knopf tours

Upcoming Events

Throughout the year we have annual events which our customers have come to love and even plan into their trip. in special years or occasions, we really enjoy sharing and celebrating with fellow two-wheeled travellers. please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions..

October 7-9, 2022   Germany's biggest old-timer and spare part market. We are happy to provide you with the service of sending your purchased bikes/parts home with Knopftours. You can always book a room at our biker B&B if you need one during the event.       https://www.veterama.de/en/

30 Year Anniversary Knopftours

September 2023

Come celebrate the memories and good friendships through the years!

8th./9th. Sept.

1st Knopftours Motorcycle Vintage Tour O ctober 7-16, 2023   Join us on a tour of the best motorcycle museums and private collections of antique motorcycles and discover the endless Veterama Vintage swap meet in Mannheim as the final highlight. For more info click here

October 13-15, 2023  Germany's biggest old-timer and spare part market. We are happy to provide you with the service of sending your purchased bikes/parts home with Knopftours. You can always book a room at our biker B&B if you need one during the event. Click here for the official website

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Knopf Motorcycle rentals - Heidelberg Forum

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Hi everybody

Finding it really difficult in finding any reviews or feedback on rental places in general.

Has anyone had any dealings with Knopf tours or can highly recommend somewhere we can rent R1200GS?

Much appreciated

Well the problem might be searching in English. Many dealerships rent bikes out and rather cheaper than Knopf tours. Here is a link to some more http://www.erento.com/mieten/fahrzeuge_fluggeraete/motorrad,_trike_quad/motorrad/bmw-motorrad/heidelberg/

Tripadvisor staff removed this post because it did not meet Tripadvisor's forum guideline limiting each user to a single forums screen name.

This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity.

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Heidelberg Hotels and Places to Stay

Germany International Motorcycle Shipping Companies

Motorcycle shipping companies in germany..

Please contact the companies listed on this page directly for more information.

In time Forwarding & Courier

“ We are a freight forwarder specialized in vehicle transport. We have over 20 years experience in shipping vehicles internationally for vacation use. We offer all-in rates with no bad surprises after shipping.”

Business: International freight forwarder. 

Ships to: International.

• Air freight
• Sea freight
• Customs clearance
• Warehouse and storage

Knopf Tours

“ For over 30 years we have provided a motorcycle shipping and transportation service for motorcycling enthusiasts who want to send their bikes around the world. We want to help you have the trip of your dreams. “

Business: International freight forwarder and operator specialising in air and sea freight of motorcycles. 

Ships to: Knopf Tours mostly ship between North America, USA and Germany, but individual shipments to other continents and countries are available from April – October. Please enquire.

• Air and Sea freight of motorcycles between the USA and Germany as well as many other countries
• Green card insurance for Europe
• Motorcycle rentals and tours worldwide
• Motorcycle servicing in Germany
• Motorcycle storage in Germany
• Bed and breakfast in Germany

Read more on Motorcycle Travel and Shipping in Germany and Europe.

Thanks for checking out the Germany Motorcycle Shipping Companies post. We hope you found what you were looking for. Here’s a few more articles on motorcycling in Germany and Europe that we recommend you read next. 

• All Destination Guides
• Europe Guides
• Germany Guides
• Motorcycle Travel Guide: Europe
• What to Pack for a European Tour
• Motorcycle Travel Insurance Explained
• International Shipping Guide

Motorcycle Travel Paperwork Explained

Motorcycle Touring for Beginners

We’d love to hear from you! Let us know about your Germany motorcycle shipping experiences and ask any questions in the comments below. 

9 thoughts on “Germany International Motorcycle Shipping Companies”

Shipping my motorcycle BMW1200GS from Europe to North America

I intend to ship my Motorcycle to North America‘s East coast for pick-up at destination after 1.June 2022. preferably Halifax or other East Canadian locations. East coast US are ok as well.

I‘m living in Switzerland, near Luzern, but could drive the bike myself to airports like Basel, Zürich, Frankfurt, Etc. if reasonable.

Air cargo preferred, but open for e.g. roro sea cargo via Zeebrugge, Rotterdam etc

How best to proceed? Any suggestion?

