America’s top motorcycle travel company, EagleRider, is celebrating its first year in Australia with plans to expand its stores and fleet.
EagleRider Australia started with just Santina Keith, Will Keith and Simon Gobran who were already involved with Harley-Davidson and “wanted to do something more fun”, says Santina.
“Riding in Australia is amazing and we wanted to share that experience with people from all over the world. We met with EagleRider in Los Angeles and never looked back.”
It took them a couple of years to work out the details, but EagleRider Australia are now the master franchise for the country and have had stores in Sydney and Brisbane for the past year and now a third in Mackay.
“We have plans to expand across the country to every major city,” Santina says. “At the moment we have a national fleet of about 40 Harley-Davidson motorcycles but plan to expand that fleet and to add other brands as we are often asked about Triumph, BMW and Indian rentals.” EagleRider offers guided tours from all three locations that include bikes, fuel, accommodation, chase vehicles and guides. You can view their tours and bikes on their website.
Santina says their customers come from all over the world. “We joke that it is often like the United Nations around here as we may have Swiss, Russian, Chinese, American and Aussie customers at the rental counter at one time.
“Our bikes go out for any length of time and any distance as we offer unlimited kilometres. Our longest rental, so far, was 43 days and he went more than 16,000km. He had great stories to tell and even made a friend in Tennant Creek in the NT.”
The American rider became friends with a Sydney rider and they are now planning a road trip through the US later this year.
“We’ve also met people that came together on EagleRider tours in the US and now they meet in different places each year to ride together. It’s really nice to see how motorbikes bring people together and create life-long friends.”