Travel with Canadian DR650 in europe
 

I would like to ship m DR650 to Europe for use over the next few years.
Would plan to store it during the winter.
Is it allowed to tour in Europe with this bike as it does not meet current regulations?

Cheers,

Dave

You're going to run into problems keeping the bike here long-term, IIRC if it's in Europe for more than 6 months it needs to be registered here. You'll need 3rd party insurance, and maybe proof of a roadworthiness test pass, too.

You can get away with being in Europe longer just as long as you never get pulled over or get in an accident, if either of those things happen you can expect to be put through the legal shredding machine.

If the bike is legal in the country where it is registrated then it depends on your country of residence.
If your official residence is outside Europe then yes.
If you are officially a resident in a European country then you may ride it all over Europe except in your country of residence. This applies to most, if not all, countries

Storage is a grey area. I know many people do this and almost everyone seems to get away with it because there is not much control on this. But officially according to customs rules it is not allowed.

Most European countries have specific regulations to prevent import and long term use of vehicles that are not registered in that country. This is to prevent people circumventing rules for paying import and road taxes, insurances, and avoiding yearly roadworthy inspections. To name but few reasons.
You can tour with the bike as long as all the paperwork is in order and it is road legal in the country it's registered in. If your country requires yearly inspections they have to have been carried out.
This makes long term storage difficult.

Even if you have all the paperwork in order. If the police officer that stops you deems you or your vehicle dangerous they have authority to prevent you from using it. Similar to the problem Ed March and Rachel had in Canada.

I'd rent a bike. If that is not possible I'd look into buying a bike registered in Europe (which has its own set of difficulties).

I will answer to the best of my knowledge and understanding on the topic as a fellow Canadian with a bike in Europe. This is assuming you do not have any residency in Europe and are only visiting on a tourist visa. First I will say that the two biggest potential issues are keeping your bike properly registred, and second not running into issues after periods of extended storage. Greencard insurance is available that covers basic 3rd party in most parts of Europe, for the countries that arent covered then policies are usually available at the border for these few countries. UK is trickier since it left EU it isnt covered by most green card policies and seems problematic to get. A few places are able to sell for this, but in general it is quite expensive and not that easy to find. For any of these policies to be legal your bike needs to have current legal registration and in BC where I am from this seems to mean ICBC coverage. It's possible a storage policy might work for this, I havent looked at the wording but basically when your policy lapses then the registration is not considered current. Check your own provinces policy on this if it's an issue. The other is if there are yearly vehicle inspections required for motorcycles in your province then technically this would also have to be complied with and its doubtful that would be possible to do if bike is overseas. Some people do fudge the paperwork a bit, manage to get insurance and pass borders but may not technically be compliant and are at risk in case of an accident. The second issue is that while EU acts as a common zone each country has their own amount of time a foreign vehicle can be inside their borders without being legally imported. From memory most countries are 3-6 months or something along these lines. Since most EU countries have no border checks this mostly applies to EU/UK citizens living in another EU country or leaving a vehicle there for holiday use. Their have been crackdowns in spain for example on UK vehicles that have been in use there for years and now that UK has left EU its more obvious and problematic for some. For North Americans and Australians etc. it seems to be not really a major concern, probably as there are so few of these vehicles in Europe. Many people leave their vehicles for multi-year periods and return to use the bike for a few months at a time and are never questioned. Some of the countries do actually have border checks where they look at vehicle documents and check for green card insurance etc. I think between Greece and Bulgaria this is done and also between Bulgaria and Romania, and Montenegro and some of the Adriatic countries require their own insurance policies to be purchased at the border so when you enter or exit these countries documents will also be checked. Depending on where your bike originally enters Europe you may receive an official temporary importation permit with some specific dates of validity or not. This is all to say that technically there is a paper trail of when the bike entered and left the various countries and by comparing this to your own entry and exits from Europe it could be determined that you were not in compliance with EU temporary importation rules. Practically speaking it seems nobody really cares. You need to present your documents as mentioned at some borders, and basically as long as you have proper ownership, registration and active insurance coverage you should be fine. I took the ferry to Morocco and on return to Spain was only asked to present my passport and no bike documents were needed. So, I can say that for me there is no active Temporary importation documents issued and it is unlikely the bike is in any Spanish or European system. This is most likely the case for people crossing to Turkey and back to Europe.
EU has been talking about activating an ETA visa policy to which Canadians would be subject. As far as I know that has not been enacted yet, but it is possible when this does happen, all of your entries and exits may be clearly visible every time you present your passport to immigration. This could also make it more obvious that the bike had not recently been brought to Europe and questions could be asked. As mentioned up until this point it has not been an issue and it seems that dozens or perhaps 100's of travellers have managed without incident. Most likely none of this is even an issue unless you are involved in an accident at which time the insurance company may use that as a way to avoid covering the incident.

Or you can ask your friend in Europe and buy a bike on his name. That is the easiest way. Just add your name to the insurance so you can drive it legally. Then you can sell this bike when you don't need it.

After buying a few bikes in Europe, storing, insuring, etc, i think shipping a bike over is actually the path of least resistance.

As for the 6month rule... I thought that if the bike left the EU (or Europe, or Schengen zone, whatever), then the 6 months starts over again... I would look into that.

You're thinking of the rules for a person visiting on a tourist visa.

If a vehicle isn't being used then it can sit there until it rusts away to nothing - the moment the tyres hit a public road, however, things become a different manner legally. Here in Spain, for example, a foreign registered bike being brought out of long-term storage within the country would need to pass the import procedure within 30 days.

The 6 months is usually 6 months over a 12 month period.