Most riders come to Bali on a scooter. A beaten-up Honda Click, maybe a semi-auto if they’re feeling adventurous. That works fine for getting around the south, dodging the traffic in Seminyak, grabbing a coffee in Canggu. But if you pull into Bali on a proper big bike, something changes. The roads start making sense in a way they don’t from a 125cc. You stop seeing Bali as a beach destination with some traffic problems and start seeing it as one of the best riding islands in Southeast Asia. That’s the version of Bali that this is about.
Big bike touring in Bali is genuinely underrated. Most of the conversation around Indonesia motorcycle travel goes straight to Java, the Bromo crater, the long haul across the archipelago. And that’s a great conversation. But Bali deserves its own chapter, and not because of the rice paddies on everyone’s Instagram. Because of what happens when you get off the main roads and start climbing.
Getting a Big Bike in Bali
Let’s start with the practical stuff. Renting a proper touring or adventure bike in Bali is possible but requires some legwork. Most rental shops in Kuta, Seminyak and Canggu are scooter operations, full stop. For anything above 250cc, you need to look specifically in Ubud or the northern resort areas around Lovina, or go through one of the specialist rental outfits that have started catering to the growing adventure touring crowd. Rates for a 400-650cc adventure bike run around 400,000 to 700,000 Indonesian rupiah per day, which is roughly 25 to 45 USD at current rates. That’s not cheap by local standards, but it’s still less than what you’d pay in Thailand for the equivalent machine.
You need an international driving permit that covers motorcycles, and technically Indonesian law requires a local SIM as well. In practice, enforcement varies enormously depending on where you are and who you encounter. The safest approach: get your IDP sorted before you leave home, keep your passport and documents on you, and don’t argue with anyone in a uniform. The Indonesian traffic police are generally more interested in locals without helmets than in foreign tourers on big bikes, but that’s no reason to be sloppy.
The Roads Nobody Talks About
Bali’s road network is more layered than it looks. The big tourist corridor, running from the airport up through Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu and on to Ubud, is genuinely awful for riding: narrow, congested, full of hire cars and delivery trucks with no spatial awareness. Avoid it on a big bike unless you enjoy a particular kind of suffering.
The moment you turn east from Ubud toward Sidemen, or head north toward Kintamani, the whole situation changes. Roads get narrower but emptier. The tarmac quality improves once you’re above the tourist zone. You start hitting corners that actually require thought, long sweepers across ridgelines with the sea visible on both sides on clear days, and climbs through coffee plantations where the temperature drops enough that you stop sweating through your jacket. That’s the Bali that rewards big bike touring.
Mount Agung and the East
Mount Agung is the obvious magnet. At 3,031 metres, it’s the highest point in Bali and a sacred site for Balinese Hinduism. You can’t ride to the summit, obviously, but the roads that circle its lower flanks are some of the best in the island. The route through Sidemen on the southeast side puts you on a road that winds through terraced rice fields with Agung filling the entire northern sky when it’s not in cloud. Most days it’s in cloud by mid-morning, so an early start is not optional here, it’s essential.
Further east, the coastal road toward Amed and Tulamben hugs the shoreline with the volcano behind you and the Lombok Strait ahead. The road is narrow, the traffic is light, and the landscape is properly dramatic: black sand beaches, traditional fishing boats, a landscape that looks nothing like the Bali of the tourist brochures. This stretch is consistently one of the best riding days you can have on the island, and it connects naturally to the north coast road if you want to loop the whole island over two or three days.
Jatiluwih and the UNESCO Rice Terraces
Jatiluwih sits in central-western Bali, about an hour’s ride from Ubud. It’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of the subak irrigation system, which has been managing rice cultivation on Bali’s slopes for a thousand years. You’ve probably seen pictures. What the pictures don’t prepare you for is the scale of it from a moving bike, the way the terraces stack up into the hillside for kilometre after kilometre, the light shifting as clouds move across the slopes.
The road to Jatiluwih and through to Pupuan is one of the best continuous stretches of riding in Bali. You’re up at altitude, the surface is decent, and the corners come in quick enough succession that you actually need to concentrate. After Pupuan the road drops toward the northwest coast through clove and coffee country, and you can loop back south toward Tabanan or continue to the Menjangan peninsula if you have time. This is big bike touring territory in the proper sense: a full day of varied roads with something worth looking at around every corner.
North Bali: The Other Island
Cross the central mountain spine toward Singaraja and Lovina and you’re in a different Bali. The north is drier, quieter, and gets a fraction of the tourist traffic that defines the south. The road over the mountains via Kintamani, past the volcanic caldera lake of Batur, is a set piece of Indonesian riding: caldera views on one side, temple spires emerging from the mist on the other, the tarmac occasionally disappearing into sections that were apparently last repaired during a previous geological era.
Once you’re down in the north, the coastal road toward Lovina and the Bali Barat National Park is genuinely relaxed riding. Small villages, traditional market towns, the occasional dolphin-watching boat launch giving you a reason to stop and eat something local. The northwest tip of the island, around Gilimanuk where the ferry to Java departs, has some of the emptiest roads on Bali, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your tolerance for heat and isolation.
Crossing to Java: The Natural Extension
If you’re on a big bike and you’ve done Bali properly, the Java ferry from Gilimanuk becomes a hard thing to resist. The crossing to Ketapang takes about 45 minutes and costs almost nothing. A motorcycle goes on with no drama. And then suddenly you’re on Java, which is a completely different proposition: a densely populated island the size of England with 150 million people, an active volcano that still smokes, ancient Hindu and Buddhist temple complexes rising from the rice fields, and road conditions that range from excellent to genuinely interesting.
That’s the next chapter. But Bali first. A proper loop of the island on a big bike, three or four days minimum, hitting the east coast, the central highlands, the north, and the rice terrace belt through the middle, gives you a riding experience that most people who visit Bali never access. They’re welcome to the beach clubs. The roads up here are better anyway.
What to Know Before You Go
Riding in Bali traffic requires a different mentality than European or North American road use. Lane discipline is approximate, road signs are occasional, and everyone operates on a system of mutual acknowledgment rather than formal right-of-way. It sounds chaotic until you spend a few hours in it and realise it actually works reasonably well, as long as you match the pace rather than fighting it. On a big bike you have the power to overtake safely when you need to, which is a genuine advantage over the scooter crowd.
Fuel is cheap and widely available. Pertamax, the higher-octane fuel you want for a bigger engine, is available at all proper Pertamina stations, which are easy to find outside the tourist south. In more remote areas you’ll see plastic bottle fuel sellers by the roadside. Fine for a scooter, but avoid it for a big bike if you can. The refinery residue situation is not ideal for performance engines.
For big bike touring in Bali, the riding season question is actually less dramatic than in other parts of Southeast Asia. The island gets wet season rains from November through March, but they tend to come in afternoon downpours rather than all-day deluges, which means morning riding is generally fine year-round. If you want the mountain roads in their best condition with maximum visibility, April through October gives you the best odds. Come prepared for rain anyway. It’s Indonesia.