Kind regards Robert Schroeder +41 78 217 6117

Hi Robert, thanks for your question. We’ll do our best to help you out. This page shows motorcycle shipping companies based in Germany. There are three companies listed on this page. My suggestion is to use their contact info listed above (both companies’ website, email and phone information is listed above) and get in touch with both companies and ask for information regarding your shipment. They will be able to provide you with info on their services, prices and where to ship from and to. I hope this helps and best of luck with your shipment. If you need anything else, please feel free to ask anytime, Cheers, Andy

Hi, I want to ship my motorcycle from Stuttgart Germany to Progreso/Merida, Mexico and I want the motorcycle to be on a crate for delivery.

I need to know the quote for the shipment along with the crate.

My motorcycle is – Harley Davidson Road Glide, 2015 Weight- 820 lb./ 372 kg. Length – 2430 mm Saddle Height – 695 mm

Delivery From – Stuttgart, Germany. Zip code – 70173 Delivery to – Progreso/Merida, Mexico. Zip code- 97320

I would like to know the motorcycle crate shipping quote of the motorcycle mentioned above. Please give me a feedback as soon as possible.

Regards Shreya Halder

Hi Shreya, As mentioned in the email you sent, you will need to contact these companies directly. This is simply a directory that lists their information and contact details. You can find each of their websites and email addresses above. Thank you and best of luck with your shipment.

Hey Shreya,

Happy new year! It would be great if you can share your experience of shipping your motorcycle from Germany to Mexico.

Thanks & Regards, Vimeet

I want to ship my motorcycle from Bangalore, India to Cologne, Germany and I want the motorcycle to be on a crate for delivery.

Please share the quote for the shipment along with the crate.

My Motorcycle is – Royal Enfield Interceptor 650, 2019 Weight – 210 kg / 462.91 Length – 2112 mm Saddle Height – 810 mm

Delivery From – Bangalore, India. Zip code – 560037 Delivery To – Cologne, Germany. Zip Code – 50668

Please share the quote as soon as possible.

Thanks & Regards, Vimeet Gautam

Hi Vimeet, thanks for your comment. This page is a directory of companies – the companies themselves don’t monitor this page – we’re simply listing shipping companies who deal with motorcycle shipments in and out of Germany. All of the companies have their contact info listed above. Please feel free to get in touch with them regarding your request and I’m sure they will be able to help you with getting your Royal Enfield from Bangalore to Cologne.

Let us know how you get on or if you need anything else. Cheers, Andy

Hi vimeet , I’m also looking into shipping a royal Enfield from Bangalore to Germany. I would love to get some advice on this and the subsequent procedures/costs. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hi Aadhitya, please email the companies listed on this page directly as they will be able to help provide you with quotes and more info. Thanks, Andy

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Stepan knopf and Knopf tours

Discussion in ' EMEA ' started by rhjiii46 , Dec 15, 2018 .

rhjiii46 Adventurer

Just getting into planning a trip to Europe and can't find Knopf tours any more. Anyone heard anything about Stepan and his transportation service to Germany?

Dracula Fat Griso & The Ape Supporter

I found him on google

I found his web site but there is nothing current on it and he didn't respond to emails.

MJS Long timer

He's either busy or taking a few days off. He will get back to you at some point (unless your email went into a spam file). My wife received an email from him just a few days ago asking if we had shipped our bikes back to him. Unfortunately, we were unable to answer in the affirmative.

wheatwhacker It's raining here Supporter

Send a text to +49 172 978 6218

MichaelJ Long timer Supporter

Yeah - Stefan isn't the best at answering emails. That being said, he reads them and has never lost anything in the cracks in the 10 years that I've been using his services.

slowriding Dopeless Hope Fiend

My bike broke down in Poland in July. Took it to the dealer in Wroclaw but it would take to long to repair. Made arrangements to get it to Germany for repair. Stefan emailed me on 10 Jan that the bike had arrived at the local dealer, so I know he is alive. ; ) You have to meet Stefan and see his operation to understand how busy he is but always seems to have things under control. Stefan and Dooby @ Lobagola B&B are two of the hardest working guys I have met. I don't think either one of them sleep but Dooby wins on getting back promptly with email.

Roadscum Long timer

MichaelJ said: ↑ Yeah - Stefan isn't the best at answering emails. That being said, he reads them and has never lost anything in the cracks in the 10 years that I've been using his services. Click to expand...

dooby aka Frgich; www.lobagola-mototours.com Supporter

slowriding said: ↑ My bike broke down in Poland in July. Took it to the dealer in Wroclaw but it would take to long to repair. Made arrangements to get it to Germany for repair. Stefan emailed me on 10 Jan that the bike had arrived at the local dealer, so I know he is alive. ; ) You have to meet Stefan and see his operation to understand how busy he is but always seems to have things under control. Stefan and Dooby @ Lobagola B&B are two of the hardest working guys I have met. I don't think either one of them sleep but Dooby wins on getting back promptly with email. Click to expand...

