Shipping across the pond

[skiracer]

Does anyone have experience on shipping a dirt bike to Europe?  I am looking for an economical shipment from the east coast.  One issue I have noticed, is that customs requires a title for the bike.  How do you get around that with a 35 year old dirt bike? Another question is to ship in a crate, or send the bike without a crate?  Any help and direction would be greatly appreciated.....

1976 250 MC5 Original Owner
1976 Penton 175 XC

[thrownchain]

You might want to contact some of the bigger auction houses and see how they get bikes across the pond.

[Daniel P. McEntee]

Several years ago I had the task of shipping three bikes overseas to South Africa to a friend named David Haines. Davey is a fellow VINDURO member whop made several trips over here to ride in the ISDT Reunion Rides and had purchased three bikes over several trips and had them stored with other members. The time came when Davey wanted them in South Africa and I volunteered to help him out on this end. It's a long, interesting story, but the heart of the matter is that if the bikes shipped whole, they had to have the original paper work for each travel with them, NOT copies. Davey did some research and found that they could be broken down into large pieces and shipped as parts. Lots of things fell into place for me, like finding export legal crates for next to nothing and Davey handling all the shipping paperwork and details on his end through a broker, I think. All I had to do was break the bikes down, mix up the parts a bit and get them into three large wood crates. I was given instructions on how to label and mark them, and had them waiting on our loading dock at work for a truck to pick them up. They went south and out of the country through a port in Georgia. They arrived at his front door about a month or so later, and with in a couple of hours he had one bike (a H'79 Husky 250WR) assembled and running! The other two bikes were a '76 Rokon and a Kawasaki 250 four stroke. It was an interesting endeavor and all went well. You might want to try something similar and have the guy on the other end take care of the details as it will probably be easier for him to find the short cuts. I live in the metro St. Louis, MO area and the crates left from here. It may help if you can get him to have some other parts shipped to mix things up for better appearances. Good luck with it!
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[JP Morgen]

From my experience bike needs a title to leave the US. Sold one to Australia, took it apart and shipped as "parts".

[Leo Keller]

Some years ago Speedy Clasen sent my 2003 Reunion Ride Hercules from Canada to Germany. The best way was to send some parcels with DHL as "used vintage motorcycle parts", but the frame and the engine was shipped in a crate, also as vintage motorcycle parts. I had to pay customs only for frame and motor.
I don't know if this was the cheapest way, but it worked.

[skiracer]

Thanks so much guys!  It sounds like shipping parts is the way to go!

1976 250 MC5 Original Owner
1976 Penton 175 XC

[skiracer]

Any idea what the cost was?  I was just looking at the DHL site, and their cost was twice the price to ship a complete bike...

quote:Originally posted by Leo Keller

Some years ago Speedy Clasen sent my 2003 Reunion Ride Hercules from Canada to Germany. The best way was to send some parcels with DHL as "used vintage motorcycle parts", but the frame and the engine was shipped in a crate, also as vintage motorcycle parts. I had to pay customs only for frame and motor.
I don't know if this was the cheapest way, but it worked.

1976 250 MC5 Original Owner
1976 Penton 175 XC