California to Turkey
The first 900 miles of my journey from California to Turkey saw me driving to Vancouver International Airport Cargo terminal. The plan was to leave the bike, a 2005 R1200GS, with Swissport to be shipped via AirTransat to Glasgow, Scotland.
This was a little more eventful than I would have liked, as SwissPort could not find my booking. Fortunately a call to my shipping agent, Mike Mandell from Motorcycle Express, sorted out the issue. He got on the line to the AirTransat Operations Director who handled it personally. I smiled and joked with the cargo staff, as getting stressed would have been pointless.
The drive from Boulder Creek, California to Vancouver was pretty uneventful. The Givi windshield mounting bolts broke, but zip ties in my tool kit are providing a temporary fix. I may replace the Givi with a factory windshield if I can pick one up en route.
The bike speedo is also misbehaving - fluctuating wildly, but not all the time. This is an ongoing issue. I think there is a kink in the wiring loom, but the dealer has been unable to find it despite weeks of trying. It seems worse when coming off the throttle. My solution is to put my secondary GPS in front of the speedo so I can’t see it!
Other than that, I stayed at three non descript AirBnBs in Medford, OR, Ferndale, WA and Vancouver, BC. Oh, and the traffic through Seattle is REALLY horrible. Especially as WA doesn’t allow lane splitting.
I wandered around Vancouver after leaving the bike. Great weather and fantastic scenery. I walked a long way, which I thought would loosen me up after 18 hours in the saddle.
I fly out tomorrow. Fingers crossed, the bike will be waiting in Scotland for me….
Last edited by selecw; 11 Jul 2019 at 08:08.
Reason: Update
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