Lobagola - Moto Tours etc
 

Any comments available on this Croatian outfit near Zagreb? Especially re storage & shipping? Thanx!!

Much discussed over the years here. I'd suggest plugging "Lobagola" into the search box in the upper right corner of this page, then peruse to your heart's content.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Nothing recent or helpful. I see promotion stuff - no comments ...

Best to avoid. I've had dealings with Dooby in the past and found him to be unhelpful and rude. Stefan Knopf in Germany offers a friendly, reliable and professional service storing and shipping bikes.

On the contrary, I have had dealings with Dooby (the owner of Lobagola) numerous times over the past 10 years, and always found him to be a pleasant, honest, and helpful person.

He started out by operating a friendly, high-end hostel for riders in Zagreb, and has expanded into other related areas over the years - provision of insurance for non-European bikes, storage of motorcycles at his facility, and more recently operating tours. I don't have any experience with his tour operations, but his hostel is certainly a pleasant place to stay and he is efficient with provision and processing of insurance.

Here's a link to his website: Lobagola Mototours.

Stefan Knopf offers similar services, but from a base in central Germany. I think that the choice between the two simply comes down to where you plan to ride (Balkans vs. Northern Europe) and where you plan to fly into (Croatia vs. Germany). Both operators - Lobagola & Knopf - are well-established businesses that have been around for many years and are well known by the regulars here on the HUBB. Mototouring offers similar services from their base in Milan, Italy. I've used Mototouring in the past for insurance and for storage, they are competent.

IMT Touring offers similar services (rental, storage, tours, etc.) from their bases in Madrid and Malaga, Spain. I've used them for storage and they are very professional.

I think that Knopf offers some shipping services (consolidating a number of motorcycles into a container shipment between Europe and the USA a few times a year), I don't think that either Lobagola or Mototouring do shipping. But, for Canadian based riders, both Air Canada and WestJet offer 'individual' motorcycle shipping during the summer months between various Canadian airports & a choice of European destinations - it would probably be a lot simpler to check out those two airlines if you want to ship a moto between Canada & Europe and vice-versa.

Michael

Thanks for the response. I appreciate your viewpoint.

Lobagola
 

Thank you Michael. Good that folks speak as they find - instead of as they hear.

No problem, I'm happy to help.

So far as trans-Atlantic shipping goes, we in Canada are really fortunate, because we have three different Canadian airlines offering motorcycle shipping services.

There's a discussion here on the HUBB about WestJet, who are a new entry to the market for moto shipping. I have no experience with them.

Air Canada has been doing motorcycle shipping for about 5 years now. I have used them once, no problems.

Air Transat has been doing motorcycle shipping for at least 20 years. I've used them several times, but always by booking the shipment through a New York state company called Motorcycle Express. Motorcycle Express looks after a lot of the details that the owner would otherwise have to deal with themselves if they dealt directly with the airline - so for that reason, I recommend investigating their services first before contacting the airline directly.

If you are in Newfoundland, WestJet might be the most attractive option for you if they offer shipping out of Halifax. I'm pretty sure that Air Transat only offers motorcycle shipping service out of Toronto and Montreal.

An airline needs to operate a widebody (twin-aisle) aircraft on a route in order to offer motorcycle shipping, and I don't think Air Canada operates trans-Atlantic services out of the Maritime provinces using widebodies - I think they use A321 or B737 aircraft out of the east coast, and neither of them can fit a motorcycle into the cargo hold.

Michael

:Check out Canada's CargoJet too. Thru Cologne DE to several Canadian airports - tho they require crating I believe. My tour mate shipped his GS from. St. John's and Knopf sorted the arrival formalities and reassembly just last September - all we t well!