Cape Town - Ralf Ketzer and his partner had a motorcycling weekend getaway all planned - only to find there was simply no way to safely put two people and their kit for a weekend on to a modern sports bike.
So they tried to rent a big tourer, only to find that the only ones they could get in Cape Town were either American or German - and prohibitively expensive to rent. So they stayed home and rented a video instead.
Which is what gave Ketzer the idea – wouldn’t it be nice if you could take out a contract and rent a bike whenever you wanted to go for a ride? And, like a video contract, it wouldn’t have to be the same bike every time.
After all, a big, powerful motorcycle costs money just standing there – especially if you ride it less than once a month. Not only for registration and insurance - whether you ride it or not – but also electricity for the battery tender (especially if you don’t ride it enough) and maintenance (again, especially if you don’t ride it enough).
And so Dream Rides Rental Club was born, for people who love riding big bikes but can’t ride often enough to justify the expense of owning one
TOP UP WITH EXTRA DAYS
The principle is simple; the minimum membership period is 12 months, and there are two annual contracts on offer. Commit to a seven-day contract for R755 a month, and you get one weekend and five weekdays a year, in any combination you want, on your choice of the club’s bikes. And that's it, there are no extra costs except for fuel, so it works out to a fixed cost of R1295 a day.
Commit to a 14-day contract for R1166 a month and you get two weekends and 10 weekdays during that year - that's a fixed cost of R999 a day. And, like airtime for your pre-paid ‘phone, you can always top up with extra days at a discounted club rate.
There are Ts and Cs, Ketzer admits; to make the insurance costs viable members must be at least 35 years old, with an unlimited motorcycle driving licence and at least five years riding experience.
And what bikes can you hire? Now this is where it gets interesting, because you get to choose the bikes - whether you like cruising the boulevards on a custom V-twin, carving the canyons on a superbike or long-hauling on an adventure tourer.
Ketzer has set up an interactive survey on his website , where people who are serious about joining the club are invited to choose what they’d most like to be riding from a list of about fifty high-end motorcycles – and to join the club at a discounted rate.
Once membership numbers reach the break-even point, Ketzer will tally up the survey, and the club will buy the bikes that get the most votes. Even then, your choices are not cast in stone. Since each machine will be replaced at a certain mileage, the bikes will always be the latest models, and always those chosen by the members.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your video outlet asked you which movies you’d like to see?
Ketzer plans to launch the club in the fourth quarter of 2015, operating from the Viper Lounge motorcycle shop in Table View. And, having seen the list of motorcycles on the survey, we’ll be most interested to see what the members opt for.
IOL