Transporting Bike from London to European destinations

[kbot]

Hi

Anyone ever looked into whether there are cheap ways to get your bike to a European destination so you can ride around on your holiday? Yes, you can always ride the thing out there yourself, but that's a different kind of trip.

It would be awsome if somehow you could arrange for your bike to be transported to your destination (eg Italian lakes) and back (and the usual transport prices are too expensive - £500).

I guess the other option is to advertise and allow others who want a bit of a road trip to ride your bike out there and find a similar arrangement back. Aside form hoping it doesnt get thrashed - I guess it also depends on trust that it won't go missing altogether!! Perhaps a motorcycle club with this feature is the answer!

KC

[G]

Doubt you'll get it for less than £500 to be honest!
If you've got a few people, getting one person to drive a van down may the best option.
Even getting someone to ride it out there for you, you're going to be paying ferry and probably a return fare. Also have to consider insurance, not sure if the usual TPO on other bikes would cover European travel?

https://www.biketruck.com/ will take your bike to Malaga for a bit over a week, two trips a year. They charge £500, so doubt you'll be getting it for much less than that from a commercial operation.

[Marmalade]

Calais to rome is 1000 in a van thats going to cost about £350 in fuel to do the return
The ferry for a van is about £200, based on 8 hours of driving a day it'll take 4 days to do the run, how much do you like to earn a day?

This doesn't include any mileage in the UK

Aside from the immediate costs of ferry, fuel, road tolls, breakdown cover and wages the van has to be serviced, have tyres, be insured.

Still think £500 is expensive?
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[bgfs]

Am I missing the point...Why not just ride down, It seems the cheapest way and you get to ride through lots of great scenary. I did Austria in June this year and although you couldn't exactly call it a holiday (although we did stay in decent hotels)with some 550 mile legs it was certainly an adventure
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BGFS

[gooner]

Several years ago .............. ok, many years ago ................... when I were but a wee young lad, me and two mates bought a transit van and stuck three bikes in the back. We went to Barcelona, parked the van, spent two glorious sunny weeks biking, boozing etc then put the bikes back in the van for the journey home. We sold the van for about the same as we'd paid for it.
It was brilliant fun, did exactly what is said on the tin and if I remember correctly it worked out not much more than taking a car.

Remember to take your registration doc with you - otherwise you might cop it for import tax!
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[Itchy]

[hellkat]

[kbot]

[G]

You can get a box to put your bike in with wheel clamps etc which you could then get transported by a normal company. But they cost a fair bit and I very much doubt there's a cheap way to get a 200kg box across those sorts of distances either.
You could see if Shiply or a similar service covers it - you might be lucky and find someone that's close to you who is going the right route at the right time, but it's going to be mostly luck.

[gooner]

what about a trailer?

you can buy a good one for about £150 or maybe borrow one if you know anyone who will lend it to you?
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Better to be scared to death than bored to death!