Morocco Pick up + Bike
 

Hi I planning a trip to Morocco early next year I'm intending to take my CRF 250 in the back of my pick up. So I can travel around and unload the bike and ride day loops from campsites or hotels. I'm hoping this will give me the best of both worlds. A nice light bike to make the most of the riding and the extra carrying capacity that a 4x4 will offer.

Has any one done this, are there any issues I should think of? My main concern is loading and unloading the bike safely I have dropped it on occasion when unloading after a days riding and would hate to mess up my trip by damaging the bike while unloading it.

My other slight concern is paper work on entering Morocco, my bikes V5 is all in my name but the pick up is in our companies name will this cause me any problems?

Any advice will be gratefully received.

Ross

I took my van and my KTM 640 Adventure to Mongolia this summer. I used the van to drive to/from Mongolia and the bike in mongolia. Have been thinking about doing the same to morroco from Sweden. However I would probably park the van somewhere safe in south Spain/North Moocco and then ride the bike in Morocco.

Thanks Spakur, I've got friends in Malaga in Spain and did think of leaving the pick up there but the CRF is no good for road miles. I take it from what you wrote that you would not be happy about leaving a van in Morocco unattended for a prolonged period of time.

Hi Ross - as long as you have the original V5 (not a copy, although a decent colour photocopy is very difficult to spot these days), plus a letter from your company stating you are the keeper of the vehicle and have their permission to use it, you should have no problem getting the pick-up in and out of Morocco (I did this with a press Land Rover a couple of years ago).

Remember you will need to have adequate vehicle insurance for Morocco too, and while most UK policies cover Europe, they won't include Morocco automatically - but it is possible to get a green card extension for the duration of your stay.

As for loading the bike in and out - a friend of mine does this regularly on his own (he used to have a CRF250 in fact) and uses a pair of folding loading ramps (try bike shows or eBay), one to walk up and down, and one for the bike.

I would say that if you park your pickup in a hotel or campsite car park you'll be fine - they often have a 'security guard' at larger hotels... Parking on the street might attract (the wrong) attention?, especially in a big town/city so try and avoid that perhaps?

Either way, if you're only going to be riding away for a day or two I doubt you'd have any problems?

xxx

I wouldn't mind park the van in Morocco (or any other country) as far as I found a safe place to park (camping/hotel/etc). I would set up a camp for a few days in one location and then do a couple of 1-2 day rides from that camp so that I don't spend to much time driving. That way you don't also have to find a new safe parking every day, which can be boring.

A good idé is to remove the ignition fuse from the car (or some other crusial component) when you go off riding.

Have fun!

I did a similar trip a couple of years ago with an XR400R in the back of my Navara Outlaw. I used twin ramps, one for the bike, the other for me to walk up. I had a length of C channel in the pickup bed so that none of the weight of the bike was on the tailgate.

The XR400R is notorious for starting problems and at one stage I couldn't get the beast going. Left it overnight and it still wouldn't start. I couldn't get the bike back into the pickup on my own so I reversed the pickup into a ditch so I could roll it on more easily.

http://www.infar.co.uk/tim/gs/IMG_0035e.jpg

However, because the pickup bed was at an angle, as soon as the bike wheels were in the C channel, the whole caboodle started to slide back over the tailgate and only by a herculean effort did I save a disaster. :)

Otherwise it was fine!

Tim

PS: You ought to try the Cirque du Jaffar in the Jebel Ayachi west of Midelt. You could leave the truck either at Camping Timnay (20 miles north of Midelt) or at Auberge de Jaffar which is four miles to the west of Midelt.

Thanks for all the replies! I've just bought a folding ramp for loading the bike and am about to order a second one so I've got one for me and one for the bike. I'm going to practice loading and unloading as much as I can before I leave so hopefuly by the time I'm there I'll be ok. My main problem is I'm 5ft2 and 10.5 stone so if the bike starts leaning to much I can't save it!

Tim I like your use of the ditch to aid loading I'm planning to take advantage of any geographic features to make my life easyier. Is it a good idea to make some brackets to fix the ramps together to stop them sliding apart?

JMO Thanks for the advice on the paper work. Now I've got that sorted I can start doing a bit more route planning!

Thanks again.

Ross