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Plans are coming together where it looks like I might end up with a week of free time to bum around Europe with my wife. Has anyone ever dealt with bike rentals, international riding, etc, and do you guys have any tips or resources? Ideally, I'd love to get a Multistrada with some panniers, book it across the channel to germany to visit friends and see the sights, and then come back. I figure the best option would be to ship all our gear to the UK. Are there any gaping holes in my plan, any problems I'm likely to run anyto? Anyone wanna give an internet stranger their bike for a week?  Help me live the cycle asylum dream in a socialist paradise!
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Jul 4, 2014 04:46
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| # ? May 7, 2024 11:12 |
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I subscribe to the UK magazine "Bike". They recently did a writeup on where to rent motorcycles for vacations all around the world... not sure if they would have any UK since that's their homebase but I'll check. TBH though... a week just won't cut it. You'll just start to get your european groove going and then leave just as it's getting fun
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Jul 5, 2014 04:32
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Just skip over the Netherlands. I see how it is. I did a little research on the assumption that Dutch rules == British rules. Very little information about renting with a non-Dutch drivers license. Only one specified you needed a international drivers license. Not a lot rents out a multistrada, pretty much only dealers did.
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Jul 5, 2014 14:21
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shaitan posted:I subscribe to the UK magazine "Bike". They recently did a writeup on where to rent motorcycles for vacations all around the world... not sure if they would have any UK since that's their homebase but I'll check. Ahh, thanks - much appreciated. I know it's not enough time for a proper trip but thats the time I have to spend there so may as well make the best of it  KARMA! posted:Just skip over the Netherlands. I see how it is. Hrm, ok - I'm pretty sure international licenses are trivial to get for those in the US. Anything that would be livable 2 up would be good, bags are a requirement though. Ninja 1000, maybe?
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Jul 5, 2014 17:28
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Why start from the UK? wouldnt it be easier to fly to germany, rent there and ride around continental europe for the week, rather than loving with channel crossings. you'll also have a bike thats setup for driving on the right, rather than one thats blinding oncoming traffic with its UK spec headlight
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Jul 6, 2014 12:05
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I did a 3 month trip in Europe on a bike I bought in Ireland. 3 months was not enough for western Europe so with a week you should minimize all unnecessary travel. Pick a country-ish sized region with mountains and plan to bum around there the whole time. Depending how you want to do your trip, you could cover a lot of ground and not see anything or take your time in a small area and enjoy it more. I did do the channel crossing via ferry from Dover and then all the way to Nurburg in a day but it's a day of all slab through France and Boring Belgium, though in Germany you get autobahn which is fun. But if you have to do that there and back wasting 2 days out of a week, that isn't good. The channel itself you are stuck with ferry (slow) or train (expensive, not much quicker). When I wasn't riding I had a bigass nylon duffel bag with all of my gear in it, which isn't the easiest to carry but it works and folds into nothing once you are done with it. I just checked it on the flight over. If you have places to stay sorted out this isn't a huge deal and if you get a checked bag on an international flight like you should this is way cheaper than shipping your gear. I would fly to wherever you are going and rent there, and fly back, or say screw your friends and ride around England/Wales/Scotland. There are bike rental places all over Europe that cater to vacationers, and even if you go to one in Germany I'm sure they speak english because they deal with Brits on holiday all the time. They will have bikes with luggage. They will be expensive, too, but you're doing a bike holiday in Europe so whatever. The good thing about rental is I would expect them to have all of the details like insurance figured out, so you just show up and pay them and you're off. Driver's license is pretty simple, you may or may not even need the international one, but if you don't want to worry about it you can go into a AAA office/store and get one. I never showed anyone my real or intl "license" but I would check with the company you are renting from. I would try to pick a place closest to where you are going to be riding over anything else. If you have a UK/Irish bike and go to the mainland you can get these sticker kits to fix the headlights, although I didn't bother, and I doubt they would care for a motorcycle anyway. I didn't have my passport/license/documents/anything checked from Ireland->UK->France, although going back into the UK they are not friendly, but we are used to that here in the States.
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Jul 6, 2014 16:46
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echomadman posted:Why start from the UK? wouldnt it be easier to fly to germany, rent there and ride around continental europe for the week, rather than loving with channel crossings. you'll also have a bike thats setup for driving on the right, rather than one thats blinding oncoming traffic with its UK spec headlight I'm flying in and out of the UK for work, so have to start/end there. Part of the fun was going to be a channel crossing, but I might end up doing what you recommend - I didn't even consider the headlight thing. Infinotize posted:I did a 3 month trip in Europe on a bike I bought in Ireland. 3 months was not enough for western Europe so with a week you should minimize all unnecessary travel. Pick a country-ish sized region with mountains and plan to bum around there the whole time. Depending how you want to do your trip, you could cover a lot of ground and not see anything or take your time in a small area and enjoy it more. I did do the channel crossing via ferry from Dover and then all the way to Nurburg in a day but it's a day of all slab through France and Boring Belgium, though in Germany you get autobahn which is fun. But if you have to do that there and back wasting 2 days out of a week, that isn't good. The channel itself you are stuck with ferry (slow) or train (expensive, not much quicker). Yeah, it's looking like the best plan is to primarily cruise around Germany - rent there, ride around, and then fly back to london to fly home, considering the short timeline and all. I'll probably break the gear down and ship it just because then I don't have to deal with lugging it all around, despite the fact that it might be more expensive. Thanks all for the help thus far - I'll start researching German rental places.
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Jul 6, 2014 19:05
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Z3n posted:I'm flying in and out of the UK for work, so have to start/end there. Part of the fun was going to be a channel crossing, but I might end up doing what you recommend - I didn't even consider the headlight thing. Hnasty rented a BMW for a week in Germany last year and they had pretty much the whole range from F650s to fully farkled Ewan&Charlie specials. Also afaik the UK isn't part of the Schengen Area so there may be additional complications to driving in and out of it with an american passport.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:27
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Yeah, i found this site with a boatload of rental options: http://www.motorradvermietung.de/ It's looking like it's best to just keep it to mainland europes for general ease of use. I'm also figuring I should contact AAA as I have trip planning through them thanks to my high end membership for bike towing.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:36
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You can borrow my R1 if you like. The downside is that we are not quite part of the UK, but you can get a short flight or ferry here for not a lot of money to pick it up. There is one upside, you'd basically be immune to speed tickets because we have funny license plates and no reciprocal agreement with the EU for fines and whatnot. EDIT: and if there's one bike you want to be immune to speeding tickets on it's a first generation R1. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 17:33
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I rented from http://triplemoto.com/ when I went to Europe last summer. The guy was very nice and, when someone crashed the street triple I was scheduled for, was able to sub in a Tiger 800 (not ideal, but what can you do?) with no issues. If I remember correctly it was ~$1200 for the week. Mister Duck fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 17:55
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echomadman posted:Hnasty rented a BMW for a week in Germany last year and they had pretty much the whole range from F650s to fully farkled Ewan&Charlie specials. Also afaik the UK isn't part of the Schengen Area so there may be additional complications to driving in and out of it with an american passport. When I went through the tunnel, France didn't even check my passport. Coming back the UK gave me a small bit of hassle, not sure why. Nothing crazy just asked me questions for like 10 minutes about the bike and where I got it (even though it had rental graphics and stuff all over it).
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Jul 8, 2014 18:00
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| # ? May 7, 2024 11:12 |
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Check pm's.
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Jul 11, 2014 23:35
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