Conceptually, it's not that complicated for an American to set out on a European road trip using their own vehicle -- just send your chosen conveyance to Europe, then fly out to meet it, and off you go. Right? Well, logistically it's a bit more involved. As soon as we put word out that we intended to ship a vehicle overseas, a thousand prospective shippers came out of the woodwork, offering the absolute rock bottom price but the very highest level of quality and care for our beloved wheels. Beware the bottom-feeders.
Over the course of a couple weeks fielding calls from truckers (literally, truckers, on the road, would me call to ask when they should stop by and pick up our bike), shipping company head offices and mom-and-pop transport services, I came to understand a few things: 1) The shipping market is highly competitive; 2) Our home city is not a major shipping port (at least not for individuals shipping a single, albeit large, item); 3) Right from the start, you need to make decisions about how you'll ship a bike -- will you crate it, put it in a shipping container, or will you roll it on and roll it off the ship ("RoRo" in the industry)?
We ultimately determined Los Angeles (actually Long Beach) would be the cheapest port on the west coast to ship from, and that a motorsports-dedicated trucking company -- yes, they actually do exist -- would be the most sensible way to get the bike to LA. (We also considered driving it down ourselves, but that would've meant a full two-plus days of boring driving on I-5, possibly in the rain, plus the cost of a flight home. Double yuk.) A very helpful conversation with Pete at Seattle-based custom (awesome!) sidecar builder Liberty Sidecars (thank you Pete) led to us getting in touch with Lisa at Powersport Services NW.
Lisa and her husband, avid motorcyclists themselves, transport motorcycles, personal watercraft and side-by-sides, en masse, up and down the Pacific coast and across the west. She is *so* friendly and knowledgeable, gave us a very fair price and even offered to meet us at her warehouse on a Saturday to receive our bike. So the decision was made: Lisa's crew would truck the bike to LA, then Schumacher Cargo Logistics would carry it from Long Beach to Germany. All we had to do now was drive it down to Salem and hand it off to Lisa...
