Touring Europe
 

Greetings all ... I am new to this forum, and this is my first post.

I am a US resident ... planning to tour Europe in Spring '09 for a few months ... will be touring UK, France, Germany and Spain.

I've got a Honda ST1300 here in the US, and one option I'm considering is to transport my bike to Europe, do my touring and then return it to the US.

The second option (and the one I'm leaning toward) is to buy a bike in Europe (probably UK), use it to tour Europe, and then stash it with friends in the South of France.

Any advice from experienced tourers would be most appreciated.

Thanks

If you buy a bike in the UK, you will need to register it at a UK address, ideally a friend. The documents will take a few weeks to come through after your purchase. You may have trouble finding insurance in the UK as a non EU driving license holder although not impossible and I've seen posts on here about that.
The main downside to buying in the UK is that you will need to keep the road tax and MOT (technical check) up to date or declare it off road every year.
If you buy in France you may pay a bit more to buy a bike than in the UK, you will still need an address in France and you may still find it awkward to get insurance but after that there is no road tax or technical check for a bike, so nothing to keep up to date apart from the insurance when you want to ride it.

rentals
 

We have rode Europe 3 times for 2-3 weeks at a time. Each time we rented. We looked at buying and shipping the bikes home. It was not worth it.
We rode 5 - 6 countries each time. Than walked away without any worries about paper work or where to leave them. Or how to sell them. We ride harley's so it was easy to find a Harley Dealership that rented. :scooter:

chungo
 

hi all

iam new to this forum ,and am looking to tour Europe 09 .Trying to find out if you can hire bikes in europe and travel country to country please suggest websites if any one knows any.

how much does it cost to rent a harley davidson in europe approximately.

If you're spending more than a couple of weeks touring Europe it pays to ship your bike. It is easy to find new friends to stash it with during trips home.

Our bike has been here nearly 3 years and we have about 18 months and over 50,000 km. on it in Europe. We bring a new annual sticker for the license plate each year we come back to Europe.

Insurance can be easily gotten with ADAC (Auto Club of Germany) or through Knopf Tours (Knopf Motorradreisen). 22 Euros/mo. if you walk in, but you need a German address which Knopf will give you if you go through them. We already had one.

harley hire
 

Hi, I know of one Harley dealer in Spain that is part of the harley rental scheme. There must be dealers all over europe who rent out bikes and maybe you can get to them thorugh the spain website below

Harley Davidson Costa Blanca Spain

I dont know about taking a hire bike out of one country to another though .

Lee

BMW MOA : Global Touring - to Europe

bike hires all over Europe + more info/ links

just an idea
 

I'm military stationed in Germany. You could always buy a used bike off a military guy, do your trip, and then sell it. I dont know of all the legal aspects of registering a vehicle for civilians, but may save you lots of money. I just recently bought a motorcycle for my Dad to tour on when he came over because it was more economical than renting. Here are 2 newspapers that regularly have bikes for sale. Good luck and enjoy the trip.


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Spring.... be aware that if you're going anywhere near the Alps that a lot of the passes will probably be still closed.

If You buy a bike in Belgium.
You probably also need an adres for the insurance but that is al.
No technical control.
And maybe a postbus is also ok.
I'll ask it if that is enough.

Have a nice trip.

have abike for sale us bmw r12gsa
 

hello about to finish my europe trip and want to sell my bmw r12gsa w/8500 miles for 13,500 has everything u need and can drop it off south of france for u. check out my site with this for sale ad
Selling my BMW R1200GS adventure

I guess renting is an option. There are a couple of firms in london who will hire you a bike.
Chungo if you contact 'dockgate 20' in southampton they will rent you a harley, I suspect it will be in the hundreds of £s though.

I've rented for 6 of the past 7 years (one year was a no-show). As I approach retirement and will have more time available I'll be shipping a bike over to keep there. I can store the bike and insure it (Green Card) for a 4 month block for about the same amount of money as a week's rental fees.

That being said - if you're only going to do two or three weeks, renting is the no-hassle way to go.

Hi,

I'm doing my first overseas tour in Europe next year and have bought a '95 Xj900F from a bloke here in Australia. It is in England and was only 650 pounds so for three months of use, I don't even really care if I get my money back at the end.

This is obviously the bargain basement end of the spectrum and involves a fair bit of trust, but a bit of digging around proved useful and compared to hire or even a rail pass, very economical.

Hope you have a good trip whatever you decide.