The Goal:
Find an Africa Twin RD07 in Europe and bring it home to Canada

The Beginning:
January 2023 is where the story begins. I am tired of riding a Thumper (KLR 2nd Gen). I live in Canada on the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies. Prime country for endless gravel roads through the rolling foothills and mountains. With vast amounts of open area to explore, sometimes hitting the slab for a couple of hours is needed to get you into new areas to explore. Riding a KLR on the highway for hours on end is not enjoyable. I wanted a bike with a bit more jam.
Options to consider:

• T7 (A new or used if you could find one) is easy $12,000+
• BMW 850? Not only is it boring, ugly and well designed to drive to a coffee shop $12,000+ for a used one
• Africa Twin CRF. Massive, Expensive, too many cc. I dont need a Litre bike
• Tiger 800? Again north of $12,000
• KTM/Husk (any)? Electronics...... Ugly, Expensive and the new direction to pay for already installed features really rubs me the wrong way.

What I really want is something I can work on from top to bottom without needing to go to a shop. No new modern electronics and nanny aids. I wanted something simple, basic that I can fix in the middle of nowhere and not need to worry about where the next dealer was located. I also thought that having a unique motorcycle would be a great conversation starter when out on the trails. Ideally sub $10,000 as well. Hmmm, the classic AT's seem to fit the bill. You can find them for $5,000 to $8,000 overseas. But where to get one?

Planning
Problem 1: How to purchase a motorcycle overseas? Where to even look? What Country to purchase from?

Problem 2: Once I find a bike, how can I register it? Get insurance for it?

Problem 3: How do I get it home? Fly it? Ship it?

Problem 4: How can I get it into the country legally?

Problem 5: How can I legally register it and have it legal on the road in Canada?

Solution 1: The exciting part, finding bikes! It's like Christmas all over again. It did not take long to find out some common sites to search for bikes such as Ebay, TheParkingLot, autoscout24, Mobile.de, Marktplaats. Results come back from a variety of countries from Ireland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain..... Literally every European country. Some countries had more up for sale than others. Clearly finding a bike wont be the hard part..... Hold that thought, we will get back to that.

Solution 2: Ok lots of bikes available, how to narrow it down? After some (many) nights diving into Google, Youtube and forums I discovered Germany seemed to be unique. They offer what is called "Export Plates" or Ausfuhrkennzeichen. Basically what this gives you is the ability to purchase a vehicle without having an address in the country. The program allows non-residents the ability to purchase "plates" for the amount of time you would need to get it out of the EU. Anything from 7 days to over 3mths. This gives you registration, covers the taxes and insurance for the amount of time of your choosing. Choose the time based on your needs. OK now we have a target country, plus the Germans are well known to generally be quite particular in vehicle maintenance.

Solution 3: Now that I know where to find a bike, how do I get it home? In February Westjet Airlines announced its Fly and Ride program. Air Canada at one time had a similar program pre-COVID. The intent is to allow people to fly their bike with them (think oversized check baggage) to a country, explore and then bring it home again. Now my goal was not really what the program was designed for. I wanted to fly a bike I purchased overseas and fly it home with me. At this point it did not occur to me that this would become a problem (will explain later how this was in fact an issue). WestJet offered flights from Amsterdam to Calgary. WINNER. The price was OK, not the cheapest at $3150 Canadian, but the bike would not need to sail half way around the world to get to Canada. This was a viable option at this point.

Solution 4: Again it started with the all-knowing Google. Canada has importation laws in place for vehicle. These are to protect its domestic car markets, safety regulations and other protectionist non-consumer-friendly lobby groups. Essentially 15yrs is the magic number. If the bike is older than 15yrs old I don't need to worry about the RIV program. A trip to my local (commercial) customs office at the airport confirmed that all I needed to do was fill out the appropriate form, check the box that the motorcycle was exempt and the rest would be relatively straight forward. More details to follow on the process.

Solution 5: Similar to the importation problem, being 15yrs old (or older) made it a straight forward process. An out-of-province inspection is needed and a trip to the registry. Same process as purchasing a vehicle from another province or from the USA.

Putting the plan into action:
With the answers to the problems above I was fairly confident that the crazy plan might actually work. Next post will be the plan in action.

Now that we have a plan. Let's go shopping!!!!! RD04? RD07? RD07A? What Colour? White, Black, Green/Purple, Red/White/Blue? Gold rims? Oh, what a fun problem to have!

