Buying a bike in South Africa
 

Hi,

I am a resident of the US considering buying a motorcycle in Cape Town and using it to tour around Southern/Eastern Africa. So far I’ve had difficulty tracking down a reliable guide for the initial purchase and registration of the bike as a foreigner traveling on a tourist visa. It seems like getting the TRN (Traffic Registration Number) is the hardest part, given that it not only requires that the applicant have proof of residency in South Africa (I’ve heard I need lease agreement, which I don’t see how I’ll be able to get a hold of) but also can take anywhere up to six weeks to process (which feels like a prohibitively long time to just hang around in Cape Town).

I’ve heard that in some cases travelers were able to get their TRNs in two weeks, which would be an acceptable timeframe, but unless this is a truly reliable time estimate, I’d feel stupid banking my entire trip on the timeliness/consistency of South African bureaucracy. This of course still leaves the question of how to obtain proof of residency.

Despite these obstacles, however, there seem to be a decent number of people who manage to make this kind of trip work. If any of you have done so successfully—or unsuccessfully—any assistance would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks

Four friends of mine (two groups of two) have recently bought bikes and gone through the TRN process. Summary of current situation seems to be:
Johannesburg - won't issue TRN without a 6 month visa (which is not easy to get. Also office is very disorganised.
Cape Town - issued TRN even with normal 3 month tourist visa, but took 4 weeks to come through (although to be fair Christmas fell in the middle of this). Office reportedly much better organised and efficient.

Regarding supporting paperwork with local addresses etc, Duncan and Eli at African Overlanders in Stellenbosch are the persons to contact (and to stay with when you are in the Cape Town region).

Suggestion for using the TRN wait period profitably - hire a car and do some of the game parks which you can't do with a bike.

Sent from my SM-P350 using Tapatalk

I'm a US resident as well and just recently(December 2015) I got my TRN from Cape Town. It took less than a week from when I handed in my documents.

Check out this thread(http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...le-south-80508) - it has all the info you need.

And another: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...n-tour-80415-2

cheers