Since reading your post, I've done a tiny bit of research on the BMWMOA (BMW motorcycle owners of America) forum. Some people have shipped their own bikes, but as Qwerty has pointed out, renting a bike seems to be the easiest and least expensive option in most cases. The exception seems to be if you are planning on spending a great deal of time there. Here is a link to a German company that will ship your bike, as well as rent you a bike if you choose to go that route. His rentals seem to be BMWs, but the R80GS (800cc twin) he rents was BMW's original 'adventure tourer' and is relatively lightweight, sits lower to the ground, and would make a fine rental to explore the back roads, as is the F650GS (650cc single, also an adventure tourer, but more similar to a Suzuki DR650 or Kawasaki KLR650).
http://www.knopftour...Site/Hello.html
Here is a quote from someone that used this company's services in the fall of 2009 to ship their own bikes. Also here is a link to some more info:
http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,180.0.html Hope this give you a few ideas!
The Bikes:
To make a long story short, Stefan Knopf had a container leaving from Denver on August 24, 2009. Buck and I secured a space in the container and Buck U-Hauled both bikes to Denver. Prior to putting the bikes on the container Stefan guided us through the necessary paperwork and he takes care of customs on each end. The bikes are scheduled to arrive in Bremerhaven, Germany on September 27th. If you go for three weeks or more, it is less expensive to
ship your bike than it is to rent the bikes. Stefan will store the bikes in his warehouse (where there is access to his shop). We plan on storing the bikes with him for a while because we wish to make return trips. His storage rates are very reasonable.
Gas is expensive but it does not seem to be. In the Western US we would normally ride 400-500 miles a day and burn multiple tanks. In the Alps you can ride all day long but you are not covering many miles. We never burned a full tank of gas in one day. Expensive but not as painful as you think. One does not put in the mileage in
Europe as they do in the Western US.
When to go:
We fly into Frankfurt on October 7th and make our way to Stafan's B&B where we will rest before heading to the Alps on the following day. We love the "shoulder" season of September and October. The weather is great and the tourists are gone so there are not many crowds. In most cases, there were only a few other campers in the campgrounds. Most campgrounds have a small market, cafe and many have coin operated laundry facilities. Prices are cheaper in the off season.
Our camping philosophy:
As stated earlier, we camp most of the time. We did get a pension when it was raining one night so we did not have to deal with wet gear. The European campgrounds that we visited were clean and almost every single one of the campgrounds were in scenic places. We camped riverside on the Moselle and Rhine, lakeside at Lake Garda and we camped at the base of the Eiger. We took Kermit chairs, a small folding table, a backpacking cookset. Our tent was light weight and we had inflatable foam pads under our goose down sleeping bags. We were always dry, warm and comfortable. The campgrounds charge by the person, for a tent and for each motorcycle. We almost always camped for less than 20 euros. They have clean facilities (bathrooms, showers, sometimes laundries and often a cafe and small market. Because there were two of us, that was less 10 euros each. We would fire the stoves up each morning for coffee and we would cook oatmeal and ate yogurt, fruit, cheese, etc. We got to meet alot of people in the campground who were curious about us. We never felt unsafe and we felt our equipment was secure. In the past, we only stayed in any one campground once night but that will change on this trip. We will probably stay in one campground two or three nights due to all the wonderful riding.
As others have mentioned we referenced John Herman's books (example:John Hermann's
Motorcycle Journeys through the Alps and Corisca ). We also cross reference Herman's books with Rick Steve's, "
EuropeThrouigh the Back Door" series and other reference books. If you know where you wish to go, the Michelin Regional Maps are much better than the map of the entire country. We use both the Country Map (such as Italy) but we also use the regional maps (such as NE Italy) because they provide so much detail. We will use GPS unites this time.
Costs - Shipping Bikes:
It cost us about $1200 to
ship our bikes from Denver. This includes Green Card insurance, bike insurance (for the sea voyage only), Stefan handling the customs paperwork and a bit of storage time in Stefan's warehouse. It was all inclusive The cost to
ship the bike is just about the cost of 10 days bike rental.
