The Secondhand Motorbike Warehouse.

So, one day a bloke who worked at our coffee shop and who rode a scooter to work like one of these...

...told Hubster and Mr Finland that he knew a warehouse that sold second hand motorbikes.  Big ones.  Like these...

Hubster and Mr Finland, being men who love bikes, were intrigued.
Are you sure? They said.
Oh yes, Bloke said.
Where is it? They said.
It's a long way, Bloke said.  It too hard to explain.
Draw us a map, They said.  So he did.  This is it.

Deciphering this map took days, Nay weeks.  Even after asking The Bloke more than once to explain his cryptic graphic, H & Mr F were still not sure they exactly understood, possibly owing to The Bloke's accented English, delivered in rushed spurts accompanied by excited gesticulating.

The map was given to Mr Noor, our reliable and experienced taxi driver, as well as repeating what we felt were pertinent pieces taken from The Blokes verbal instructions.  OK says Mr Noor.  I think I know, and off we set.

We wound up driving through a whole bunch of warehouses, out past a whole bunch of narrow, crowded, backwater streets, whose corrugated iron doors were open so we could peer inside as we slid on past.  There were carpet warehouses, furniture warehouses and whiteware warehouses.  The warehouse with the scooters at the door got us excited till we went in to find nothing but scooters.

Eventually, Mr Noor asked a couple of blokes who seemed to be doing very little at all standing outside their warehouse, if they knew the place we were looking for.  They directed us down the lane and round the corner and we wound up here...

To this day I doubt we were in the right place.  If we were, The Bloke had failed to tell us that most of the bikes were in bits.  Obviously his version of secondhand differed ever so slightly, from ours.  By the looks of things, the men working at this warehouse (though they stopped working and spent more time qawking when we rocked up) pulled bikes to pieces and, occasionally, put a few back together again.  We found a couple that looked in OK nick.  This one...

... and this pink off roader that I took a fancy too purely because of its girly color.  (On further inspection Hubster decided it was 'a bit rough' which is his nice way of saying 'no way'.  As he has taken apart, and put back together, a number of bikes in his relatively short life, I defer to his better judgement in all bike matters).

We had enough of a roam around to decide that, if we ever needed spare parts this might be the place to come, but for today it was not what we had in mind given The Blokes excited descriptions and gesticulations.

So that our journey would not be completely wasted, we asked Mr Noor if he knew a place that sold motorbike batteries as the one on Hubsters Vintage Californian Motoguzzi had given up the ghost.  Noor guided the taxi back through the narrow, crowded, backwater streets to find such a place.  By the looks of the looks we were getting in these streets, white folks and La Femmes are not frequent visitors to the Riyadh boondocks.

While waiting to be served at the Battery Shop we eventually found carrying the type of battery required, Mr Finland took the downtime as an opportunity to pose... He's like that.

We all pulled a few faces, and stepped back a few paces, as we watched The Battery Shop guy prep the battery - pouring acid and banging contacts with a little mallet all the while talking (quite loudly as I have gleaned Arabs are wont to do) with a phone pressed between shoulder and ear.  Hubster happened to mention something about New Zealand having all sorts of Health and Safety issues with regard to prepping batteries while I hoped not to see or smell acid burnt flesh.  However, The Battery Shop guy was obviously quite adept at this activity (he  probably got that way from working in a shop selling batteries) and nothing untoward happened.

I'm not sure what Hubster and Mr Finland said to The Bloke about the secondhand motorbike warehouse he'd sent us to when he was seen again at the coffee shop, but I believe it went something along the lines of, 'Huge waste of time'.  I was not so harsh on The Bloke as, every now and then, he'd give me his key so I could nip about the place on his scooter.


Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Motobikes in Riyadh

We own motorbikes in Riyadh.  At least, Hubster does.  A Motoguzzi 1200 Sport and a Motoguzzi Vintage Californian.

The 1200 is so Hubster can go blatting along the roads at rapid speeds with his buddies.  The Vintage is for us to cruise along at a more sedate pace.  He bought both these bikes here, in Riyadh, and he also has a Saudi motobike license.

If I could own a motorbike in Riyadh I would.  We haven't yet ascertained if I'm allowed to. Apparently, although we cannot drive them, we mere females are permitted to register two vehicles in our name.   Can one or both of those be motorbikes? Hmmm. Not sure about that.

I have a preference for a Harley Davidson 2011 Sportster 883L SuperLow.  It's a bike Harley designed especially for those new to biking and, according to their stats, the fastest growing demographic for new bikers is women.   The SuperLow is lighter than other Harleys and, most importantly, its height means women can put their feet on ground and more easily balance the bike when it is stationary.  This is an extremely important point.  Hubster has never let me forget that, nearly 30 years ago when first learning to ride, I dropped one of his bikes.  Me thinks its time he got over that!

The Harley Davidson shop is our favourite place to spend an hour or so looking at the merchandise.  Our grandkids frequently receive Harley outfits.  It pays to influence your moko's from an early age.

Upstairs are new and secondhand bikes for sale.  Hubster and Mr Finland keep their eyes peeled for secondhand bikes.  Saudi's have a tendency to buy bikes then bring them back only a few weeks (or sometimes days) later because they want something else.  Secondhand bikes go real cheap because Saudi's don't like to buy secondhand goods and the Harley shop doesn't have room to keep the returned bikes.

Downstairs is the clubroom, where you can grab a tea or coffee and peruse more bikes some of which are owned and loved.

We like to go bike riding with a group of friends on weekend mornings - the streets are usually relatively empty.  As everybody in KSA knows, the driving here is manic in vehicles of the four wheeled variety.  Being on a motorbike requires being very aware. 

The mornings are also a lot cooler for bike riding.  During the summer we leave a lot earlier so we're back before we melt in our gear.  The winters we get to sleep in for about an hour.

The camera goes on our rides too.  Here's a short video of one of our rides.




I was asked if it's dangerous riding motorbikes in Riyadh.  The short answer is Yes.  The long answer contains words and phrases like experience, care and awareness.  If you're a biker at heart Riyadh isn't going to phase you.



Ka Kite,
Kiwi