Recommend a motorcycle hire in Spain?

[stinkwheel]

I'm going touring in Northern Spain/Portugal in September and Mrs stinkwheel is flying in later on with the intention of hiring a bike over there. Wondering if anyone has any experience or recommendations for a rental company?

Flying into either Bilbao or Madrid. Ideally looking for a middleweight road or sports bike. Most of the places I can find are just doing adventure style bikes or litre + tourers and she's never ridden one so it might be a bit of an ask to jump off the plane and straight onto a tall, boingy, unfamiliar bike on the wrong side of the road for 4 hours. She's had a CB500 and currently rides a CBR600F. We'll be spending most of the time on nadgery twisty mountain passes so a heavy tourer isn't going to be as much fun as it could be (we rarely went over 60mph last time, I was keeping up with the group on my Enfield Bullet).

Seen a couple offering Speed twins or the smaller BMW road bikes which would probably be ideal but some of the websites seem pretty sketchy, like one was offering a CB600F Hornet as an option and you have to wonder what the nick of a >9 year old rental bike is going to be like. Hence looking for recommendations.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[MCN]

From disastrous personal experience in Hooston USA. Insurance made up a massive portion of the hire of four Hardly Dae-anythings.
I guess espania will be the same.

We never hired the Hoowuring Hardlys.

It does look nasty...

https://riderly.com/rentals/search/?date_range=16%2F05%2F2022+-+19%2F05%2F2022&location=Bilbao%2C+Spain&lat=43.2630126&lng=-2.9349852&type=All


Someone needs to explain to me why we can hire a a whole feckin car and fill it with three passengers then hit the highway and drive it like a wank for 25 ooro per day but a fekin bike that can only carry two passengers cost 5 x more than the shitey wee car?

It must be true that motorbikes are dangerous and all bikers have a death wish.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[A100man]

Can't resist a google challenge..

More options in Madrid it seems..

https://www.momoven.es/alquiler-motos/madrid-3?

and I found this 'Motoshare' site too..

https://motoshare.eu/en-es/rent-motorcycle/bilbao

Good luck
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600

[stinkwheel]

That motoshare thing looks an interesting concept and I reckon a BMW 310 would be a hoot on those mountain roads.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Freddyfruitba...]

[Arfa__]

I'm guessing EagleRider has already come up in your searches?
https://www.eaglerider.com/motorcycle-rental/spain?page=3

They have bases in Bilbao and Madrid. Yeah, they do have a lot of hogs and adventure bikes, but they do have some smaller GSs and Tigers that can suit someone used to a smaller bike. Might be worth finding a local dealer beforehand and trying to test ride some of the bikes you can hire and confirm how well your other half can manage them.

If you can handle a bigger bike, don't be put off, I took a 1.9 litre, Harley Road King, up Mount Hamilton in California! 3000m high, narrow bumpy roads and lots of tight and steep switchbacks. Few scrapped foot boards but still a good laugh!

Eitherway, EagleRider is a huge international company, very professional, rented from them a few times (in San Fran), no issues, all well-maintained bikes, good service etc. But yes, they don't half charge, the headline price doesn't include all your damage waiver, breakdown cover, local taxes, etc, etc. I ended up paying nearly twice the advertised figure per day due to extras!

You can get 3rd party damage/excess waiver insurance for car rentals, that's always much cheaper than buying from the rental firm. Might be worth investigating if this can be done for bike rentals too. Martin Lewis' site has good info on this money saving tip.
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Beginner Biker Adventures Blog
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