Gottatour

Has anyone here done it recently? I want to ship my bike to London end of June, meet my wife there, tour Scotland, Wales & England, then return end of July. I know I can get quotes from all kinds of shippers, but I figured it might be easier if someone here has already done this recently. All I need is a ball park figure.

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TQuentin1

You seem a bit upset in your post below that no one had replied to your question above. That is a VERY specific situation that you are asking about, and may not be one that our members have done. Shipping bike Toronto to London, return! I would think most folks considering this sort of trip would just rent one there in London.

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TQ

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Gottatour

Thank you for your reply.

That is a possibility, but if you rent, you pay through the nose if your stay is longer than a few weeks. And you have insurance and all the other stuff associated with rentals. My objective is to have my own bike there and use it for a few months...or more. Hence the question on shipping.

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sprinklerfitter669

you may have to follow different EPA laws over their ?


better do more research, or find a good deal on renting for a extended period

nakkers

As attractive as it would be to have your own bike to tour the UK for a month or two, I think the shipping costs would be cost prohibative.


I'm sure there are folks that have done this but, they likely have a connection that lets them get the shipping taken care of and maybe not for the limited duration you're looking at.

Like the military etc.

It's like you're inbetween. Longer than a rental but, shorter than being a temporary resident.

I'd check with some family members that you're visiting about the possibility of buying a bike there and then selling it when you're done with it. I know it still not your bike, but it might just fit the bill to enjoy the country side on two wheels with unlimited access.

I know it maybe an unreasonable suggestion no matter who's budget but, travelling for a few months abroad isn't cheap itself and then having a bike for the whole time, isn't something that happens often. At least that I'm aware.

Good luck.

airforceacop

well I can tell you it's cheaper to buy a new bike......I'm Cdn and live in germany....I'm a member of HOG europe and sent an email to the HOG shipper asking how much to ship my sportster back to T.O from Germany for a friend to sell for me. I was quoted $5700.00 guess what...I"II wait 3 three more years and have the military ship it with my RKC and the rest of my stuff......I was shocked....and that was suppose to a deal for being a member of HOG

cromwell

It cost me $10,000 USD to move my bike and household goods from Patrick Air Force Base FL to Limerick, Ireland.

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airforceacop

Was that your retirement move...normally the USAF pays your move when you PCS right? That's how it works in the Canadian Mil were allowed so many pounds per family size I'm allowed like 20,000 and anything over that i have to pay for.

Gottatour

I checked out Horizons Unlimited Bulletin Board.
Here is info from JParks:

We ended up shipping with Stefan Knopf of Knopf Tours (knopftours.com). He has a shipment of bikes going by sea/truck from Orlando to Heidelberg every Spring for about $1000, all included. I was lucky in that a friend of Stefan's was passing through taking his own bike down to Orlando and agreed to take mine down for a very reasonable fee. By the way, before I knew this was an option I had tried soliciting US ground shipping service quotes using uShip.com and had quite a good response. Anyway, this Spring's shipment has already sailed so that's not an option for you this year.

Knopf also offers air shipping to Frankfurt, which isn't as date dependent, for about $1800 from east coast cities. I think the cheapest quote I got for air shipping was from Berklay. I think it was about $1500 via Lufthansa. I tried contacting Lufthansa and Virgin Cargo directly to see if I could save some money by dealing directly with the carrier. Lufthansa told me that I would need to be "dangerous goods certified" and be able to "prepare the documents for this shipment" then referred me to Berklay. Virgin told me that I would be classified as an "unknown shipper", a designation that the TSA prohibits on passenger aircraft.

These are one way prices from US to Europe by the way. It seems that generally shipping from Europe to US is more expensive so you may consider storing with someone like Knopf even after your Spring 2010 ride. The one place I found that was cheaper from EU to US (~$1000 air) had super expensive prices from US to EU (~$2500 air, ~$1300 sea) -- jamescargo.com.

Now that I think of it, you may want to ask Stefan Knopf about his Spring shipments from Heidelberg to Orlando for Daytona bike week.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

This was posted on 25 March/09, so prices may well have changed.

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cromwell

Nope. I retired out of Aviano It to Limerick. Then had to move to Florida for family reasons and back to Ireland for family reasons. Hopefully will not have to do it again. Each trip seems to cost me $10k. That is a 40ft shipping container door to door.

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