bike hire in sri lanka
 

hi there,

we're off to sri lanka in januari and we're planning to hire two small bikes there. i've seen honda baja's and xr's for rent, in several places, but am just wondering:
-should i book them in advance, and is the general conditions of the bikes ok?
-any chance for road assistance in case of breakdowns?
-any good recent adresses for bike hire? i've found some here in older posts, but don't know if there still up to date...

we're planning to tour hill province, tea plantations, up north to the ancient cities and loop down via galle. nice (off)road suggestions welcome.

as for the driving: is it indian?

thx
gaea

Hi Gaea

See my earlier post here:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...e-or-not-37921

For closer to Colombo airport you might try: Negombo Motorcycle Tours

I exchanged a few e-mails with the owner before I went and although he was more expensive, he replied promptly and courteously.

:icon16:,
Stephan

Hi, i have hired bikes from Suranga at Negombo motorcycle tours after a good friend recommended him. The bikes were in good condition and he proved to be a decent trustworthy man. i highly recommend him and hope to return in the next year or two. Cheers AndyAttachment 4181

costly
 

hi there,

thx for the reply. i've enquired in the mean time, and the rate i have been offered sounds rather high to me. 25$ per bike, even though i'd be hiring two for 14 days. any idea how much you paid? and is there an alternative in/near negombo?

thx in advance
gaea

Hi Felix

way back in 2006 (or so) we had already paid around 15€/bike/day for a two week journey of three bikes, so nowadays 25US seems quite a reasonable price to me. We got our bikes from "Yellow Fleet" at Negombo, but their HP doesn't seem to be updated since 2007, looks like their out of business now... :confused1:

Hope this will help
Cheers
Jörn

Hi, i does seem a bit high, why not offer $20 a day,he may accept that. He can also collect you from the airport, for a fee. Cheers Andy

I would not recommend Suranga! I just left Sri Lanka after a three week tour around the beautiful Island. Two of my friends hired from him, they cost $20USD per day and they were a hunk of shit! Every day we had to deal with a new problem, and I mean EVERY day! on both bikes.

When they picked the bikes up - they were not ready and needed new tires, chain adjusted and a new battery. This was only the start of many many problems!! like carburetor issue to radiator seals blowing.

Suranga, promised to pay back the mechanical fees but when we returned the motorcycle, he refused as the tail light cover was missing - this fell off on the day somewhere!! He wouldnt give them a discount for the number of days waiting to get the bike fixed. either. My poor friends had to walk off as the talking would have continued into the night.

I rented from Yellow Fleet (just down the road) and got an almost new bike and had no trouble what so ever! I was glad to pay the extra $3 per day. I picked my bike up within a few minutes, and dropped it of within a few seconds. He even gave me a ride back to my guest house.

Another tip - Yellow fleet will tell you via email they cost $30 per day, do not book - just wait until your there (unless your a huge group) and negotiate the price. Hence why i paided $23.

Have fun in Sri Lanka - its amazing country - I would go back in a heart beat. Just remember its a bit more expensive than other Asian countries.

Reply to Maximondo about her comments
 

Hi there

I am the owner of Sha Lanka Tours (negombo-motorcycle-tours.com).
About the report of MAximondo is not 100%truth. When she inquiries the bikes from me, All my bikes were booked by Australian group (8 riders) for 18 days. Their report on web :http://www.aridesomewhere.blogspot.com/[/URL]
December is High season in Sri lanka. So i told her that i am borrowing the bikes from my friends. I had no choice. So when i pick the bikes from my friends there were visible problems on the spot, After i requested from my friends they were fixed. After Maxmodo returned, She wants money back of lost days. But i paid my friends in advance all cash. So they refuse to pay back. Also Maxmondo lost Tail light & she didn't agreed to pay back. It cost about 30$ to replace new. She want to pay only 2$ for it.
After the decent discussions, she lost her temper & threat us that she will write a bad post about us on internet, Suddenly she jumped forward & snap the security money from my wife, then she went out & kicked the bike to get the revenge!!. In this case this bike broke front break leaver & broke the plastic parts. I have attached the picture this bikes incident.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

And her boy friend was so upset about her bad behavior & he apologize for the situation from us. In front of him we called the bike spare shop & check the prices, And he realize that the price of tail light is 30$.

Cheers
Suranga.

Suranga - I (Maximondo) am the person who hired from 'Yellow Fleet' not from you. I did not do these things, i was the person who helped fixed the problems on the bike!