There seemed to be about 50 bikes for sale in Germany. I started to track the asking prices, KM, and options to see if there were some trends. The far end of the spectrum was a garage queen going for $13,000 Canadian. WOW, that was a lot of money for a bike over 20yrs old, though it did have all the bits a person would want. Ohlins Suspension on the rear, Sachs Fork, Exhaust, panniers yada yada. A well-equipped bike with low KM and pristine condition. The other end (other than parts bikes) is in the $5,000 mark for a fairly stock model with 50,000km on the clock. This is a fair price range for what I was looking for.

The Unforeseen problem:
The German Ebay requires verification with a German phone number... Well, that's a problem. I spent a few days trying to find a way around this to no avail. Other places where the bikes were posted resulted in virtually no replies from sellers. They just would not deal with someone trying to communicate in English or with google translated messages. Likely they thought I was a Scammer or they just could not be bothered. After weeks of trying to start conversations, I was getting pretty down on the whole process. All this research and it turned out the biggest issue was just finding a BIKE! Dealers would not respond either.

The chosen one:
Enter Hero #1 found on this very HUB! TodoTerreno offered to help me with translating and aid in finding a seller. Not only was he more than generous with his time and patience with me, he helped avoid some scam "sellers". It's really sad how the scum have turned us all into skeptics and suspicious of everyone on the internet. With his help, we found a bike in Northern Germany from a Lady looking for a good home for her bike. Right mileage (<60k), Right price (very reasonable), effectively stock bike, real person and the desire for the bike to end up in the hands of someone that would continue its adventure. Suddenly this was all happening. I had a bike, the plan was in place.

Trip Planning
Now that I had the bike sourced, I needed to finalize the plans. The WestJet offer to fly out of Amsterdam had suddenly changed. Weeks after the official announcement of the destinations they were offering changed. No longer were they flying to Amsterdam... But they were now flying out of Paris. Oh and the date changed when the program would start. Change of plans. Fly to someplace close for as cheap as possible (Amsterdam) and take a train(s) and or bus to the bike location in Northern Germany. From there finalize the purchase and ride. 7 days of time allotted for a ride through Europe before dropping the bike off in Paris and flying home! Let's do this. Flights booked. Air Cargo arranged (more on this later), Trains booked, Bus booked, Hotel on day 1 and 7 booked.

Logistics
WestJet does not do the actual bike shipping logistics portion. They are just the carrier that hauls the bike. A company by the name of AMC (Air Marine Cargo) out of Calgary is the freight forwarder that handles all the paperwork. The intent is you contact them, set the dates of travel, send them your information and money, and they take care of the rest. Well, that's the intent. After many emails and relentless hounding by me to get all the details, things seemed to be in place. 5 days before I get on a plane I get an email saying (paraphrased) "Oh we don't really know what you need to do with French customs, you might need a stamp. Sorry we can't help". WHAT!? 5 days before the trip you tell me that the "simple" process of me rocking up to the freight company with the paperwork THEY prepare and everything is taken care of. They don't know the process in France as they are the Canadian portion. It's up to me to deal with the Europe side. To say I was furious was an understatement. They tell me that they have never done this before. They usually only deal with people shipping their bikes over and back. Not dealing with someone bringing a bike purchased overseas back with them. At this point, I have everything booked, flights paid for, and plans in motion. I did as much research as possible and from what I could tell, there were no issues, and the bike would be cleared to leave the country. Short answer, not true. I will detail those challenges later.

Into the great unknown:
I fly to Amsterdam on Sunday, landing Monday morning (Sleeping pills make this flight a pleasure. Nothing like sleeping 6hrs on a flight!). I landed on Easter Monday. Connections via train, bus and train get me into Emden (Northern Germany) late in the afternoon. The Seller is a Legend. Not only does she pick me up at the train station, but she makes me supper and we enjoy a lovely evening getting to know each other and it's apparent a friendship has been made. She is excited about the bike to find a new home. I am excited to begin the journey to continue the story of her bike. Tuesday, I get to see the bike in person. I had seen videos before this visit of course. A good friend of mine gave me some great advice "The bike will not be what you expected. You have to go into it realizing there will be things you did not know about". The bike is 90% what I expected. What I was not expecting was the level of surface rust on bolts and exposed metal. This bike is 30yrs old, and has been stored outside in Northern Germany for at least the past 15yrs. I had the opportunity to work indoors to install my GPS, pack my stuff on the bike and wait for the paperwork/transfer of ownership. The 10% I was not expecting is all minor items that I can fix when I get home. The bike is as advertised. Plus the seller threw in pannier racks and some Honda OEM panniers. WOW! great surprise.