Hey Dooby, I was on the last part of my 3 month ride heading back to Germany. I was on a Polish motorway with cruise control set at 200 kph enjoying the ride when I felt the bike shake a bit. Motor was still turning but no power. My guardian angel was looking after me and gave me a rest area to coast into. Got a tow to the dealer and they could see the u-joint on the drive shaft broke. The dealer said a week to get parts from Germany and then they would schedule the work. I didn't have that much time left on my visa before I would have to leave the EU. So the Polish dealer arranged to ship it back to the dealer near Heidelberg that Stefan uses. I was told the bike was collected in August headed for Germany. Where it stayed all that time, I don't know. I started to think it was in Romania and being sold off as parts. ; ) Regards, D

slowriding said: ↑ Hey Dooby, I was on the last part of my 3 month ride heading back to Germany. I was on a Polish motorway with cruise control set at 200 kph enjoying the ride when I felt the bike shake a bit. Motor was still turning but no power. My guardian angel was looking after me and gave me a rest area to coast into. Got a tow to the dealer and they could see the u-joint on the drive shaft broke. The dealer said a week to get parts from Germany and then they would schedule the work. I didn't have that much time left on my visa before I would have to leave the EU. So the Polish dealer arranged to ship it back to the dealer near Heidelberg that Stefan uses. I was told the bike was collected in August headed for Germany. Where it stayed all that time, I don't know. I started to think it was in Romania and being sold off as parts. ; ) Regards, D Click to expand...

Dooby, Another one of those, "never seen this before" events. How lucky can I be? Not sure if I will have time to stay with you this year. When I finish riding in Africa I will fly to Germany and get my bike. I have a small window of free time before I leave for the USA and there is a woman I met who will be in Slovakia during that time.

Ridercam Been here awhile Supporter

slowriding said: ↑ Dooby, Another one of those, "never seen this before" events. How lucky can I be? Not sure if I will have time to stay with you this year. When I finish riding in Africa I will fly to Germany and get my bike. I have a small window of free time before I leave for the USA and there is a woman I met who will be in Slovakia during that time. Click to expand...

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Problem Solved

How to fly and store your motorcycle overseas for touring, without using a shipping company, cheaply

In this blog post I will explain the steps required to ship your motorcycle overseas yourself and details about registration and insurance, required paperwork and preparation of the bike. Using specialized shipping companies is usually not worth it – they will not clear customs for you when you arrive and they don’t prep your bike when you deliver it to the airport, typically all the shipping company will do is book your shipment and provide you with some of the required paperwork, and taking a huge percentage for little effrort. You are left doing most of the legwork so I do not recommend using a shipping company unless they do these things. I have experience shipping a Honda 919 Hornet from Calgary, Alberta, Canada on Air Transat to Gatwick airport, London, UK in 2006.  I’m also including some information from friends of mine that have shipped their bikes from Vancouver to Frankfurt in 2010, and most recently Calgary to Frankfurt, Germany in 2012.  This post discusses flying your bike air freight one-way, and then storage overseas.   People often debate weather or not it is worth shipping and my answer is usually that if you are planning to use the bike in Europe for more than about 2-3 weeks, then it is a tossup in terms of cost.  If you’re going to Thailand, rentals are less than half the price so renting might be a good option.  Of course there is less effort renting, and less risk, however rental companies for bikes may make you put down a deposit of as much as half the price of the bike.  If you plan on going overseas on a regular basis or for long term, then shipping your bike there is a good option.

The savings shipping by sea are usually not worth it.  Shipping by sea from Canada to Europe you are looking at about $800+ and an uncertainty factor at when the bike will arrive at port, and you may be responsible for storage fees at the destination if you are not there exactly when the bike arrives.  By air freight, you are looking at about $1000 to $1300 one way if you get a good deal, depending if you ship your motorcycle crated as non-hazardous (battery and gas removed), or stood up and strapped down to a wooden pallet provided at the airport, and labeled as hazardous (with battery and 1/4 tank of gas or less). Note that return shipping back to (for example) Canada, may be expensive, often even more expensive. You may find that shipping back to Canada costs double the cost to ship from Canada. Air Canada had a promotion a while ago where you could ship your motorcycle to Europe for under $1000, but return shipping was about double that. Usually shipping hazardous is your best bet as it will cost ~ $80 extra and you save yourself the trouble of the crate, battery purchase and getting gas issues.  This does not include the customs clearance at the other end which may run you about $200+. For additional information or specific countries for shipping to and from, I find searching Horizons Unlimited and ADV Rider indispensable.

