bike rentals in Kazakstan? SilkOffRoad.KZ??
 

Next year we are thinking of riding around Tajikistan and Kyrgystan for 4 - 5 weeks. Instead of spending a lot of time and money getting there and back we are considering renting bikes in Alamaty. The only outfit that seems to be doing such businisss there is SilkOffRoad.KZ. There are other outfits found on the internet that rent out bikes, but they may possibly get the bikes from SilkOffRoad. Does anybody have any experience with these folks and their bikes? We are looking at their Suzuki's DR650. It is not cheap to rent bikes, but we probably would spend the same money in getting there and back, let alone shipping bikes from the US to Europe. The Russian visa alone cost us last year $500 pp. We would rather spend some quality time in Tajik and Kyrg instead of spending 3 - 4 weeks going thru Russia/Kazakstan.

Anybody know these guys and their bikes?

KP

I know Marat Luchezarni who normally runs the tours.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2567/...3ec_z.jpg?zz=1

He is a decent guy.

I am not aware of any complaints about Silk Off Road

We got a response from Marat. His website shows rentals, but I am not so sure how serious he is about that vs tours. For independent travelers he wants a $7000 deposit. I can live with that although I have never rented a vehicle and had to put a deposit in for its full value. It does take a bit of a leap of faith.

This is the deal breaker though: He will let me know in May if he will rent us the bikes, which ofcourse does not work at all. He is organizing a tour and I guess that takes away from bike rentals. Bummer, I thought i had something going for next summer, but I will have to come with an alternate plan.

KP

I didnt know they rented bikes ... I only knew about the tours. Definitely the tours are their main gig.