- I wasn't even present at the time of returning the bikes as I was trying to get my Indian Visa!

Please do not confuse my postings - im sure your normal bikes are fine but its your business, and if you do not have the capacity then say so or if you DO borrow off friends then you need to make sure they are sound bikes.

When people only have a few days off a year, they want to make sure their trip goes smoothly as possible.

Well, after the mixed reviews of Suranga in this thread (his site: ....:::: Contact Us ::::....), I thought I would give him a try anyway.

I e-mailed him to reserve a bike a few weeks ago, he confirmed the reservation. Today he's come back and said that he's had an "unexpected booking" for all of his bikes, and that the bike he had reserved for me is now, well, being given to someone else.

In the meantime I had planned my vacation around picking up a bike with him, so it is rather inconvenient, to say the least, that he has cancelled my reservation. I have cancelled all of my arrangements with him (moto, room, airport pickup) and let him know that I will do business with people that know how to keep their word. I urge everyone to do the same.

Bummer.
Guys like that do not deserve to be in business.

Did he know your Profession?

I hope he finds out in due time that you are an International Lawyer, when you have quantified your additional costs of your holiday resulting from his Breach of Contract.:hammer:

(I imagine the Sri Lanka legal system is pretty much based on the UK one, but a few years behind)

well I'm certainly not going to waste my time with that, but I do hope to alert people on this and other sites that this guy cannot be relied on.

Well I've just gotten back from a week in Sri Lanka and wanted to let people know the deal...

I mentioned the problem I had with Suranga, so I obviously didn't use him. I spent a lot of time searching the net for another place to rent a bike, and found another place that looked promising until they demanded full payment up front. I was OK with that since it is high season and all, until they said that they wanted full payment upfront, including the $500 deposit for the bike, upfront (this was about a month I was going to arrive). I told them I was not going to pay the deposit until I picked up the bike, since that is what a deposit is for, but they refused to change their "policy" (scam?).

Finally I contacted Hanees at Yellow Fleet, based in Negombo. He reserved a bike with a partial downpayment via CC over the internet, and then when I arrived he had a few bikes to choose from, I put down a deposit ($200) and off I went. He was good to deal with, no complaints at all. PM me for his contact info if you can't google it.

The bike, a 250 Suzuki Djebel, was in good condition. While I did get a flat tire and had a hard time starting the bike a few times, I think those were pilot errors, so in general I think the bike was in fine condition (plus had a nice luggage rack).

That's all the good news. The bad news is that I was not that keen on Sri Lanka as a riding destination. I've ridden in many countries, including Russia, China, Laos, and Sri Lanka was the worst by far in terms of riding conditions. On any main road, the riding pretty much consisted of sucking up diesel fumes behind some bus or truck as you waited and waited for a break in oncoming traffic to allow a pass. Buses and just about everything else will also run you off the road in your lane without a second thought while they are passing (if you're lucky they will flash their highbeams to remind you to get out of the way). Am I exaggerating? Yeah probably, but most of the riding was not very pleasant.

That said, I did try to spend a lot of time on the back roads, some of which are incredibly beautiful and exotic (mountains, tea plantations, buddhist stuff, monkeys, etc.), but I was often frustrated by the lack of adequate signs (I got lost on a very regular basis) despite having a decent map. I couldn't believe the number of times that none of the 2-3 towns mentioned on the road signs were on my map.

Another good thing was that the people were in general very friendly and everywhere I went, even in the small villages, there was someone that spoke at least a little English (I didn't know what to expect in the countryside).

My experience is a little dated as I spent 3 months in Sri Lanka back in 1998 but my experience of Sri Lankan roads was quite enjoyable...despite the issues of lanes just ending and continuing as dirt tracks, large pot holes, crazy & drunk bus drivers, 4x4s. I hired 3 or 4 bikes from 2 different places in Hikaduwa 2 Honda Superdream 250s and 2 Honda XLs - one of the superdreams was crap and once i'd gotten back to the rental place (a truck picked us up and gave us a lift back), they gave us a replacement with no hassle. I can't remember the company name though.

I took one of the XLs up to Columbo for the day, which was one of the highlights for me - being able to ride around the city and take myself off to the suburbs was great.

I guess it depends on the person. I get a buzz from being challenged on a bike and thus, getting lost, having to raise my concentration because of traffic conditions, dirt roads, etc, add to the experience for me. But that's just me. I'd rather ride a bike in Sri Lanka on a daily basis than have to commute to the centre of london.

