The Goal:
Find an Africa Twin RD07 in Europe and bring it home to Canada

The Beginning:
January 2023 is where the story begins. I am tired of riding a Thumper (KLR 2nd Gen). I live in Canada on the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies. Prime country for endless gravel roads through the rolling foothills and mountains. With vast amounts of open area to explore, sometimes hitting the slab for a couple of hours is needed to get you into new areas to explore. Riding a KLR on the highway for hours on end is not enjoyable. I wanted a bike with a bit more jam.
Options to consider:

• T7 (A new or used if you could find one) is easy $12,000+
• BMW 850? Not only is it boring, ugly and well designed to drive to a coffee shop $12,000+ for a used one
• Africa Twin CRF. Massive, Expensive, too many cc. I dont need a Litre bike
• Tiger 800? Again north of $12,000
• KTM/Husk (any)? Electronics...... Ugly, Expensive and the new direction to pay for already installed features really rubs me the wrong way.

What I really want is something I can work on from top to bottom without needing to go to a shop. No new modern electronics and nanny aids. I wanted something simple, basic that I can fix in the middle of nowhere and not need to worry about where the next dealer was located. I also thought that having a unique motorcycle would be a great conversation starter when out on the trails. Ideally sub $10,000 as well. Hmmm, the classic AT's seem to fit the bill. You can find them for $5,000 to $8,000 overseas. But where to get one?

Planning
Problem 1: How to purchase a motorcycle overseas? Where to even look? What Country to purchase from?

Problem 2: Once I find a bike, how can I register it? Get insurance for it?

Problem 3: How do I get it home? Fly it? Ship it?

Problem 4: How can I get it into the country legally?

Problem 5: How can I legally register it and have it legal on the road in Canada?

Solution 1: The exciting part, finding bikes! It's like Christmas all over again. It did not take long to find out some common sites to search for bikes such as Ebay, TheParkingLot, autoscout24, Mobile.de, Marktplaats. Results come back from a variety of countries from Ireland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain..... Literally every European country. Some countries had more up for sale than others. Clearly finding a bike wont be the hard part..... Hold that thought, we will get back to that.

Solution 2: Ok lots of bikes available, how to narrow it down? After some (many) nights diving into Google, Youtube and forums I discovered Germany seemed to be unique. They offer what is called "Export Plates" or Ausfuhrkennzeichen. Basically what this gives you is the ability to purchase a vehicle without having an address in the country. The program allows non-residents the ability to purchase "plates" for the amount of time you would need to get it out of the EU. Anything from 7 days to over 3mths. This gives you registration, covers the taxes and insurance for the amount of time of your choosing. Choose the time based on your needs. OK now we have a target country, plus the Germans are well known to generally be quite particular in vehicle maintenance.

Solution 3: Now that I know where to find a bike, how do I get it home? In February Westjet Airlines announced its Fly and Ride program. Air Canada at one time had a similar program pre-COVID. The intent is to allow people to fly their bike with them (think oversized check baggage) to a country, explore and then bring it home again. Now my goal was not really what the program was designed for. I wanted to fly a bike I purchased overseas and fly it home with me. At this point it did not occur to me that this would become a problem (will explain later how this was in fact an issue). WestJet offered flights from Amsterdam to Calgary. WINNER. The price was OK, not the cheapest at $3150 Canadian, but the bike would not need to sail half way around the world to get to Canada. This was a viable option at this point.

Solution 4: Again it started with the all-knowing Google. Canada has importation laws in place for vehicle. These are to protect its domestic car markets, safety regulations and other protectionist non-consumer-friendly lobby groups. Essentially 15yrs is the magic number. If the bike is older than 15yrs old I don't need to worry about the RIV program. A trip to my local (commercial) customs office at the airport confirmed that all I needed to do was fill out the appropriate form, check the box that the motorcycle was exempt and the rest would be relatively straight forward. More details to follow on the process.

Solution 5: Similar to the importation problem, being 15yrs old (or older) made it a straight forward process. An out-of-province inspection is needed and a trip to the registry. Same process as purchasing a vehicle from another province or from the USA.

Putting the plan into action:
With the answers to the problems above I was fairly confident that the crazy plan might actually work. Next post will be the plan in action.