Morocco motorbike hire/general advice

[KLR600]

My awesome girlfriend got us flights to Morocco for Christmas. We fly out on March 28th and are staying for 6 nights. As yet we haven't booked anything else as we're planning for it to be a bit of a travel light and see what happens kind of deal but we have a rough idea of what we want to do. We fly into and out of Marrakech and so far our rough plan is to make our way from Marrakech to Essaouria, take in some of the Atlas mountains heading over to Ouarzazate to see a bit of the pre-sahara then back up to Marrakech for a day or two and fly home. We haven't decided on a blast down the coast from Essaouria to Agadir yet and we also haven't decided on whether we'd like to see the Ouzoud waterfalls but they're both possibilities.

We thought about public transport but it doesn't seem such a good option south of Marrakech so I floated the idea of hiring a bike and riding it all. The girlfriend thinks it's a good idea as we'd have the freedom to go where and when we pleased instead of relying on potentially dodgy transport links and I think it's a good idea as it'd mean I get to ride a motorbike around Morocco and razz some dunes in the Sahara

Bad points obviously include the mileage over 7 days, it's supposed to be a holiday for both of us so the prospect of doing a potential 800 miles isn't the best and I'm not sure if I really want the hassle of looking after a motorbike in a foreign country let alone having to carry helmets around with us where ever we go etc. Another worry is the roads, I've read they're a bit mental over there but I am a confident rider.

I found this website when I looked into it a few weeks ago that seems to be broken at the moment:

https://www.loc2roues.com/

But it said I could hire a Honda XR650 for a week for about £280 including insurance, helmets and unlimited mileage. They had smaller bikes available (XR125, XR250 etc) but for the potential mileage we'd be covering 2 up I'd definitely want something with a bit of grunt.

So having never hired a bike abroad before (I have driven a van across Europe before so not completely inexperienced in driving abroad) and having never been to Morocco and not wanting to end up on some pre booked touristy type tours does anyone have any advice?

Here's a bit of a map of our rough plan:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/Moroccomap.jpg
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[Fizzer Thou]

In TBM these people regularly advertise

https://www.hctravel.com/html/morocco.html

I might be able to find a copy of tours attended by TBM if you are interested.
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Just talk bikes.What else is there?

Always have a 'Plan B'

[bencav]

Since the post earthquake rebuild a few years back, Agadir has become a tourist shit hole (Think Benidorm sort of affair!). Unless you have a absolute desparation to go, I would happily avoid it and spend the miles else where!

[africarider]

Hi there,
I was spending a week in Morocco and rented bike from Wheels of Morocco www.wheelsofmorocco.net, they are awesome, new bikes, reliable, speaking English, just ask for Greg!
Cheers

[Pjay]

I'd be super confident in riding a left hand drive bike...