I ride every day. Bukit to Uluwatu, Uluwatu to the market, home after dark on roads with no lights. I'm not going to talk you out of it. I'm going to tell you what nobody at the rental shop will.

The licence reality — read this one twice

Legally, to ride a motorbike in Bali you need two things: a motorcycle licence from your home country, and an International Driving Permit (IDP) endorsed for motorcycles. A car IDP is not enough — the endorsement has to cover two wheels.

Here's the gap that catches people. Renting is trivially easy without any of that — a shop will hand you keys and never ask. Riding without the licence is illegal, and that's the small problem.

Before you leave home: get the motorcycle licence sorted, get the IDP with the motorcycle stamp, and check that your insurance actually covers riding a scooter. Most standard policies exclude motorbikes, or only cover them up to a small engine size, or only if you're licensed. Read the wording.

Whichever you pick, remember the insurer will still want to see the licence and IDP when you claim. The policy covers the bike; you still have to have been legal on it.

Police checkpoints

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Tourist-targeted checkpoints are a fact of life here, historically clustered around Kuta, Legian and Sunset Road, though they move. Police pull over foreign riders and check two things: licence and helmet.

If you're missing either, expect an on-the-spot "fine" of roughly IDR 250,000–500,000. Sometimes it's negotiable cash that never reaches a station; sometimes it's a genuine tilang — an official ticket you pay properly. You often can't tell which you're dealing with in the moment.

How I handle it: carry your documents, always. Be calm, polite, unbothered — this is routine, not a crisis. If you have your licence and IDP, show them and you'll usually be waved on. If they claim a violation you don't understand, you can politely ask for the official tilang ticket. Asking for paperwork tends to shrink an inflated number, because a real ticket has to be justified.

Helmets and the law

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A helmet is legally required for both rider and passenger, and I mean wear it on the two-minute run to the shop too — that's exactly when people come off. The police enforce it and it's the difference between a scrape and a head injury on Bali's roads.

Rental helmets are often flimsy. Wear one anyway; a bad helmet beats none.

Worth knowing: through 2023–24 the authorities tightened the rules on foreign riders after a run of bad behaviour — talk of requiring visitors to use registered rental businesses rather than roadside guys, and floating tighter licensing checks. Enforcement waxes and wanes, but the direction is clear: fewer excuses for tourists on bikes, not more.

Renting well

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Expect roughly IDR 60,000–90,000 a day for a 110–125cc automatic — a Honda Scoopy or Vario, the standard island runabout. Weekly and especially monthly rates are much cheaper per day, so if you're staying a while, don't pay the daily rate.

Rent from an actual shop or from your villa or guesthouse — someone with a name and a fixed address — not a random guy who materialises at the beach. When something goes wrong, you want to know where to find them.

Before you take the keys, inspect the bike:

• Brakes — squeeze both, front and back, rolling it forward. Spongy or grabbing is a no.
• Tyres — tread and no bald patches. This is your only contact with wet roads.
• Lights — headlight, brake light, indicators all working. You'll ride at night whether you plan to or not.
• Horn — not a joke here; it's how everyone signals "I'm here" in traffic.

Then the important part: photograph and video every scratch, dent and scuff before you ride off. Walk around it filming, narrate the damage. This is your defence against the classic damage shakedown, where a scratch that was there all along becomes your fault at return time. It's a well-worn move — see the Bali scams you'll actually meet — and a two-minute video kills it dead.

Actually riding it

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Bali traffic is not orderly and pretending otherwise gets people hurt. Ride like everyone is about to do the wrong thing, because some of them are.

• Assume people will pull out without looking — from driveways, side lanes, the wrong side of the road.
• Watch for dogs, potholes, and unlit trucks on dark roads. Night riding is where it gets dangerous fast.
• Never ride drunk. Obvious, ignored constantly, and a big share of the serious crashes.
• Wet season changes everything — roads flood, and that first rain after dry spell lifts oil to the surface and turns tarmac greasy. Slow right down.
• Know your terrain. The Bukit's cliff roads are steep with blind bends; Ubud's lanes are narrow and clogged. Neither is a place to find your feet.

Use Google Maps, and use a phone mount so you're not steering one-handed at 40kph squinting at a phone in your palm.

Motorbike / scooter phone mount

See it on Amazon

If you're riding through wet season, a dry bag is not optional — a downpour soaks a backpack, and your passport and phone with it.

Waterproof dry bag (10–20L)

See it on Amazon

For petrol, use a real Pertamina station where you can, or the roadside Pertamini pumps and the stalls selling it by the bottle. All fine in a pinch.

The alternatives — and when to take them

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You don't have to ride at all.

Grab and Gojek are the ride-hailing apps — bikes and cars, cheap, with the price fixed in the app so there's no haggling. The catch: some areas have a "taxi mafia" and drivers won't do app pickups there, so you'll see no-pickup zones near certain beaches and markets. Usually you just walk a few hundred metres out and order from there.

A private driver for the day is the civilised way to see the far corners of the island — one car, one price, no parking, no riding home tired after sunset.

Let me be blunt about the biggest question. If you have never ridden a motorbike, Bali is a terrible place to learn. The traffic, the roads, the stakes — none of it forgives a beginner. Take Grab and hire drivers, save the scooter dream for somewhere quiet, and you'll still see everything. Nobody's holiday was ruined by not riding. Plenty were ruined by riding.