Step by step what you need to do:

• Get quotes, choose an airline, sort out dates and times
• Get your bike ready with the luggage mounted (if luggage allowed).
• Get your international drivers license, travel insurance, Green Card Insurance ahead of time
• Prep your bike for shipment and get forms and sticker ahead of time
• Arrive, clear customs, don’t pay duty
• After your trip, storage or ship it back
• Going back for another trip – you do not need to renew bike registration

Quotes, Arrival Times

• Get quotes from various airlines on air freight for shipping the motorcycle.  Be sure to ask them exactly what they need done to the bike, what they need from you, and what paperwork they need you to have or fill out.  Often they will have options, hazardous or non-hazardous, and crated or strapped to a pallet with clear plastic wrapped over your bike to prevent damage and associated costs for both options.  It is usually only $80 more to ship on a pallet, they roll your bike onto a pallet and cut two holes for your tires to go in the boards and the bike sits pretty stable on it, they tie it down.  It’s much easier to just leave 1/4 tank of gas, battery disconnected but still installed.  If you ship in a crate you have to worry about taking the front tire off, windshield off perhaps, not shipping the battery and completely draining the gas tank and needing a jerrycan and new battery at the destination if you ship non-hazardous.
• If you decide to ship in a crate, you can find out the total crated weight of your shipment with dimensions by looking up the wet-weight specifications of your bike online or in the manual, subtract 3/4 gas volume weight, add crate weight, and determine crate dimensions.  A typical sport bike crate might be 30 inch wide, 42 inch tall, 89 inch long,  80 lbs.
• Usually you’ll want to arrive on the same day or within 1 day of the arrival of your bike. Make sure that the customs office will be open when you get there or else you’ll be wasting valuable time after arrival waiting for your bike.

Get bike ready, luggage considerations

• Read my blog post on minimal packing lists for motorcycle touring , to decide how much luggage and what type of luggage you may want to mount to your bike.  The blog post goes into detail about lots of things including electrical things.  You may be able to get away with a single top case if you pack lightly.
• Think about power on the bike, will you need a 12V power socket?  These are pretty easy to wire, you will at least need an all-weather socket with an in-line fuse, the whole arrangement will cost about $15.  You might also want to wire an automotive relay to your tail light circuit.  Here is a diagram that I drew up long ago for this.

Get International License and Insurance

• In Calgary, you can get an international drivers license which is good for 1 year for about $25 at AMA offices in Canada.  It takes 10 minutes.  The license is to be used in conjunction with your Alberta drivers license if you are pulled over overseas.
• Optionally you can purchase road side assistance insurance.  Knopf Tours out of Heidelberg Germany is a good resource for this.
• Full coverage or collision coverage, from what I have found, is quite expensive and probably not worth it.  Few people get it. I cannot recommend any companies that provide it as I am not aware of them.
• Be sure to get travel health insurance also, often it can be covered by your credit card for up to about 22 days. If you need longer coverage, look into the company called World Nomads , however look at their fine print, their terms may have changed such that motorcycle riding could now be designated as risky and costs extra.
• Your motorcycle registration documents do not need to be up-to-date. As long as you have proof that you own your motorcycle, that is all you need.

