Shipping a Motorcycle

Where to start… First of all you need to find a company or broker that wants your business. You’d be amazed at how many companies you can contact and hear nothing but crickets. After countless emails, phone calls, and online submissions I got only two responses. Both gave me good priced quotes that came in around $2,000. That price was to ship my 800GS from Long Beach California to Santiago, Chile or the nearest port. After I made my decision between the two I stated to put the wheels in motion. I was going to build my own crate and crate the bike myself. The company was going to pick it up in reno, truck it to Long Beach, and shove it in the container. Easy right? Well, 10 days before my bike was to be picked up my broker decided to let me know that my crate needed to be a specific wood, “ISPM-15 heat treated” in order to clear international customs. No idea why, after 6 months or organizing this, he decided to tell me 10 days till pick up. I called around to get this “special wood” I found one place that could order it for me. After giving them my specs for my crate I was given a quote of about $1,000 USD just in materials. This “special wood” costs about $350 a sheet! Holly fuck, then I still need to build the crate. That was the end of that arrangement after months of emails back and forth, emails between their company, documents, size, specs, the whole nine.

Enter Air 7 Seas. They were the other company who gave me a quote originally. I chose not to go with them because every time I talked with somebody, either on the phone or email, I was always speaking with a person of a middle eastern descent. No issues with where they are from, it just didn’t instill a ton of confidence in me to simply hand over my motorcycle to a person or persons with whom I couldn’t clearly communicate. If you are a parent, find a random person on the street who speaks broken English, then hand your child over to them to babysit them for 45 days and also have them meet you thousands of miles away in a foreign country to pick up your kid. Yeah right! Same goes with my motorcycle. That’s my baby, baby. So, after other shipping arrangement falls short I quickly call “my guy” or “my broker” at Air 7 Seas to see if his estimate still stands and if I can get it on the same ship in order to get the bike there by November 1st 2019. He happily tells me yes but the price has changed a bit. I also have him throw in the $500 cost of crating the bike for me as well. Done and here we are in Chile sitting on the bike. Ha!

My broker gives me the details, prices, dates, etc. and we make a deal. It’s about $1000 USD more than I had originally budgeted but at this point what can I do? I had already bought my flight to Santiago when I finalized dates with my original shipper so it was go time. Now, in order to crate my bike I have to get it to San Jose, California to the warehouse. Not ideal but what other options do I have. I make a ride over to San Jose with all my gear minus a few things to drop the bike off for crating. I arrive and meet a different person than with whom I had been dealing with. He takes me into this shitty, dirty, make shift office to go over all the paperwork. As we are signing everything he asks, “why didn’t you fly it down for cheaper?”. I tell him that in the US motorcycles are considered hazardous materials and cannot be flown. He then, as I am signing the paperwork says, “No we have a way to get around that. We drain it and sign off that here is nothing flammable in the bike and it is cleared as a B5-C package and can be flown. Unfortunately this time you are already shipping sea freight so next time we can fly it.”. You have to be fucking kidding me. Dood tells me that as I am checking out! Dick-Head! We finish up paperwork and its time to leave the bike. He’s telling me there are different types of insurance (there is only one and it’s called complete loss) so I get insurance for up to $12,000. This only covers the bike if the whole container/crate goes missing or falls over deck. It does not cover the bike if is arrives smashed or damaged. I find that out after he sells me the one they do not actually have.

Time to get the bike ready to leave and then go pay. So I ask, “do I need to disconnect the battery myself (cause I’d like to), do you want the key with you or in the ignition, where can I park it instead of the parking lot…” You know, all those questions that would have already been answered or instructed by a professional or professional outfit! Fucking guy doesn’t know if I need to leave the key, “thinks” they have somebody to disconnect the battery, and to “just leave the bike in the parking lot with the extra bag on the seat”. Hahaha, very funny dood. I ain’t leaving shit like that! I tell him I’d like to put it in the warehouse at the very lease. This is all taking place cause the 3rd guy, guy who crates all the stuff, is out to lunch at 9:45am. So he opens the rolling door to a small warehouse staked to the roof with nothing but packing shit and objects all over. He has me roll the bike in, put it on its side stand, put the extra bag and water jug on it, and walk away. It was the hardest thing Iv had to do in a long time. I’m literally leaving the backbone of my whole up coming trip in the hands of this perceive knucklehead who doesn’t really know shit. He just kinda tells me what I want to hear but the more he talked he starts to contradict himself.

