

We used Pop rentals as well as a few smaller shops for local trips.
We walked in, booked our bikes for 10 days & paid a deposit of 3000baht.
I would not part with my passport and they were happy to have just copies of both passports & our International Driver Permits.
Choice of bikes is good & the condition of ours were excellent.
We brought our own riding clothing & bought new helmets locally.
Once done, we left the new helmets with Pop & he was happy as a lark.
Plenty of things to see & do, just slow down and take your time soaking up the local environment and its people

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

Oh good - we plan to do the caves! Thanks!

This is great! Thanks!! We had some of this on our itinerary, but it is good to see it laid out. We were thinking we would only do a few hours of riding each day to leave time for checking out what is around us.

Glad to hear it! Yeah, after hearing back from Snakeboy, we decided we would just roll up to Pop's with helmets and rent whatever they had on hand that we liked. I would like to have an armored mesh jacket but the pads make them so bulky! That's why we were hoping to find some gear there. Although we dont want to waste a bunch of our precious time searching for gear.... not to mention, I am a 6' tall woman, so finding stuff that fits seems unlikely. Maybe we will just suck it up and bring all the gear. Gah.
Thanks for the advice!!