Export Plates/Insurance
I was fortunate with this process. The seller's friend offered to help arrange the plates and insurance. It cost me 150 Euro, and they took care of everything for me. There are videos on YouTube of people going through the process, and generally, the common response is if you can speak German, it goes fairly smoothly. You need to have a valid TUV (inspection) certificate plus part 1 and part 2 of the registration documents from the previous owner. The registry de-registers the bike from the previous owner. The registration is then transferred to my name, and insurance documents are produced. An export license plate is made that shows the date of expiration you paid for. The entire process took ~2hrs. Documents received (and needed) concluding the sale:

• Private Bill of sale (contract you sign with the seller agreeing on the price)
• Part 1 and Part 2 of the registration in your name (Proof of ownership)
• Insurance Paperwork from the registry
• TUV inspection documents (original) needed for registry and proof of valid inspection.

Tour:
Over the next 6 days I travelled West into Holland over the flood control dam, through historic villages, traditional Dutch windmills, 100 year old hotels, Tulip fields (Tulip season is April!) down the coast past Hauge/Rotterdam and continuing over the Wester flood control dams before entering Belgium: Vimy Ridge, West coast of France down through Normandy to Le Mans. Head north to Paris for the flight home. Epic trip. Weather was mixed with a fair bit of rain and actually hail many of the days. Though I got lucky where most places I wanted to stop, the weather cleared, and it was sunny and clear. Back roads, historic villages, great people, memorable places and a Bike that lived up to its legendary status. Ran like a clock.

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Very glad, you had a joyfull experience purchasing that bike.

Knowing the obstacles when buying a vehicle abroad, I was happy to assist with just a few calls and sorting out the scams from the couch. Never mind.

Weather looked worse on the forecast, nice blue sky.

Flip us over some more with more pics of your trip, please.

Enjoy your ride!

That's a nice looking bike!

Well done!

Shipping the bike home:
Here is where the story takes a bit of a turn into the wall. Originally the plan (instruction from AMC) was to drop the bike off 24hrs prior to the booked flight. The bike was originally going to fly with me Monday 2pm (on the same flight). The week before I left, I was instructed to drop the bike off at 6am Monday because the shipping company was not open on the weekend and could not accept the bike.

Monday
(6:00am)
Bright and early I was waiting at the reception desk. The person at the front desk took a 10sec look at the paperwork and said. "Nope its wrong, we cannot accept. Return with a valid Air Way Bill". WHAT?. It turns out one box was missing an "X" that had to do with customs.

(7:00am) Standing outside the shipping company with no clue what to do next. Currently 10pm Sunday back in Calgary where the company that produced the paperwork is located.

Enter Hero #2. Claire Bury with Aero Cargo in Paris (CDG). I got her number before I left as she was the freight rep for WestJet in Paris. I called her, and amazingly she picked up at 7am even though her office did not open until 9am. She spoke English and was willing to help me out. She informed me that she needed to wait until WestJet opened at 4pm Paris time before we could do anything.

(7:15am - 12:00pm)
Commence stressing out for the next 9hrs. Instead of running in tight circles in my tiny hotel room, I decided to see if I could get to the bottom of the French customs portion. Fortunately, I still had the bike, so I rode to the airport customs office. Great ladies! they were very accommodating and even brought out a translator to try to help with my questions. They ended up pointing me back to a freight forwarder and advised that I could not fill out the paperwork myself. I needed a customs clearance broker (I think that's what they are). Another dead end.

(12:00pm)
Still 4hrs to wait. I re-scheduled my flight to the following day and I decided to start to look into "Plan B" where I park the bike somewhere for a week or two and fly back home, get things sorted and return. The hotel offered underground secure parking for a pretty steep rate. This was an option (although an expensive one) to have in the back pocket.

(3:30pm)
I get a call from Claire. She can help!!! I think I said "Thank you" a dozen times (Enough to make even this Canadian think he was overdoing it!)
Here is what has to happen:
1. I need to get a new Airway bill with the SCI customs box checked.
2. Return to the shipping company and see if they will accept the bike

(3:45pm)
Luckily AMC has a Toronto office, and by this time they answered the phone. They were able to re-send the AWB this time with the SCI box checked unfortunately with 5 "XXXXX". When I returned to the shipping company, they would not accept it. It could only be 1 "X".... Another phone call, and finally this was sorted. The shipping company then said great, where are the customs documents.....

(4:20pm)
Claire calls the freight company to figure out what is going on. It turns out the customs paperwork can be completed by a company she works with. I hustle to their office a few blocks away, and Hero #3 enters the story. Johan Sourdet with TAF can get me the paperwork TONIGHT. He pulls all the stops, gets the customs office representative to stamp the documents, prints them off for me and tells me "no charge, get out of here and back to the shipper before they close!!! Rush!" Legend.