Prep bike for shipment, and get forms

• If you use a crate, there is the issue of getting and moving a crate (for example from Walt Healy in Calgary for about $75), and if shipping back after the trip, storage or buying a new crate, and you often need to remove the wind screen and the front tire to make a bike fit into a crate, so that leads to the issue of putting the front tire back on overseas in a cargo bay.  However a crated bike is often the cheapest way for shipping.
• The other option is on a pallet which I prefer because you do not need to remove the tire, and you can have more luggage  mounted to your bike when it ships, luggage containing tools for example that might have otherwise made you go over the checked baggage weight allowance in the airport.
• When shipping hazardous you leave less than a quarter tank of gas in the bike, and disconnect the battery. When shipping non-hazardous you would need to remove the battery all together, and remove all of the gas and provide a letter from a dealership who did this for you.  Again, Walt Healy can do this for you. However, this poses an issue at the cargo bay overseas when your bike arrives.  You’ll have to figure out how to get a battery, and gas at the other end.  Maybe you’ve got a friend that can get these things for you waiting for you there?  My preferred method is shipping hazardous (with appropriate sticker and paperwork) on a pallet.  It may cost a hundred dollars more but I think it’s worth saving the hassle.  They do the work for you, loading the bike on the pallet.
• Be sure to bring the bike to the cargo terminal at least 48 before if flies out, or per instructions they gave you.
• You need to leave an extra motorcycle key with the bike before it ships so that if the pilot wants to check to make sure there is no gas in your tank he can do so.  I suggest you have 3 sets of keys at least, two for yourself and one for the cargo terminal.
• Usually they will want the bike clean and free of bugs.
• Bring the original title or bill of sale for the bike.  You may also need “proof of insurance”.
• Hazardous Goods label (number “9” sticker) one for each way, as well as copies of hazardous goods forms (that is, if you are shipping it as hazardous goods).  It’s about $50 to get the dangerous goods documentation.
• Photo ID, and written permission from any Lien-holder to take the bike out of the country.
• On return shipments, customs entry forms you recieved at the port of arrival.

 Clearing Customs

Request when your bike is being shipped that the “Airway Bill” description include the following text:

“USED PERSONAL EFFECTS AS UNACCOMPANIED BAGGAGE’

“USED MOTORBIKE”

This will apparently help avoid delays once the bike arrives at the destination.

• Be very clear with everyone you deal with, that you are only temporarily importing the motorcycle and that it will be return shipped.  This way you do not pay any duty fees on the value of the bike.  Even if you do not plan on returning the bike to your country right away it’s probably in your best interest to pretend you are shipping it back soon. As long as you don’t sell the bike (which in itself may be difficult or impossible to do as you are not a resident of that country), I don’t think there is any issue.  This is a topic open for discussion and research.
• Find out when the customs office is open.  You can arrange to have a freight agent handle clearing customs for you for a fee of a couple hundred dollars, or you can go to the customs office and clear the bike yourself for usually about $60.  Customs offices are often closed to the public on certain days of the week.  For flying into the UK, I believe it is now mandatory that a Customs Broker clear customs for you.  If you want to help out your broker or attempt to clear customs yourself, you will likely need to fill out temporary importation form C110 .  More forms can be found on their customs website .   A customs broker will charge you about $200 to do almost no work at all, but it is probably worth the money to save you the hassle.  They simply fill out a couple of forms and fax it off to customs to clear you.
• I suggest you allow for up to 2 days of waiting time to clear customs unless you’ve got it all researched and figured out ahead of time.  I didn’t plan things ahead of time in London Gatwick and I ended up staying over night in a hotel until I could find a freight agent and the customs office opened up.
• Keep a copy of the paperwork for when you are shipping the bike back.
• If you don’t have any friends overseas to store your bike, consider Knopf Tours out of Heidelberg Germany.  Or if you prefer, in Bulgaria there is a significantly cheaper storage (and cheap liability insurance!) company called Moto Camp .
• Be sure to take notes or photos of your bike before you leave it there, this way you can have a record of things like tire tread wear, chain or sprockets wear and parts that need replacement, so you can be prepared with tools and/or parts next time you go. These photos might also come in handy if you plan to sell the motorcycle while you are away.
• Fill the gas tank full and add an appropriate amount of fuel stabilizer.
• Drain the oil. Oil can be refilled just prior to your next trip.  I usually don’t worry about flat spots developing on the tires in storage because I have not witnessed them (2 years at a time, Michelin Pilot Road 1 and Pilot Road 2 tires).

Going back another year

• There is no need to renew your registration for your motorcycle before you go back overseas to ride it. The police overseas do not care that you are not paying your home country this tax. So all you need is to get your Green Card insurance for the countries you wish to ride in. Be sure you carry proof that you own the motorcycle (bill of sale, or title, or registration paper that is expired, depending on what you have).
• Arrange for your battery to be recharged, or arrange for the purchase of a new battery. Arrange for oil to be filled in your bike.

