How do I ship a sidecar from eastern USA to Western Europe for a 3 week vacation?

[S7MEC]

James Cargo are a UK based company that may be able to help.

http://www.jamescargo.com/

They shipped my bike to Anchorage a few years ago and were very helpfull indeed. They used the original BMW crate for my bike with an extra lump on top so that the screen etc did not have to be removed. There were all sorts of strange shaped boxes in their warehouse so I'm sure your sidecar outfit would not cause too many problems.

It's not far that from Heathrow to Belgium.

[Sidecarjohn]

Timing at Heathrow may be crucial. Don't forget, London has the Olympics running into August, which could affect travel and shipping plans into the airport.

Current issues with Olympic security problems may not be the end of the story,,,,,,,,,,,,

[norsea]

Originally Posted by sidecarsrfun

Jim, thanks for the suggestion. I've actually been talking with her about green card insurance but never actually asked her to quote air freight. I hadn't seriously considered doing all of this from Canada but what your saying makes sense. Montreal would be about the same distance for us as shipping from NJ. I'll give Gail a call tomorrow and see if she can give me a rough idea of cost etc, to air freight it. I sort of remember her saying something like $2300 each way but that might have been from JFK. I like the idea of being able to put all our gear in it but $2300 each way would be hard for us to justify. Did you do anything other than green card liability insurance? Did you have to do a carnet? Did the entry in to Amsterdam & Frankfort go smoothly? What sort of fees did you have to pay there if you remember?

Bill

Bill,

If that price is correct it is significantly more than we were paying 5 years ago.

As for insurance, if you fly into Germany you can get insurance from the ADAC for a very small fee. This means that you will need to take a train into whatever city you land near to visit their office prior to processing the moto.

As for processing the moto, the only thing anyone ever cared about was bugs; and this was on the incoming side of things. Be sure the moto is very clean prior to drop off.

Carnet is not necessary anywhere in Europe.

Enough English is spoken in Europe these days that you will have no problems at all.

The fees were minimal as in less than $100.

I think it will probably be cheaper for you to rent if the shipping fees you quoted above are accurate.

Good luck,

Jim, who doesn't spend much time here these days. PM me if you want more info...

[Wheresmurph]

Jim, costs, fees and Green Card ins. have doubled or even tripled since you were here 5 years ago, there are no more "Minimal" fees.

Green Card ins will run you $120 per month, you can get it cheaper if you buy it here (here meaning EU which is where I am now) rather than buying it in the US.
My customs fees in Rotterdam when picking up the bike at the Freight Forwarder were 450 Euros or about $550, this included customs, taxes, FF fee and temporary EU visa for 6 months.

Sidecarsrfun's quoted fee of $2300 each way sounds accurate, things have changed a bit since you last traveled Jim.

[sidecarsrfun]

ok, it turned out to be pretty easy to ship our rig to Europe. Keep in mind that this was roro and not in a container. What I did was to call Wallenius Wilhelmsen and made the booking. I sent them pictures of what I was shipping along with the weight, length width and height. They gave me the name of a couple of brokers to call and was fortunate to get an awesome broker that took care of all the details. In the course of my research, I also came up with a broker in Europe that took care of the paperwork on that end. Again, they were terrific as well and made every thing simple. While I guess you can do the customs paperwork yourself, there's not a lot of doubt in my mind that it's really just better and easier to have a broker on each end. They know how to do it and everyone involved likes it better when you use a broker. Now that I understand how it works, I wouldn't even do the booking myself. I would have the broker do it. I only did the booking myself because I hadn't decided on a broker yet. After making all the arrangements over the phone with the broker, we drove to Elizabeth NJ and to the brokers office to pick up the paperwork we needed to drop the rig off at the port a few miles away. We dropped the rig off at the port and went home. A few weeks later we flew to Belgium and picked up the rig and toured Europe for 3 weeks and attended the EGT European Sidecar Rally in Weiswampach Luxembourg. As I write this, the rig is on a ship on it's way back home. The cost was basically $1500 total for the shipping each way for a total of 3k but it was so worth it. It was our first ever trip out of North America and our first serious vacation in almost 25 years. We made lots of new friends, saw some amazing places. We only had 2 days of light rain, traveled through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. We drove the rig 3000 miles with basically no problems other than a blown headlight bulb and had to adjust the front wheel bearing. Thanks to everyone that offered their advice on how to get our rig to Europe. I'll post links to pictures we took in a separate thread.
Bill

[DRONE]

If you were happy with the broker, maybe you could list their contact info here for inmates and lurkers? Might be nice to have that in my Rolodex!

[sidecarsrfun]

Can't say enough about how simple Mike and Rik made it for us. They do all sorts of freight so a single rig for them was pretty easy. They coordinated everything from both ends and together. Again, keep in mind that this was RORO, about the simplest way to ship a rig. You can't go to Europe without Green Card Liability insurance. We purchased that from Gail Goodman at Motorcycle Express. They only do air shipments, which for a sidecar rig would have been cost prohibitive for us. Also, we stayed with Stefan Knopf www.knopftours.com in Heidelberg Germany. Stefan can do it all and if your thinking of touring Europe, It would be good for you to know Stefan. He can take care of getting your bike to and from Germany via air freight. He also does container shipments from Florida once or twice a year and from the west coast of the US as well. You would need to contact him for details. Stefan is a great guy and has a complete shop at his place, a B&B,maps, advice and so much more. Basically coming from the US to Europe what you need is your passport, the title for your bike and green card insurance. You pass that information along to the brokers, let go and let them take care of it.

Using the same broker and ports going back and forth simplified things. Given our itinerary, the port in Zeebruuge Belgium made the most sense for us. We were thinking of Germany but Germany requires some sort of deposit of 30% of the value of the vehicle to go through Germany which is returned once you ship the vehicle back. It's not exactly a Carnet which we did not have to have. Ours was done as a temporary import for vacation.

Mike Ward
Export Manager
Tel: 908-355-8900
Fax: 908-355-8883
PIBL - Phoenix Intl. Business Logistics
Port Elizabeth
1201 Corbin Street
Elizabeth NJ 07201

Rik Steen Manager
Eagle nv
Pathoekeweg 9
B 8000 Brugge
tel +32 50 558856
fax +32 50 546599
rik@eaglezeebrugge.com
www.eaglezeebrugge.com

Gail Goodman
International Services Manager
Motorcycle Express
Phone (800) 245-8726 (within US/Canada) Ext. 1107
Phone (516) 682-9220
Fax (516) 393-5996
www.motorcycleexpress.com


Stefan Knopf
www.knopftours.com