(5:30pm)
Back at the freight company. The paperwork is all in order, and the bike can be accepted. But it's too late, come back tomorrow morning... Ahhhhhh I asked them to triple-check all the paperwork. Yep, it's all good. I can relax, at 6:30am they will accept the bike. Off to find a large bottle of alcohol staggering distance from the hotel... What a day.

Tuesday
(6:30am)
Bike was delivered to the shipper. They checked the paperwork again, and all was in order. The bike is accepted by 7:30am. Time to walk back to the hotel and grab my stuff. I cannot believe the bike is FINALLY going to be loaded into an airplane. Before I dropped the bike off, I put an Apple Air Tag on the bike to follow its journey.

(1:00pm)
I am at the airport waiting for my flight at 2pm and I see the bike jump from the shipping company back warehouse to somewhere VERY close to me. Sure enough I can see them unloading it off a pallet right next to my plane. Its actually happening! I was able to watch (and film) them loading it into the aircraft. Boarding was shortly afterwards and knowing the bike was on the aircraft with me was such a relief. Finally.

8hrs later, I land in Calgary and 2hrs after that I get a message the bike is available for pickup. Tomorrow I get to bring her home!

Wednesday - Calgary
Jetlag, be dammed! At Canada customs at 8am, hand in my document from the shipping company holding the bike and the simple import form to the Canada customs agent. Because the motorcycle is over 15yrs old, its fairly straightforward. They take a copy of the bill of sale and my German registration. Accept my customs exception of $800 since I was out of the country for 7days. Pay the $245 customs fee and off to pick up the bike. Pay the shipping company more handling fees of $200 and the bike is mine, legal in Canada and all that's left is an out-of-province inspection.

I now have a 100% legal Honda Africa Twin waiting for this summer's adventures. Crazy plan, an amazing bike, an unforgettable trip, and remarkable people helping me along the way. Amazing, thank you to everyone that helped make this happen. A story I will have for the rest of my life.

Here are the lessons learned:
1. Hire a local freight forwarding company at the airport you are flying out of
2. Ensure they can get you the customs documents (one stop service)
3. Do not plan ANYTHING time sensitive on a Monday morning. Weekends everything shuts down and nothing happens before 9am.

If I would have done the items listed above, I am certain the entire process would have been smooth sailing. Live and learn.

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Interesting way to strap the bike down onto the freight pallet, I must say. I always thought, a bike needs to be properly crated, fixed in a frame on its main stand to be allowed into a plane.

And this airline is offering this special bike fly in and out service on a regular basis? Some pilot here, to post this picture on some crazy airfreight reddit? The entire fixture relied on the flimsy single stand, a surely rusted 30yr old piece of tubing with a post stamp sized contact to the ground. If the stand would have slipped/collapsed under a too tight strap, this would have been the definition of a "lose cannon".

Great conversation piece you´ve got there!

Thanks very mooch for sharing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bikes should never be tied down on EITHER the main or side stands! Many stands like the one on my R80G/S are narrow and not all that strong, and very unstable. The side stand will hold the bike up, but don't sit on it, it will bend.

Strapping it down as in the photos is the easy way for the shippers. Hopefully it's well tied down on the right, in which case the load on the sidestand isn't a huge problem. And it's a Japanese bike, they generally have sturdy well designed stands unlike some European manufacturers who shall remain nameless. And it's not just BMW.

Ideally, bikes are vertical on the wheels, (reducing stresses on straps and the bike) and tied down at the 4 corners and one pair in the centre for safety.

The straps on the front from the handlebars is ideal, top of crash bars will do, and strapped forward.

On the rear, back of the frame is ideal or as close as you can get, sometimes a passenger grab handle, at worst passenger peg mounts, and strapped towards the back, so the bike is in tension between the strap pairs.

I like to add a pair of straps in the centre if possible, perhaps to footpegs and straight sideways and to the outside of the crate/pallet. Over the top of the seat, with a generous pad to protect it, also works well, in fact that's what ferry companies often do on rough passages.

It should be pulled well down on the suspension but not crazy tight. And no it won't hurt the springs or blow the seals!
You CAN also tie the wheels down as they did on this one, not a bad thing to do. Six straps is plenty, but two more for the wheels won't hurt.

FWIW - a friend rolled his van several times, with the bike loaded with 4 straps as above - the van came to rest upside down, and the bike was still securely strapped in place - now upside down. And yes he was okay but well beaten up.

__________________
Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
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Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com