I work at a reseller called Scalar Decisions, focusing on data centre products. Turnover is pretty common in the IT field, so one perk management gives to try to keep the talent around is a 4 week "sabbatical" after every 4th year.
My 4th year finished in December 2011. In January 2012, I asked and was approved for a 7 week vacation, reaching from July 27th through September 16th.
In February, in anticipation of this vacation, I had my old 2000 Honda VFR800 shipped to Heidelberg, Germany by knopftours.com.
My VFR had a pretty busy life back here in North America; in roughly 4.5 years, I did 150000km (bringing it to about 165000km). It saw every continental United State and all the provinces. Considering how high its KMs were, I thought it prudent to start looking for a new ride. I found a screamin' deal on a 2003 Honda Blackbird CBR1100xx, in black no less.
Since October, the VFR only saw street time was when the Blackbird was in for servicing. Instead of letting it spend its last days wasting away, I had the opportunity to take advantage of a cheap shipping deal to knopftours.com
Knopftours.com is a full-service motorcycle tourist haven in Heidelberg. Shipping, B&B, storage, basic maintenance, battery charging, arranging insurance, etc. They came well recommended from a couple forums, including advrider.com. I was struggling over the rent/buy/ship question until I found this company. They've been doing this for over 21 years.
Knopftours regularily floats a container between Heidelberg and Orlando Florida. I managed to ride down between weather systems on the Family Day long weekend in February and handed it over to the logistics company Stefan Knopf uses in Orlando. I heard there were 14 other bikes ready to be loaded up too.
The entire process went way smoother than I could have imagined. Stefan sent regular emails reporting the journey and milestones. The bikes started their journey late-March, and arrived at knopftours mid-April.
Knopftours' yearly storage rates are astoundingly reasonable; around US$300/year. With this rate in mind, I won't bother bringing the VFR back. It will always be sitting there in Heidelberg, waiting for me to find time to go visit it.
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