We are two up on the motorbike (Yamaha Tenere 60 XTZ '96) trip to West Africa, and we had some problems with the bike on the way. I couldn't find much info on the mechanics and spare parts /maintenance availability online, not even too much on this site. I wonder why people who travel don't share that info more, and why guidebook writers don't write more about that as well...

But while i'm wondering that, the best thing i can do is to share some info i found on the road...

So our bike got broken on the piste between Atar and Chinguetti in Mauritania In Atar there is great guy Just that runs Bab Sahara auberge and has a nice workshop and great knowledge. (well so far, that info is available on this pages)
He organized a pickup for our bike, and he put me in contact with a deacent (even though not perfect) mechanic in Atar. There were also some nice fellow travellers (and mechanics) in auberge at that time that jumped in...
But that was not enough unfortunately, so we sent the bike on the bus (possible) to Nouakchott, and went to the mechanic called Tijani (tel. +222 46000389, speaks french)
He is probably the most skilled mechanic in Mauritania, with also some working experience from Japan. His workshop is not far from famous Sahara auberge, but not easy to find. It is called Garage Sahara (people in Mauritania are very inventive with thinking up the names for there busineses, it seems ) and it is located at:
N 18 05.759'
W 17 29.662'

So he finally fixed a bike and even organized/found some second hand spare parts..

We are now in Senegal, so i checked out the shops and mechanics here. Much bigger choice in Dakar. There are official representations of Yamaha and Honda (don't know for others), but it seems everything is possible to find.

A good mechanic is near the airport - His name is Tuwei and phone number 77648510 (speaks french):

N 14 45.202'
W 15 59.966'


Ok, hope that will help to somebody in future...
In the meantime i hope we wont need to search any more mechanics in Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin, but if anybody has and wants to share similar info for that countries, that would be greatly appreciated.

And a small tip for others who might be googling this before their first bike trip to Africa... (as this is mine) I was worried about mechanic stuff as i had no much knowledge and couldn't find almost any info on mechanics on my route, but i knew if i will have a problem, heavens and earths will help me to find the solution... So eventually it was much easier than it seemed... Help is coming from everywhere and nowhere when you're stuck... and that makes the journey more interesting and fun! So don't hesitate, just go!

Some good advice and good tip about how you turned a potentially bad situation into an adventure to fix the bike. You'll have even more stories to tell if things go wrong than if everything works perfectly.

Thanks for sharing the info and we hope the fix lasts. Ride on!

__________________
TurboCharger + Francois (our BMW R1200gs) '07
www.riding2up.net, blog.riding2up.net

Hi Davor
Thanks for this info. Might be worth cross posting this in http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-shops-africa/ too.
Enjoy the rest of your trip.
cheers
Chris

__________________

Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

Hey Davor,
It's good to see you put in practise what you told me and started writing down your experiences (when you cannot find info from others).

I'm glad Tidjani could sort your problems, I hope they had nothing to do with the extra fuellfilter we installed before you went to Chinguitty (although Just told me the problems had something to do with a faulty relay under your seat ....).

A pitty we didn't meet each other again, after our roundtrip.
Hope you two have a wonderfull journey.
Writing this with regrets back in our cold/grey hometown.

__________________
bart & sophie

__________________
bart & sophie