Go East Young Man
 

I did not particularly enjoy riding on the West coast as it was very congested but found the East coast to be the opposite and on the way to Aragum Bay the road was almost deserted. Andy

I dunno...I don't consider sucking down diesel fumes and waiting for a break in the endless stream of oncoming traffic to pass the 257th bus of the day to being challenged on the bike. But that's just me. It sounds like you just did some day trips, if so your experience was probably different.

Fair comment. I was just saying that the experience I had was generally positive and the negative aspects didn't put me off. I spent 3 months there and I rode bikes, drove a tuk tuk, walked, hitched, narrowly avoided two suicide bombings, fell for someone and met some beautiful people along the way.

Well, quite the adventure, sounds fun! I had some really cool moments, but overall I've ridden in better places. In any event, if anyone wants to go there, I wanted to pass on my positive experience with Hanees at Yellow Fleet.

I rented in Negombo, just walked into a shop, was $15US a day. When i got out and spoke to other place i found out it should have been about $10, Negombo is a tourist trap so everything is more expensive.
sim card is only 100ruppe

Massage to motoreiter
 

Mr.Motoreiter is wring this forum about my business. what i have to tel the people who reading this forum is : This guy is trying to get his revenge from me. He booked the bike with me, But i had to cancel it due to past booking from Russian bike tour organizer. I offered him Road bike, But he refused. He wants only Off road bike. then i said sorry.
But i didn't cancel his reservation at last the moment. As i remember, it was about 2-3 weeks early notice. So he had enough time to find another company. Instead of finding another company he was complaining me, Complaining friends who recommends me, Writing to all blogs & asking people to avoid hire bikes from me. Looks like this guy pretend to be an international lawyer:smartass:

Motoreiter NEVER pretended that. He cannot pretend it, because it is true!

He NEVER stated that, even though it is true.

It was I that stated it, because it is true!

BUT

If anyone reads the posts again, they will see he was not going to waste his time bothering telling you, or anyone, what is his profession.

He very generously (in my view) preferred to only report to HU readers who might be interested exactly what happened and that you broke the booking. He then wanted to just 'move on'.


There is nothing revengeful otherwise he would possibly be taking other more positive action.

Your response, repeated below, helps HU readers be aware that dealing with you is not certain as you will happily cancel existing bookings to get your hands on bigger money of Russians - exactly as you admitted!

Thanks for confirming what I've already said: I booked with you, and then later you cancelled because you wanted to rent the bikes to someone else. And I didn't want a road bike because I am too tall to ride a 150cc road bike comfortably, and it is not the bike I reserved.

As to my profession, I don't think it is any of your concern. I did, however, want to warn other travellers that they should not rely on any reservation that they might make with you. I've always found that life is much simpler if I just do what I tell people I am going to do, I encourage you to try it sometime.

Does anyone have any contact details for Yellow Fleet? Google struggles to find anything.

sent you a PM with Yellow Fleet's e-mail. The guy's name is Hanees.

Thanks for the quick reply motoreiter, hopefully it will be a great trip. Looking forward to it.

Sha Lanka Tours - Sri Lanka
 

Chaps,

Just got back from a couple of weeks in Sri Lanka and thought I would give you my two cents - I hired an XT600 from Suranga at Sha Lanka Tours, $30 a day, $25 for delivery to my hostel in Kandy from Negombo (paid in full, in cash, on delivery, with my passport as deposit).

I have to say, the whole experience was good. The bike ran well, started first time every time. One indicator bulb was blown, and the brake light didn't function from the brake lever (worked fine from the pedal) but it was agreed that I could fix that and he would reimburse me for the cost. In the end, fixing it seemed like too much hassle, so I left it.

The speedo cable snapped, again I didn't fix it, but there were no questions, no arguments, simply a "yes, don't worry about it, these things happen".

I added a few scratches to the bike and voluntarily gave him a bit of cash towards that.

Really a pretty good experience. The bike needs a little work (and it needs its forks straightened properly - someone clearly had a massive crash on it at some point in the past) but nothing that actually diminished the enjoyment of taking my girl around the country on a motorcycle. Good times.

Happy to give more info if anyone wants it!

Well have just returned from 3 weeks travelling around Sri Lanka, great country with terrific people and even better food.
Found the riding to be a good mix although city riding is a bit bothersome. Best bit of advice I can give is keep your eye open for bus's, be it from the front, back or side they are all out to get you (so it appears).

