Morocco: shipping bikes to southern Spain

Tim Cullis · Nov 21, 2004

I'm juggling ideas for a Moroccan trip. One problem is the number of days you need for the trip. Even if you take the ferry to Santander, it's still three or four days each way to southern Spain (one day to get to Plymouth, then two to three days for the 700+ miles riding through Spain). That takes out six to eight days.

And the ferry isn't exactly cheap, so I wondered whether the most cost-effective (and lazy) way of getting to southern Spain might be to have the bike transported out, with riders flying via EasyJet/whatever to Malaga.

I've found some companies that ship bikes in Europe and have asked for a quote. Has anyone any experience of this or similar?

Tim

gazza · Nov 21, 2004

Tim, recently went down to the costa del sol from Bilbao. Me and me Bruv did the trip down in one day. Not the best way to see the country but easily doable in one day. We arrived in Malaga around 8.00pm so having left Bilbao at 09.00 it took us 11 hours.
Like you we had planned to take 2/3 days but once on the road things change. Enjoy your trip.

Tim Cullis · Nov 21, 2004

Cheers Gazza, that's at least one option to cut the days. Don't suppose you got to do much sightseeing on the way!

The way I'm thinking is that if you treat the 750 miles each way through Spain as part of the trip and spend two or three days each way doing it, then you get enjoyment out of it and the costs are part of the fun.

But if it's just a blast that you have to do, then the costs are a total overhead on the overall holiday cost and the 1500 miles represents one quarter of a servicing bill, a chunk of tyre replacement costs, a hit on the bike depreciation plus ten or more tanks of fuel.

Tim

Wreford Miles · Nov 21, 2004

I've thought about these options and it may just be possible to arrange a truck to Malaga but I reckon time you allow time to fly and meet up and get the bike ready you'll have lost the time saved.

The quickest way to Ceuta has got to be an iron-butt.

Leave on a Friday night and get yourself 200 miles into France. Put in an 800 Mile day on the Saturday and reach Valencia. Then It's up early on Sunday bash out the 550 to Ceuta and go straight through customs an head for a Chefcheaquan....

In Morocco and ready to go by Sunday night...

Next day get south of the high atlas and have fun.

Greg Masters · Nov 21, 2004

Wreford Miles said:
I've thought about these options and it may just be possible to arrange a truck to Malaga but I reckon time you allow time to fly and meet up and get the bike ready you'll have lost the time saved.

The quickest way to Ceuta has got to be an iron-butt.

Leave on a Friday night and get yourself 200 miles into France. Put in an 800 Mile day on the Saturday and reach Valencia. Then It's up early on Sunday bash out the 550 to Ceuta and go straight through customs an head for a Chefcheaquan....

In Morocco and ready to go by Sunday night...

Next day get south of the high atlas and have fun.

If time is tight, this is the only real option.

:moped:

Greg

Tim Cullis · Feb 24, 2005

We're now planning to go Plymouth-Santander, then motorail from Madrid to Algeciras.

However, if anyone is interested for the future in shipping bikes to southern Spain, the person I was talking to was Andrew Crowther (mcycletrans@wanadoo.fr). He was talking about £1100 for a Sprinter van capable to taking four bikes. They do a lot of bike shipping for track events.

We would then have flown down on a cheap flight to Malaga and met him there.

Tim

Tiffany · Feb 24, 2005

biking to Morocco

I recently rode back and did Marrakesh to Madrid in 26 hours, without doing silly speeds or stupidly long hours on the bike (650GS) and with NO suspension :bounce1

Bert · Feb 25, 2005

iron-butt...

is the way to go-
'ride it Zme!

Sherringford Hovis · Feb 28, 2005

Zmeagol said:
He was talking about £1100 for a Sprinter van capable to taking four bikes. We would then have flown down on a cheap flight to Malaga and met him there.

Tim

After spending £1100 quid to rent a bloke with a van you might as well fly first class!

Where did you find out about the motorail?

V2 TRV · Mar 5, 2008

Morocco is just sooo passe' Dave

MikeP · Mar 5, 2008

Italian Trev said:
Moroccoshire is just sooo passe' Dave

Fixed!

davidgibson999 · Mar 5, 2008

Italian Trev said:
Morocco is just sooo passe' Dave

so they say! :thumb2

Morocco: shipping bikes to southern Spain

Tim Cullis

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gazza

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Tim Cullis

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Wreford Miles

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Greg Masters

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Tim Cullis

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Tiffany

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Bert

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Sherringford Hovis

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V2 TRV

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MikeP

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davidgibson999

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