Getting the bikes - road trip
The quest to pick up the bikes
My brother and I chose to rent a MC trailer and drive to pick up the bikes in Germany and France vs the more "obvious" aka fly to the nearest airport, use public transport or taxi to the seller and then drive the bikes back on a 7 day temporary license as it was more expensive than a road trip.
So we ended up renting a MC trailer for 3 bikes, though having used it and seen only one MC trailer with 3 bike stands drive by us, we think our trailer would not be able to handled 3 bikes if they were not small motorcross bikes.
The trip
The trip we ended up riding was just over 4200km
Day 1: We couldn't get the trailer until 12 o'clock on the Friday we left, so after doing the paperwork, finding a few small issues in the pre-check of the trailer we left at 13 o'clock on Friday the 26th of September 2025.
We slept in the car approx 1 hour north of the first destination in Germany (my brother in a tent on the rasthof and me in the car (he says i snore... I don't know what he is talking about).
Day 2: We arrived at the German sellers place at around 9:30-10:00 in the morning and met the seller. We had a talk and a look at the bike and of course heard it spin up. We didn't take it for a test drive as that would be for when we got home. Transaction went without problems. The seller had de-registered the bike at the German KBA and had some TÜV papers (bi-yearly inpsection last done 1½ months before). We loaded the bike on the trailer - on the right side instead of the middle... we should have chosen the middle for the drive to France and just rotated it to the side, but newbies we are and didn't.
The drive to France, some 1200km away, was long, uneventful, though there was a fantastic sunset :-)
Day 3: We arrived at the seller at around 9:30 and he went through the same process of checking the bike etc. and a lot more paper work. Bureaucracy is French and they love it... Anyhow the transaction went fine, no problems at all and we loaded the bike on the MC trailer and off we went... 1800km home.
Day 4: We arrived home to my place and unloaded the first bike at roughly 11 o'clock, and at 11:30 at his place and cleaned the trailier and returned it to the renting place at 12:30 and then I was back home and went to bed at around 14 o'clock... I didn't wake up until the alarm clock woke me for work :-D
After arriving home
We started double checking proceures and papers etc. after getting home and that is how the importing process started...
Trip details: Total trip: 4300km Total time: 55 and 34min