We initially hired 5 bikes from Yellow Fleet, by the end of the trip that had escalated to 8. Out of the 8 we had only one caused no issues.
So where to start?

Honda XR250 - no issues

Suzuki XC250 Djebel - clutch cable, purchased a new one in a little town, cost fitted was 500 rupees ($4). On return Hanees didnt think he need to pay for it as it is normal wear and tear and that it should have cost only 100 rupees. After much arguing he reluctantly agreed to pay for it.

Yamaha Raid - failed to start after the second day, resulting in push start, returned mid trip to Negombo and swapped out for an Djebel.

Honda XL250 Degree - Charging system failed and required new battery to get back to Negombo mid trip. Hannees at Yellow Fleets only concern was where was the old battery which we left behind, then bitched that we put in an inferior battery. We left him with the bike to repair to pick up the following morning. Said that it had all been fixed. Returned the bike within half an hour with the same issue. Swapped for a DR250.

Suzuki DR 250 (#1) - Pick up the bike and had issues starting the bike. 'No problem' stated Hanees 'just wiggle the handle bars until it starts'. No entirely happy with it, rode off for the bike to blow a main fuse 2 km down the road. Swapped for a second DR 250.

Suzuki DR 250 #2 - This was the eventual replacement for the XL250 Degree, not an ideal bike as it had to be ridden by a 5' 2" lady (the XL250 was a great size). picked up the second bike, rode down the road about 1 km turned around and returned to the shop. Chain was way overtight. Loosened chain only to find that it had 2 seized links, quick bit of engine oil and Hanees reckoned it would be fine. Dont know how but 1000 km later the links were still seized, made for uncomfortable lumpy riding. Didnt think it would last.

Yamaha Serrow - This we nicknamed the 'Exxon Valdez' due to the HUGE amounts of oil it would leave behind wherever we stopped. On returning this to the shop Hannees said that we had put too much oil on the chain and there were no issues with it. Continued with it for the remainder of the trip. Sorry Sri Lanka for the oil trailed left across the country.

The issues we had with the bikes meant we had to return to Negombo mid trip to replace/repair the bikes. This meant a loss of a day on the bikes. We requested a days rental returned and this was reluctantly agreed to by Hanees. Returning the bikes at the end of the trip this story changed to 'No No I said you can have the bikes for an extra day free'. No really helpful when they were being returned the day before we flew out of country.
The return to Negombo meant a loss of 2 days on the road and and much changed and long planned itinerary, Hanees could not have cared less. We found him in the end to be highly mistrustful and by far the worst person we dealt with in Sri Lanka.

In the end we found out the bikes were not his and had been borrowed/lent/rehired from different people around the town. Level of basic maintenance was deplorably low and we no way felt confident to take the vehicles off road. Yellow Fleets mechanical/electrical skills are beyond anything more than the most basic of requirements, after all how can you possibly fault find a charging issue if you dont possess a meter or test light.

Yellow Fleet also does not have Paypal so the initial deposit was via bank transfer which ended up being a task requiring two visits to the bank. Hanees required payment in full for all bikes and an additional 20 000 rupee deposit that was not mentioned at any time. This resulted in a trip to the ATM to withdraw 140 000 rupees over 3 transactions. This I will at least take the blame for for not inquiring about payment (credit card facilities, what was I thinking????).

Overall riding in SL was a unforgettable experience, it is a great country with fantastic helpful people who quite often want nothing more than to meet and talk to you. You need to be on your toes but it was definitely rewarding.

Would I recommend Yellow Fleet, no way. There are quite a few places to hire in Negombo so do you homework. We didnt expect a clear run but to have 6 of 8 bikes have issues Yellow Fleet you are definitely doing something wrong.

Big bikes now allowed in Sri Lanka
 

Hello everybody!
sorry my post might be a bit off topic....

We've been in Sri Lanka since january with our Italian registered Transalp 600.
We obviously love the place, the people, the food and expecially love the roads and the landscapes! So much fun to get lost in the paddyfields and the middle of huge tea plantations... a bit too hot on the sea side though...

Anyway....
since one month ago the law has been changed and big bikes (1000cc) are now legal in Sri Lanka!

Colombo City Life: 1000 cc ‘big bikes’ on public roads despite police warning

Hope to see many more riders on the island from now on!

Enjoy
Agata

Cheap bike rentals - https://bikesbooking.com It was super easy to book and the prices are lower than all other competitors