Trans America Trail 2018 Bike Shipping

[palmanova]

some advice when you check the KLM website, if you arent aware, when you do a flight search click the tab that says "multi flight" and as long as you are returning to the same initial departure airport it will be a lot cheaper than 2 x one way flights, good luck..

[Peirre]

Yeah I'm slowly getting the hang of multi flight searches.
As I suspect we're both roughly the same distance from their Heathrow depot can I ask what is the premium for them to pick up and return your bike from your home

[Sgt Bilco]

Bit of a bump for Saturday.

[Sgt Bilco]

Streffords of Worcester have kindly lent me this SWM 650 Super Dual for the weekend so I'll be bringing it up to the meeting with me.

Come and have a look and these really nice new addition to the adventure market and an ideal bike to do the TAT on..

SWM.JPG (159.7 KiB) Viewed 3518 times

[Sgt Bilco]

OK folks, time marches by and I have still got this container going over to the US in the summer with a few spaces left. This is a perfect way to get your bike to and from the TAT.

Let me know if anyone wants a spot as the paperwork trail starts in a few short weeks.

[gujaratpackers]

thanks for this valuable information.

[3dtech]

thanks for this information

[Britishshooter]

When I did the TAT in 2015 I flew with my KTM690 in the SAME PLANE from Heathrow to Montreal vis Air Canada and on the return journey from Vancouver for well under £2,000 all in BOTH ways for MYSELF and the BIKE. My experience of shipping bikes to the USA and back is that there is a lot of hidden expenses in Port charges, Federal escort agents charges etc etc which when added to the taxi fares to the ports which are always a long way from city centres and airports doubles the initial cost.

In addition, the US customs are a nightmare and you have to go the the port to pick up the paperwork for your bike then miles back into town to wait 2-3 hours at the US Customs to clear paperwork etc etc. In contrast to all that BS, when I flew by Air Canada by the time I collected my luggage from the carousel my bike was waiting for me. Canada Customs take 2 minutes v 3 hours at US Customs and I was away on my bike 1 hour after landing.

There was no paperwork at all crossing the US border the next day other than normal passport control and the whole deal was just so easy and stress free. Air Canada do not require you to drain fuel oil or disconnect your battery. The Air Canada bike loading teams have to be bikers themselves by company rules and the special three sided crates they use do not compress your suspension or anything bad.

If you really add up all the hidden costs of possibly staying a week or so before collecting your bike etc due to shipping delays etc (in 2014 I waited a week in New York to pick up my bike from the port, an extra £1k of cost) there is no contest. Air Canada all the way for me now!

By the way I strongly recommend that you do NOT use GPS Kevin's TAT route. I got into serious trouble using it three times including getting arrested at gun point for entering a Federal property and getting lost in the Moab desert and also in a massive forrest in Oregon. As I was on my own there could have been fatal consequences. I met others in 2015 who also got into trouble using GPS Kevin's crap route and heard about some guys having their bikes confiscated for crossing private or government land. His route is certainly not as per the original TAT and is full of dangerous errors. I recommend using the original Sam Correro route, if you can't afford to pay for it then you can't afford to do the TAT!

The only reason I used GPS Kevin's route was because I could buy the pre-loaded GPS card from him which I could not do from Sam. If I had been able to do so I would have paid Sam twice as much but in 2015, he only sold paper which I did not have time to upload due to going on the trip being a last second decision. Maybe Sam does sell loaded GPS cards now I don't know.

Lastly if you are doing it alone then for God's sake register yourself with SPOT and keep the SPOT unit on your body NOT on your bike which will get separated from you in a fall off a cliff as happened to one guy in 2014 who's body was found 6 months later with a fully functioning SPOT still on his bike 30 yards further down the hill side. The Police concluded that he had been too injured to reach it and died from starvation and dehydration for the sake of a trying to save on battery replacement by running the SPOT off his bikes 12 v outlet.

A flare pistol is legal to obtain from any Wallmart and can bring a search chopper in quickly in dense woodland of which there is quite a lot. It can also save your life because at point blank range it will kill a bear and I had two close encounters with those fine but scary creatures, once whilst mending a puncture on a lonely forest trail. I think the bear took pity on me or I wouldn't be writing this!

[oscarmoats]

I am thinking of making thesis help site create a research for me. I know nothing about bike shipping to the USA and for once don't want to waste time looking through hundred of pages on the Web. Hope they won't let me down.