The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

In trying to navigate, and not lose your rag with, Cairo’s relentless traffic, purchasing a two-wheeled automobile seems all the more attractive. But as with so many things in Cairo, you have to put in a little more effort to find exactly what you’re looking for. Located on El Lasilky Street in New Maadi, TGB offers up a range of scooters for just that. Whilst we wouldn’t recommend driving these things across bridges and highways, they are definitely highly useful for shorter distances and safer confines.

In front of the shop, or more precisely the showroom, a few scooters are on display; a 300cc, beige Bellavita classic is priced at 28900LE, whilst a larger model, also 300cc, is sold second hand for 26000LE. The smaller 125cc engine scooters are labelled Xmotion and go for 16000LE new or 14000LE if used. They also stock scooters suitable for delivery purposes, which retail for 14800LE.

At the time of our visit, there weren’t many options to choose from, however new shipments of ten scooters come in around every two months; you can reserve one and pre-order a specific colour including grey, white, brown and more.

Inside the small shop there is a variety of accessories pertaining to motorcycles and scooters. There is a decent collection of hard hats, ranging from lightweight, smaller fitting ones (500-600LE), souped-up Harley Davidson versions (1680LE), to full-fledged, heavy-duty motorcycle helmets (2500LE+).

There was also reasonable collection of toolkits, varying in size and equipment, with prices ranging between 60LE and 140LE. We also found body shields and a choice of gloves (100LE-200LE), t-shirts and sweatshirts with random logos, as well as bumper stickers for your ride; these included questionable choices such as a Playboy bunny, a scorpion design and a presumptuous ‘Don’t Kiss Me’ sign (16LE-24LE). The shop also carries some very cool bandanas (40LE), though their quality is not the greatest.

With such big purchases, the staff is always a point of contention in places like this. However, staff at TGB are knowledgeable about there products and were able to answer any questions we had. They were able to converse in true automobile language as well as break things down for those not versed in engine jargon.

While the available options of scooters are lacking, TGB provides an efficient  avenue from which to purchase a scooter – especially if you’re a first-time buyer.