mherkin
Registered user
Yes we do!
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Shipping bikes to Scotland
- Thread starter Green Boy
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phooey
Registered user
My friend and I are planning to do this too soon but the wives would prefer to meet us there by flying up, cheap flights from Heathrow, 30 minutes from home.
Problem is after doing Snowdonia last bank holiday my wife who has not a bike for 5 years says she wants one to ride Scotland instead of being pillion this time but won't ride all the way up and back as well.
So a solution to sending her a bike up would be ideal. I did think about hiring her one but she is less than 5' tall and I will have to
look what would suit her , her last bike was a lowered Street Triple but that was still a tad tall for her.
Nobody please suggest a Monkey Bike
Anyway , its getting a bike up to Scotland I am interested in a solution for.
Good for her! My better half is 4'11" and has been riding 10yrs. Current bike a gorgeous Ducati 696 in Corse paint but she's had an f650 twin and an f800r and is a very neat rider. Steep learning curve, especially with the one toe down and pick which side but she has mastered it. Has amassed a wealth of knowledge which I'm sure she would be happy to share. ��
The OP actually explained his reasoning- which on the face of it......... is understandable.
Hi all,
Was thinking of doing the NC500 or something similar next year but as I live on the south coast of England I was wondering if there was a viable way to avoid the almost 1k mile round trip to/from glasgow, that any 'southerner' had found. My initial thought was to use one of the many delivery companies and then flying up to meet the bike but not having used them before, I was interested in any experience from others out there.
By way of convenince I don't mind throwing a bit of money at the problem but clearly there's a limit especially if it seems as if it's prohibitably expensive once airfare/ accomodation is factored in.
Any thoughts much appreciated.
I did this a couple of years ago, as I was with a mate who couldn't do the daily miles/hours to get to the highlands. Tewkesbury to just north of Fort William (about 460 miles). We'd ridden up before (splitting over over 2 days each way), but it was a pretty miserable experience for them.
Things to note:
1) It wasn't particularly easy to find someone to transport the bikes - I only looked at specialist bike moving companies.
2) #1 was made more difficult as we'd already booked the accommodation, so had fixed dates. I was organising this about 2-3 months before we left, so not last minute.
3) They picked up the bikes from home a week before we left, and dropped off a week after we got home.
4) The collection from our accommodation in Scotland wasn't going to work out - either pick up a week before we left for home (so in the middle of our holiday) or 3 days after we'd already left. I didn't want to leave the bikes there for pickup after we'd left for home, so we arranged to store them at a friendly local bike dealer and get them collected from there.
5) Despite using a specialist bike mover, they managed to slightly damage my friend's bike. A big scuff/scratch up the matt black silencer. As we'd taken pics when we'd dropped the bikes off at the dealer, and the transporters had checked over the bikes when they collected them, they admitted liability and replaced the silencer with a brand new one, so all's well. If it had been my bike I probably wouldn't have been that arsed, but my mate's bike was absolutely brand new.
6) It wasn't cheap - around £300 each way I think, but that was for two bikes. The cost per bike was acceptable to us.
7) We had a nice comfortable drive up in a car, with heated seats and a radio. Did it in a day with no aches or pains at the end of it for my mate, meaning that we could go out on the bikes the next day. Also nice to have a car for the days when the weather was crap / wanted to do a big day out / get a weeks worth of shopping.
Overall it worked out really well, and I'd do it again. I wouldn't bother if it was just me, or if I was going with other mates who don't mind the miles and can do it in a day (which is most of them). Although we have trailered bikes up there before for at least some of the same reasons.
HTH
Paul
Personally, I'd ride up myself, nothing to do with being macho (even though I'm harder than John Rambo) but I really don't think you save much time by doing it any other way.
1. Get the bike transported and meet it up there - Fuck about finding someone to transport it for you, spend the time meeting them and loading it into the van. Then book a flight, drive to the airport, check in, wait for a couple of hours, fly, let's say to Glasgow. Disembark and get through to the arrivals lounge. The fuck about either meeting your bike or making your way to where the bike is. Unload it and get yourself suited up and ride North. - Without being a hero London to Loch Lomond is a 10 hour ride including a couple of stops, another couple of hours would see you in Glencoe for the night. How much time would you realistically save by not riding, maybe 5 hours?
2. Hire a van and split the driving - Doesn't save you a single second.
If it was Southern Spain overnight then I could see the logic but not Scotland, it's just not far enough away to justify the ball ache for me.
Of course, I could be missing something really obvious?
Wot he said, make the trip up norf part of the your plan maybe stop off in the lake district.
Last year myself and a friend went to the GOTC in Ullapool we left Dartford at midnight Thursday got there 4.30 pm Saturday a bit extreme i grant you but Scotland is easy to get to in one days riding.
You're such a hero , or a twat who can't read ..... Nutty, you're right !! Bloody idiots on here
KAYCEE
Registered user
Why not fly up to Edinburgh and hire a bike from the local BM dealer?
You can fly to Inverness and hire bikes from there, just google motorcycle hire in inverness, I think they are called Highland bike hire or similar. Or saltire in Edinburgh do them.
Hi all,
Was thinking of doing the NC500 or something similar next year but as I live on the south coast of England I was wondering if there was a viable way to avoid the almost 1k mile round trip to/from glasgow, that any 'southerner' had found. My initial thought was to use one of the many delivery companies and then flying up to meet the bike but not having used them before, I was interested in any experience from others out there.
By way of convenince I don't mind throwing a bit of money at the problem but clearly there's a limit especially if it seems as if it's prohibitably expensive once airfare/ accomodation is factored in.
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Have you given it thought to make a holiday out of this. Take the lesser known roads there. Ride the NC500 and come back via another way. 5 days holiday gives you 9 days to do it
Here you go, http://www.highlandmotorcyclehire.co.uk/
Fly to inverness pick a bike up from here, its on the NC500 route.
Fly to inverness pick a bike up from here, its on the NC500 route.
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