Trip Planning

Introduction

This section contains:

• Actual Shipments by Travellers
• Links to Shippers
• Air or Sea?
• Shipping / Crating Instructions

Actual Shipments by Travellers

See the Shipping pages for information on air and sea shipments by actual travellers to or from everywhere!

For each shipment, the details include Shipping Date, Cost, Shipper Contact details and a Description of the experience, in many cases very detailed and extremely useful information about the requirements for crating or the paperwork involved at the destination location.

This information has been gleaned from various sources, and not all details are available for every route. If you are aware of any more up-to-date information, or you know of any shipping details for locations which aren't listed below, please advise us. Thanks to all who have contributed this information, keep it coming!

Links to Shippers

Many of the popular shippers are listed here.

Air or Sea?

After shipping our own bike many times, and watching and hearing about hundreds more shipments, we have come to the conclusion that overall, the best method to send your bike is via air. For further details on this topic, see the Shippers page.

General Instructions for Shipping

• Expect you will have to drain the gas and disconnect or remove the battery before air shipping. You may be able to get away with leaving the battery in the bike, but they may insist you remove it. This means you will have to leave it behind and buy a new battery at your destination.

Grant preparing to crate the bike in Cape Town, South Africa

• We usually leave the front wheel on when shipping as we're lazy - it can be an advantage to be able to just wheel the bike out of the crate and drive away, particularly in places like Nairobi. All I usually do is take off the mirrors and windshield, but it does cost a little more. Sometimes the local warehouse where you pick up the bike will not allow you to dismantle the crate there, insisting you take the crate away on a truck. We've always been able to get around this, but it has taken some persuading in the USA.

• Crates can often be obtained from a dealer. Wood crates are the easiest to deal with but many crates are now metal with a cardboard wrapper. They will work, but are harder to custom size. They are lighter, which can be good, but usually the problem with a bike is not the weight but the volume. Shipping costs are calculated on a weight per volume basis. If the weight is over x / cubic foot then you pay the weight, if under you pay based on volume. Bikes are bulky, and you have to work hard to get the volume down in order to pay the weight price. You will have to really squeeze hard to get down to the weight price.

• 
  Strapped down on the base of the crate

• DON'T fully compress the forks. The bike should be tied down on its suspension, about half-way down.

• It should NOT be resting on centre-stand or side-stand, only on its wheels, and vertical. This will not harm the springs (unless you leave it for a couple of years).

• Use good straps (I like 6) and don't skimp on the crate. You can usually get them for nothing from bike dealers, since they usually throw them away anyway. Good straps are often available for free from BMW dealers - they are what BMW uses to ship their bikes, and dealers end up with plenty. They are popular though!

• IF you really want to squeeze the volume down, take the front wheel off, rest the bike on the skidplate or forks (with axle installed and clamps tightened), and tie securely.

Strapping boxes on top, getting as much as possible as small as possible.

To reduce your shipping costs - from Istvan Szlany:

• Dismount front tire with fender, handle bar with mirrors, and side+tail bags/boxes to reduce height, length and width and you'll pay the minimum possible by volume.

• if you can, crate the bike, because then they can put other things on the top of the motorcycle crate. Ask around for scrap wood, nails and hammer - I'm sure they have. In this case you will pay most likely for the weight of the motorcycle (Make sure that you will pay only for the weight of the motorcycle and not for the crate, too.)

Almost done.

For a good description of the crating process, see Chris and Erin Ratay's website.

Also, there are numerous posts on the HUBB on this topic, in the Trip Transport forum.