shipping motorcycles, anyone done it?

I'm getting closer and closer to getting my first VFR!! I'm looking nationwide pretty right now. I'd ideally like to buy one in the spring and make a one way flight / road trip out of it. But my wife said I can start looking soon and I'm going insane wanting one so freakin bad. So the other option is shipping one with a shipping company. Anyone had any experience with them or advice where to find the best deal? Thanks.

 

A few years ago, I sold a motorcycle that I had listed with cycle trader. The guy that bought the bike lived in San Diago, CA (I am in St. Louis) and had a shipper pick the bike up. I was completely unfamiliar with this process, but when the pickup day arrived, a tractor trailer pulled up. We loaded the bike in, tied it down, covered it up with dense shipping blankets and off it went.

Three days later, I got an email from the buyer who stated that the bike arrived without a scratch! I was very impressed. If memory serves me correctly, I believe the shipping cost was just under $300

 

I've done it twice.

I used shipping masters both times. They don't even ship bikes. They just give you a list of shippers, with details about shipping method, price, and pickup dates based on when/where you want to ship your bike, and they charge a fee for the service.

It costs some money, so if you look around yourself, you can bypass that fee. But I ended up using them again, just for the convenience. Some would say it's a waste of money. But I felt like it saved me doing some homework. The guy (Dave?) would presumably get an earful if one of his shippers screwed up, and would stop referring to them. At any rate, he knows more about shipping bikes than I do, and that gives me 2 people to complain to if anything goes wrong.

I paid ~$500-550 for each delivery. No major problems. First bike delivered 1 day late. Second bike took 4-5 days longer than anticipated, but arrived in good shape.

 

I've had three bikes shipped to me and each time they were in professional

built crates using wood screws.

I dismantled the crates (after marking each piece) and sold them on Craigslist.

Not one scratch and worth the extra cost on my RC30, RG500 and my VFR.

All three were air-freighted and pretty easy to follow the shipping progress.

I was at the SF airport waiting with my trailer because I know that fork lifts

running around like their in the Indy 500 do lots of damage.

Opening the crates at home . . . I felt like a 6 year old opening a special Christmas gift.