14 Comments on "How to fly and store your motorcycle overseas for touring, without using a shipping company, cheaply"

• Minimal packing lists and gear suggestions for motorcycle touring – day, multi-day, multi-week, camping, Europe, Thailand… | Thinkbox 12 years ago Permalink

gave this a quick read at this point and will certainly be going over it in fine detail later. It looks very well written/organized.

I am considering shipping my bike [bmw f800gs] to europe [ i.e. italy] for a 3 week ride in 2015. After reading some of your article I now am thinking of storing it there in italy [with friend] to go back for a future ride.

I am wondering if you have any updated info since when you wrote the article?

p.s. tenative plan this summer is:

july: ride ottawa to james bay [and “some” of trans taiga rd] and back over about 8-9 days

aug: ship bike to whitehorse and ride back to ottawa via anchorage; “highway to the sun” montana; yellowstone nat park; mt rushmore SD.

Yes I have a tidbit of updated info: I believe that if you are a Canadian shipping your own bike with Canadian plates on it, that you do not need to have your registraion up to date. All that matters is that you have a bill of sale (or title) and Green card insurance (I get mine through ADAC, Germany). I know that this is the case for South America, and I believe it is also the case for most if not all places overseas. This is great, saves the hassle of getting registrations updated. Sounds like you have a great trip planned, I’ll be riding highway to the sun this summer as well, apparently it’s worth it for the views but it’s really slow-going with all the traffic.

What I mean by this is that if you keep your bike in Europe for an extended period (years), you don’t need to keep updating your registraion nor updating the year sticker on the plate. (Correct me if I’m wrong, pretty sure though).

Great information. Thank you! How long can I leave my Canadian Bike (1200RT) in Europe with Canadian plates on it? Re: ‘Registration’ January 22 /14 answer. So I do not need to renew mw reg sticker in Canada every year? I will load out of Toronto, and fly into Frankfurt or Munich…Any tips on those arrival points as far as German Customs is concerned?

For registration I have been getting mixed information. Myself, I call up my insurance company (State Farm) and get about 1 week of temporary insurance so that I can renew my registration for that year and put the new sticker on the plate of the bike each time I go to Germany, short term, as a tourist. In Germany I also get Green Card insurance. Here is a website that agrees with me: https://www.shipoverseas.com/us/more/how-to-ship-a-car-overseas-faq.html

However, some people I’ve talked to think it is not necessary to update registration, and that you can just have proof of ownership (such as old registration papers or Title or Bill of Sale) and your Green Card insurance. So I can’t give you a definitive answer, but to save you money I think it would be a great thing to know as temp insurance and registration can be a nuicence.

As for tips at the port, I haven’t flown personally into the port in Frankfurt, but I have a friend who has and I think he may have cleared customs by himself by going into the customs clearance office at the airport, be sure they have hours that are open to the public when you arrive. I believe it was not too difficult for him. When I imported my bike it was through London, UK. I had a freight agent (who I had to find and pay for), clear my bike through customs. It consisted of a form that stated I was to keep the bike in the UK no longer than 30 days, as a temporary importation for travel purposes. I would expect you would have something similar. When I did mine, I took the bike and went to other parts of Europe with it which did not require any sort of forms, therefore the fact that my bike is still in Europe but not in the UK any more should satisfy that form… however, I don’t think I would be worried about all of this if you were to fly into Germany and exceed the importation time allowance as I can’t see how they would be able to check up on you.

Interested in attending the Isle of Man TT 2016 from BC. For sentimental reasons, I’ve decided to take my bike instead of renting a one in Douglas. Because of the time line, its a question of either shipping by vessel vs airfreight to the UK. Your thread is great advise and wondered if you had anything thing to add Curtis besides what you’ve already suggested. Thx Scott

I’m moving to thailand and I am trying to take my Hayabusa there, any info for airfreight too thailand?

I want to fly my Harley Road King to Europe this August for a 2 month trip I understand that Air Canada has a special on that if you fly with the bike out of Calgary to Frankfurt or Paris the cost is under $700.00 one way as long as I fly on the same plane.I have found insurance and green card from Tour Insure that I can pay from here with Visa or Master card. I found that I can get full comprehensive insurance. I intend to leave it parked at a friends place for use in 2016 for an other 4 months of riding. I just wonder about getting the bike out of customs in Frankfurt has anyone done this and what are the hurdles I have to be able to overcome. Also does anyone have any advice on different oddities in there driving laws. I intend to be all over Europe and follow the Grand prix motor cycle racing in 2016