Now its time to pay. I get walked in and passed off to the 4th guy in the rotation, finance. He prints out the invoice, sets it on the table, and then pulls out a calculator. He asks, “how are you going to pay?” Well its 2020 so I say, “credit card”. He proceeds to tell me there are other options like cash, I can deposit it straight into their B of A bank account, and check but wanted to let me know there was a 4% service charge for all cards, debit and credit. What the FUCK! “Pravin (my broker) didn’t tell you that?’ No dood otherwise I would have made fucking arrangements. I’m at their will at this point because I cant leave without guarantee unless I pay at least half of the total. MOTHER FUCKERS. I pay, no other options really and say good by to my bike. I did tip the 2nd dood a 10er and left the crate guy a 20 to take good care of my baby. Doubt that made it to him. I hit the road to the train station so I can get to Davis on time to catch a ride with a friend back home to reno. I decide to call my broker and ask about the service charge he failed to mention. He says, “I thought you would pay with a check”. Mind you this guy is mid 30s and knows my age of 32 and its 2019. What the fuck makes you think that I am going to pay with a fucking check! And hey fucko, maybe tell me my payment options before hand so that I can make arrangements. But hey you guys are welcome for my payment in full before I leave, plus my 4% service charge, Dick-Heads.

I share all that cause its important to try and somewhat set the scene of shipping your motorcycle internationally. I say all that and I still don’t have my bike 50+ days later sitting in Cartagena, Chile. Obviously it takes time to sea freight something thousands of miles away so no big deals there. On my original invoice, as well as a second bill to pay for my “destination charges”, it says, and I was told, the bike would be going directly to Santiago. Well, once I arrived in Santiago I stopped by the ECU Worldwide (the carrier) to pick up my official Bill of Landing. They informed me that the bike would not come to Santiago and instead I had to personally pick it up in the port of San Antonio. Surprise to me since it was confirmed throughout by my broker that it would be in Santiago. I immediately emailed my broker and true to his form told me, “We contacted the carrier and will not ship personal items to Santiago and you have to pick it up in the port.” No fucking shit, I’m here in the office talking to them. I fired back a few emails being polite but also jumping in his shit. — “A few questions Pravin? When did you know or for how long have you know the bike wasn’t coming to Santiago? This is kind of like the service charge you forgot to mention and now here I am the proper fucking idiot having to take care of yet another thing I already paid you for.” “Not to mention I have a room booked here, so I need to eat that money, get transportation to a town 2hrs away, and then pay for another fucking room.” Most of it true but just felt like giving him a “What-fer”. I arrive in San Antonio and set out to check in with customs. I find the office (the one the carrier in Santiago told me to go to) and they inform me that this is the wrong one and I need to go to another. Seems know body in the shipping game knows their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to logistics and that’s what they do! I get to the other office, dead center of the port and all the giant containers piled high. I am so out of place. Only white guy or gringo for miles, as well I’m not going to work with my vest and hard hat so obviously I stick out like a piece of corn in a turd! To my surprise the two customs guys I meet with are delight. So helpful, willing to call around for what they don’t know, want to see me succeed. As well the older one is infatuated with what I am doing, my plans, where I am from, what its like, the whole deal. Even though we are done until the bike actually gets unloaded I sit in his office chatting with both as if we are all taking a break around the coffee pot. Fucking great.

That all brings us to the present moment. I arrived Thursday October 17th at 10:30 am. Ship gets in that day so no big deals. Takes about 2-4 days to unload everything and sort through the containers. Understandable. They tell me come back Monday @ 4pm and well finish everything up and get your ass in the saddle. Sweet! Well… at this time Santiago, Chile starts to become a boiling pot of revolution. If you haven’t seen what’s going on I tell you take poke around the jet stream (internet) and see for yourself. No big deals, I’m not there, bike comes Monday, it’s Thursday, we are good. Hahaha, I know better. Santiago boils over like the LA riots back in the 90s. There are metro stations and busses being burned to the ground, looting going on in the supermarkets, and masses of people starting to congregate and protest. The Chilean government ends up having to call in the military to help control the people and bring order. If you don’t know this is a huge deal. They have not done this since the dictatorship days of Pinochet back between 79-90. So, when the government calls in military force it means business, brings back the dark memories of that decade, which to me, seems similar to that of Germany in the 30s. “Papers, where are your papers.” Military and local police stopping anybody when they want, for whatever they want, and then doing what they want. It doesn’t seem that it has gotten to that point yet, but I really don’t know shit. There is now a curfew, and has been for 2 nights prior, in Santiago proper, as well as all the surrounding cities and regions to the north and south.

What does all that mean for me you ask? Well it means the port works will go on strike and have! Of course, why not. Actually comical when you think about it. I was set to get my motorcycle out of customs 2 days after one of the biggest unrest’s happens in Chile in the last 30 years. Why the fuck not. So now instead of Monday it is Tuesday night and I am supposed to be getting Ol Lily tomorrow morning. More will be revealed cause as Iv learned, a lot of this is like trying to turn a ball round door knob after you just put lotion on your hands. After countless attempts you finally wrap your shirt around it and get it open!

I know this post sucked. It did for me. I haven’t been to involved in blogging, writing, journaling, or anything of the sort up to this point. I started to change today. I wrote down a few Chilean dishes, wrote this, and kept up on my gratitude list. I hope it gets better, I wouldn’t want to read this. Practice not perfection.