Freight prices for bike to USA and return. How much did you pay?

[paturoa]

I'm doing a USA trip middle of this year, loop from southern California to Prudhoe Bay and back. It is now decision time for the bike. Do I hire, take my own, or buy and sell. The decision is basically down to cost.

There aren't that many rental places that hire adventure style bikes that I can find online! The best so far is from Vancouver and after insurance exchange rates etc would be about $4100 nz dollars. There are cheaper bikes but generally have crappy seats. http://www.cyclebc.ca/motorcycles/suzuki-v-strom-650

Buying a bike means that if I could buy, fix, tyres, insure and sell it for less than about 4k nz (3k4 us) then that would be the go. There are some reasonably farkled vstroms on craigslist (I use searchtempest http://www.searchtempest.com/results.php?search_string=suzuki+vstrom+2011&category=8&Region=na&cityselect=zip&location=90210&maxDist=50000&region_us=1&region_can=1&srchType=&keytype=adv&minAsk=&maxAsk=&subcat=mca).

I did a trip to Oz about 3 years ago and the NZ freight company we used couldn't lie straight in bed when it came to costs, lesson learnt there!

Anyway back to the question for this thread, has anyone freighted their bike to USA in the last few years or know someone that has. What did it cost you?

[Tazz]

Without looking at anything :o I would possibly suggest that buying a bike over there, shipping it here after your trip and selling it for a profit would be the usual scenario. I know a few people who have done it with bikes and cars (although classics and when the dollar was a bit lower).

There are places that will consolidate with their own freight (one motorcycle business up norf has been mentioned on here specifically in the past as well.)

[paturoa]

Without looking at anything :o I would possibly suggest that buying a bike over there, shipping it here after your trip and selling it for a profit would be the usual scenario. I know a few people who have done it with bikes and cars (although classics and when the dollar was a bit lower).

There are places that will consolidate with their own freight (one motorcycle business up norf has been mentioned on here specifically in the past as well.)


Cheers Tazz, can you PM me the name of the business up norf that you were thinking of so I can contact them

[Smifffy]

The Gremlin frenemy has done it and blogged/threaded about it a bit. What? 2? years ago now? time flies.

[paturoa]

The Gremlin frenemy has done it and blogged/threaded about it a bit. What? 2? years ago now? time flies.

Yeah I stalked Alan's blog and have PM'ed him.

[Gremlin]

Yeah I stalked Alan's blog and have PM'ed him.
And responded. You bastard... Prudhoe Bay is on my to do list. 15k ish from LA to Prudhoe, the tip of Canda (I forget the name) and back.

Also look up the Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR) as they are released for the different states.

mid 2011... Wow, 2.5 years ago...