It's a hunk of mass produced metal and plastic that has served it's purpose.

Sell it on to someone who will use it...

Use the money to make new adventures with your family.


Bike's don't like to be stored and not used. They corrode, dry up, seize and fall apart.


Use it or lose it..

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

The second after-market fuel pump I bought fit the bike, it has now been MOT'ed and only 350 quid and a few trips to the garage later is road worthy again. I built up the courage to start the DVLA process to register the bike in the UK (so I can then sell it), but the online forms don't seem to accommodate for my circumstances very well... it's a privately owned bike, which I bought brand new in Greece 13 years ago. I asked for a "registration pack" via the DVLA website and they sent me a pack in which I learned that I've already broken the law because "I must notify the authorities within 14 days of bringing the bike to the UK" - well guess what, that's news to me. The bike has been in the UK for over 10 years now. I never used it much (I live in London, so commuting was always public transport or bicycle), and have not used it at all in the last 7 years (since having kids). As a EU national, I didn't have to get a permit to move to the UK to live here permanently. I never realised I needed such a permit/registration for my bike, and since it was registered, taxed and insured (full EU coverage) in Greece, I thought it was all kosher. It's not as if they told me at the border last time I drove the bike through Dover... I wonder when this requirement came into force and how people are supposed to know.

So with a very heavy heart I decided to go ahead with the registration (this is costing me time AND goodness knows how much money by the time I'm done paying the fine for missing the 14-day deadline). I then realised that DVLA want me to register with HMRC first, who want me to go through the NOVA (Notification Of Vehicle Arrivals) process. This process does not appear to have a "I brought my own vehicle to the UK" option; it's all about buying something from abroad and bringing it into the UK. So I'm kinda stuck and landed exactly where I did not want to be when I embarked on this journey to "do something useful" with my disused Vstrom; on the wrong side of the law, and with unpredictable time and monetary costs ahead of me.

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2011-2012: 5 months in Chile
2009-2010: 5 months in Turkey-Iran-Pakistan-India

But haven’t you just brought the bike over from Greece in the back of your mate’s van and decided to get it UK legal?

As Jay_B says or ... take it for a trip to Calais (in a van) and start afresh. Or get a transport to invoice you for the journey?

The gov.uk website is actually quite clear on the topic. You just needed a bit of research before engaging with bureaucracy.

My various insurance policies have never permitted trips abroad of more than 30day -even within the EU. I 've had to get special dispensation on longer trips, and it wasn't a fore-gone conclusion they'd extend the cover period.

When I had a similar problem--a worn-out, rapidly-aging travel bike I wasn't planning to use anytime soon--I basically just gave it to a friend. This was a KLR, ten years old, ~98,000 miles, 5 continents, with only a select few significant upgrades.

My friend wanted a bike, and wasn't averse to this one, so I sold it to him for $100 plus he had to move all the touring farkles over to another KLR I bought. I gave him a list of twenty or thirty items I wanted to keep (hard case racks, skid plate, bark busters, horn, crash bars, center stand, that sort of thing), forgetting quite a few, and after busting knuckles for a while he gave me my money and rode away.

The kicker is that it's been a couple of years and the bike still runs, now well over a hundred thousand miles, although it's definitely not one you'd take on a long trip. I see him around town now and then, and every so often we've gone for rides together. Recently he asked me how much I wanted for the newer KLR, but I said I wasn't ready yet.

When something's not worth very much, it usually feels more important to find it a good home than to extract a few pennies from its sale. A lot easier, too. Just run an ad, wherever it is, offering a ridiculously low price to the right person. Then you can sit back and take applications from all who're interested, or just give it to the first person who responds and bask in their appreciation.

I'm serious, but you don't have to take me seriously. It's an approach that has worked well for me, and I've done it with cars, trucks, power and hand tools, books, computers....

Mark

This is the dilemma the original owner of my '83 G/S had, he and his wife had done a 4 year RTW trip on it, it had been used for commuting after that but at 20 years old and 120,000 miles was in a sorry state in his barn. He was worried that if he sold it to anyone it would be broken for spares, this was in 2002 before their prices took off but a mutual friend told him to sell it to me and I will do it justice.
We agreed a fair price, I rebuilt it then in 2007 shipped it to Africa and rode it the length of the continent, it's second time for that trip and James was delighted, I still have it and it recently spent 18 months in North America where over three trips I put another 20,000 miles on it, I still keep James informed of it's latest adventure or upkeep.