Damaged in Transit

By Gaz under Bikes & Cars, Travel

We arrived back at the warehouse in Miami Springs bright and early yesterday, as instructed, and set about the exhausting task of removing the chocks and ties strapping our bikes into the crates. The process took about 4 hours in all, including the time it took to get the bikes running and return our rental car to the airport. The Fatboy had been strapped down onto its side-stand, and chocks put under the front and rear of the tires to prevent it from rolling. Even so, the windshield had been pressed up against the edge of the crate, and is somewhat bent. There were also some scuff marks in the varnish from the metal tape used to strap everything in. I’m hoping I can fix most of this myself.

Octavia’s Street Bob fared considerably less well. The crating contractor had lifted the whole bike off the wheels by fitting chocks under the frame, with the stand still up and then strapped the bike into the crate totally upright. Not surprisingly, the bike had moved under the metal tie-strips quite considerably, taking the paint off several parts of the bike, and bending the side stand. Worse, they had folded a flattened cardboard box over the tank, staples down… so the tank is badly scored, and will probably be cheaper to replace than repair.

When I sent the bikes back to Miami, I found out that the consolidator had shipped them from LA to London uninsured, and since I didn’t have sight of the bikes in England, didn’t waste my money insuring them for the return trip: The loss adjuster would have declared any damage I claimed for to have occurred on the outbound journey. Instead, I’ve saved around $1600 on the cost of the insurance premiums I didn’t have to pay, so my hope is that the cost of repairs will be less than this.

Once I’d installed the new batteries, and after careful inspection for any mechanical problems, I took both bikes for a test ride and they were thankfully still running well. I’ve booked both for their 5,000 mile service now that we’ve ridden over 250 miles back to Orlando, so they’ll get a thorough inspection from a qualified mechanic tomorrow incase I missed anything. It was well past 3pm yesterday by the time we were underway after a late lunch, and we stopped for a couple of hours outside Fort Lauderdale around 6pm to escape the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate in the blistering evening sun. Shortly after setting off again, another of the short Florida thunder showers drenched us through to the skin.

This morning I am a broken man. The skin on the back of my hands looks like crispy fried duck from being in the sun all day. The skin on the palms of my hands is sore and blistered from too much crowbar fighting. The muscles in my arms, back and legs are stiff and sore from hoisting and heaving two huge Harleys out of their shipping crates. But. (And this makes it all worthwhile). But… the bikes are finally back in the garage, and we have another 10 weeks to explore Florida before our tourist visas expire.

Moral of the story: Unless you know exactly what you are doing, or unless you have no personal attachment to the goods in transit, shipping things back and forth across the Atlantic is a hair-tearing stress-inducing nightmare. If I had known back then what I know now, I doubt I would have put myself through this. On the other hand, I think I’ve learnt the hardest lessons now, so maybe I’ll be equipped to do a better job if I decide to ship the bikes again.

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