|
Frequently Asked Questions Here are some answers to the questions that I've been asked most often. If you have any other questions, please drop us a line. Q: What kind of camera do you use? I'm a devout Nikon fan. Most of the California trip was taken using a Nikon Coolpix S3 and a Nikon Coolpix 880. For the Europe trip we upgraded to a Nikon Coolpix S1 and a Nikon Coolpix S50. I do very little post-processing in Adobe Photoshop. Just cropping and sometimes Auto-Color. I'm thinking about eventually getting some kind of DSLR, but in addition to the point-and-shoots we have, since they don't fit very well in a jacket pocket. Q: How much did it cost to ship your motorcycles to Europe? Who did you use? We used a company called Motorcycle Express. We shipped from Toronto to London and then Munich back to Toronto. Here is a breakdown of the costs:
Customs + shipping & handling cost in the UK was about £200 per bike. Shipping & handling in Munich was about €150 per bike. Shipping & handling in Toronto was about $65 CAN per bike Insurance is mandatory for riding in Europe and was purchased from Motorcycle Express as well and was about $600 USD per bike for 1 month of coverage The good is that they took care of all the Dangerous Goods paperwork for the shipping, and arranging between the airline and the freight forwarding (cargo) people. All we had to do was show up and drop the bikes off. The bad is that they don't handle any customs. You have to have cash in hand (no credit card accepted) and almost all the time it's in another building, so you need to get the paperwork from the cargo people, walk to the customs office, pay the dues to discharge your bike, and then bring the paperwork back to the cargo folks to release your bike. This can take anywhere from 2-3 hours to the whole day depending on how competent the cargo/customs people are. Q: I am planning an overseas motorcycle trip for xx weeks. Would you recommend I rent or ship? As you can see from above, shipping is an expensive process, but most bike rentals in Europe start at $100USD/day for a very basic, no frills bike, and get more expensive the better the bike you want to rent. So around a month (we were gone for 32 days), the cost starts to break even. Anything less than that, I'd save the hassle of customs and rent a bike wherever you are going. One nice thing about shipping is that we put all our gear and luggage on the bike, so when we boarded the plane, we had no carry-on or check-in luggage at all! If you were renting, imagine all the gear (helmet, suits, tank bags) that you'd have to check-in at the airport! I think the biggest benefit of shipping is that you aren't locked into doing a round trip with a rental motorcycle - having to return it to the same place you rented it from. This is fine if you are touring a specific area, but if you intend on travelling through many different countries, you effectively double your travel time having to backtrack to your point of origin. Another option for folks who travel for extended periods of time (more than 6 months) is to buy a motorcycle at their destination and then sell it at the end of their trip. However for a trip lasting only a few weeks, it is definitely cheaper to rent. Keep in mind that unless you have a private seller lined up to buy the bike, you might not be able to sell your bike at the best price, especially when you have a flight to catch tomorrow. Most people who sell the bike will arrange a pre-negotiated residual (subject to mileage and wear/damage) with the dealer before they buy it. Keep in mind that if you do buy a new, more expensive bike, you will never recover the taxes you paid when you bought the bike originally. So, for instance, 10% tax of a $20,000 motorcycle is $2000 which you don't recover when you sell the bike back. $2000 is already the cost of shipping your own bike to London and back. And you still haven't paid the depreciation on the bike when you sell it back to the dealer! Another option is to ship the motorcycle you bought back home, which a lot of folks do for models you can't buy in North America. Travelers to India buy a Royal Enfield, tour around Asia and then ship these beauties back home. Our next long trip, we're probably going to do this, mainly because a European bike will have a warranty that is honoured in Europe. Our bikes were not covered for warranty work or roadside assistance, which cost me an arm and a leg when I had to tow it from Cote D'azur to Monaco! If you are buying/selling, you might also need to outfit the bike for long-term travel. You might need a custom seat/windscreen, GPS mount, luggage+liners. Shipping your own bike means that you're kitted out from the start with everything that's already familiar to you. Q: What software did you use to create this site?
|
notepad.exe and Adobe Photoshop to crop the pictures.