Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Getting ready...
Today we have Wed Aug 9th. Two days for our departure for the Big Trip.
Perhaps it is a good idea to give some background on this trip:
Everything started last fall when ay good friend of mine Tom Russell from Germany started talking about a possibility to ship the bike by plane overseas. He was collecting a group of riders who could possibly attend and we could get some group purchase discount from the shipper.
I called my long time business associate Jouko Saarinen and asked him how he felt about a bike trip across the US. Right away he replied that "good idea, I have never been there". I offered to act as his interpreter as Jouko does not speak English and I have visited the US about 8 times and even lived in Ohio for a year as an exchange student back in 73-74.
another target of the trip was to attend the BMW K 1200 LT riders annual Curve Cowboy Reunion. I have been a member of the famous BMWLT.com forum for 2,5 years and seems that I have gotten a large amount of friends who I would like to meet also in person.
So, at first we were planning to land somewhere on the West Coast. San Francisco was on the top of the list and I was already planning routes from SF to Atlanta. After some time it turned out that the shipping company http://www.motorcycleservices.com/ no longer ships bikes to the US. As a result of the Anti-Terrorist laws the border formalities have become so troublesome that it makes no sense trying to get the bike shipped directly to US territory. However, it still works to Canada relatively easy. And riding across the US border should not be a big deal. (Let's see in a week...)
We picked Calgary as our landing point and Toronto as our departure port. We have a route planned with the the help of the LT-Forum members and others. I have read through various travel stories etc.
And BTW, how big group decided to go after all? Well, it boiled down to 4 bikers, two from Finland and two from Germany. Tom Russell and his friend Hartmut Bleeker who also will be in North America first time. They will be traveling two days before us and they will have their separate route. We decided not to travel in a larger (OK, 4 four is not LARGE) group as it sometimes might create problems starting from finding accommodation and ending where to go next and what to see.
We plan not to camp en route. Neither of us is too eager in sleeping in a tent so we trust in finding a motel or similar for each night. Ad we have also received a bunch of invitations from my LT-Forum friends. Starting from the first two nights in Calgary when we are waiting for our bikes to arrive. Roy Jorawsky right away offered accommodation for us when he heard that two Finns were looking for advise on what to do bikeless in Calgary for to days. Looking forward to meeting him!
Another reason for not camping is the limitations in our packing space. The flight transportation makes things slightly more complicated. During the transportation only the factory cases can be packed. Nothing tied on the bike. So we plan to pack our riding gear in the bike cases and take all the rest with us on our personal flight.
Now, somebody must be wondering how much does it cost to send a bike by plane overseas. It is not that terribly expensive - compared to what a regular person ticket costs. Round trip for the bike Frankfurt -Calgary and Toronto-Frankfurt was about 2600 $ in April 2006. (Now with today's fuel prices, the price might be different...) On top of that we had to buy personal tickets which were 1100 À on the e-bookers. We also needed insurance as our European traffic insurance is worth nothing in the US. The cost of insurance was 500 $.
So, I hope this is a proper start for this story. I just recently found this website and I am new to these blogs but let's hope I can keep all you interested on how our journey proceeds.
Perhaps it is a good idea to give some background on this trip:
Everything started last fall when ay good friend of mine Tom Russell from Germany started talking about a possibility to ship the bike by plane overseas. He was collecting a group of riders who could possibly attend and we could get some group purchase discount from the shipper.
I called my long time business associate Jouko Saarinen and asked him how he felt about a bike trip across the US. Right away he replied that "good idea, I have never been there". I offered to act as his interpreter as Jouko does not speak English and I have visited the US about 8 times and even lived in Ohio for a year as an exchange student back in 73-74.
another target of the trip was to attend the BMW K 1200 LT riders annual Curve Cowboy Reunion. I have been a member of the famous BMWLT.com forum for 2,5 years and seems that I have gotten a large amount of friends who I would like to meet also in person.
So, at first we were planning to land somewhere on the West Coast. San Francisco was on the top of the list and I was already planning routes from SF to Atlanta. After some time it turned out that the shipping company http://www.motorcycleservices.com/ no longer ships bikes to the US. As a result of the Anti-Terrorist laws the border formalities have become so troublesome that it makes no sense trying to get the bike shipped directly to US territory. However, it still works to Canada relatively easy. And riding across the US border should not be a big deal. (Let's see in a week...)
We picked Calgary as our landing point and Toronto as our departure port. We have a route planned with the the help of the LT-Forum members and others. I have read through various travel stories etc.
And BTW, how big group decided to go after all? Well, it boiled down to 4 bikers, two from Finland and two from Germany. Tom Russell and his friend Hartmut Bleeker who also will be in North America first time. They will be traveling two days before us and they will have their separate route. We decided not to travel in a larger (OK, 4 four is not LARGE) group as it sometimes might create problems starting from finding accommodation and ending where to go next and what to see.
We plan not to camp en route. Neither of us is too eager in sleeping in a tent so we trust in finding a motel or similar for each night. Ad we have also received a bunch of invitations from my LT-Forum friends. Starting from the first two nights in Calgary when we are waiting for our bikes to arrive. Roy Jorawsky right away offered accommodation for us when he heard that two Finns were looking for advise on what to do bikeless in Calgary for to days. Looking forward to meeting him!
Another reason for not camping is the limitations in our packing space. The flight transportation makes things slightly more complicated. During the transportation only the factory cases can be packed. Nothing tied on the bike. So we plan to pack our riding gear in the bike cases and take all the rest with us on our personal flight.
Now, somebody must be wondering how much does it cost to send a bike by plane overseas. It is not that terribly expensive - compared to what a regular person ticket costs. Round trip for the bike Frankfurt -Calgary and Toronto-Frankfurt was about 2600 $ in April 2006. (Now with today's fuel prices, the price might be different...) On top of that we had to buy personal tickets which were 1100 À on the e-bookers. We also needed insurance as our European traffic insurance is worth nothing in the US. The cost of insurance was 500 $.
So, I hope this is a proper start for this story. I just recently found this website and I am new to these blogs but let's hope I can keep all you interested on how our journey proceeds.