Hi Luke, Like you I plan to be in Europe motorcycling in 2016, so I am very interested in your experience in 2015. What can you tell me about the Air Canada special you mention and any difficulties that you may have experienced? Very much appreciated. David Campbell

Hi David My Husband and I want to ship our bikes in 2017 for several months and would love to hear some tips from your experience in 2016 Brenda Kopnitsky

Hi Brenda, We too are looking at a similar journey. Probably leaving our bike in Greece and using it as our in Europe vehicle. Just wondering if you have any info on best practice for which country to arrive in(easiest) and least expensive way to get full coverage insurance. We are not too keen on getting just 3rd party. Our bike is a Moto Guzzi Stelvio 2014 so not interested in having to replace it at our cost. Any advice would be appreciated, Cheers Sten

Hi Sten and Rita, it’s been a while since I made this blog post, things may have changed. Last I was riding my foreign bike in Europe was just about 5 months ago, in Croatia. I realize you want full coverage, but if anybody does want just liability coverage, Moto Camp ( http://motosapiens.org/motocamp/ ) has the best deals. For full coverage Knopf Tours offers about 300 Euro per month, which I believe is excessively expensive, I don’t know any other cheaper options, although I have not extensively searched for full coverage. I arrived in Greece in 2008 on a motorcycle by taking a ferry directly from Italy, from Venice to Igouminitsa – I do NOT recommend from Venice!!! It was almost a 3 day ferry ride, horrible! To make the ferry ride short (less than a day) I’d recommend from Bari or Brindisi, to Igouminitsa. If you need advice about riding in Greece please don’t hesitate to ask. If you are interested in having adventure travel booked for you, my wife rides the world too and is a travel agent specializing in booking custom adventure requests: https://www.facebook.com/ChasingAdventure/ and http://chasingadventure.ca/

Excellent comments and questions….thank you all. I had been plying the internet looking for an answer to the registration issue without any luck til I hit this site. My questions surrounded Canadian bikes stored in Europe sold to another Canadian. In Ontario, in order to transfer title the bike needs to be “saftied” at a site designated by the Province which according to them would mean shipping it back home for the mostly visual 30 minute, $70 inspection to obtain the required certificate…bloody nonsense ! The Ministry will not even accept sworn affidavit of completion of the safety inspection by a registered motorcycle dealer in the EU as an equivalent. Good to hear the police in the EU are not interested in enforcing our bureaucracy.

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Worldwide Tours and Charter Services

Hello travelers, our 2024 schedule is under development and will add additional tours as they become available. for a list of tours with set dates  click here. more details and pricing on trips soon to follow., upcoming tours, 12 day mystery tour: may 29 - june 09, 2024, 5 day north carolina's outer banks: june 03-07, 2024, 10 day scenic black hills: june 15-24, 2024, 8 day niagara falls & new york city: june 29 - july 06, 2024, 3 day "daniel" sight & sound theater lancaster, pa: july 08-10, 2024, 16 day canadian rockies: july 23 - august 07, 2024, charter services, we can take your group anywhere you need to go let us know a little more about your travel needs and we can customize the transportation to make sure your group arrives as safely and as comfortable as possible. .

“I was thrilled to hear that Knoxville Tours has survived the Pandemic and will hopefully begin tours sometime in 2021. I can’t say enough about the great trips (about 6) I have been on. The trips are always well planned. Martha Hooks has been a wonderful and informative director. I have always felt safe with the bus drivers. That hasn’t been the case with some other tour companies. I’m very excited to start traveling again. Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and “on the road again” in 2021!”

– nina duncan.

“I organized a 2019 tour of the South for 30 Northerners. All the Knoxville Tours staff and our fabulous driver Suzanne Page could not have been more helpful and professional. We had reserved for a 2020 repeat trip when COVID shutdown our plans. We are intending to travel with Knoxville Tours in 2022 when we try our trip again. I can’t imagine using a different tour company.”

– amelie ratcliff, “do you love fun and adventure i do the mystery trips with knoxville tours are one of my favorites. fun, food, friends, food, learning new things, food i love trying to figure out where we will be the next day come travel, have fun, make new friends”, – shirley from chattanooga, tn, “we had never been on a bus tour and decided to travel with knoxville tours on our first trip. we couldn’t have been more pleased we feel like a big part of that was because we had debbie pearcy for our tour director. we took the fall new england tour and it was absolutely gorgeous. the places we visited and the places we stayed were excellent. we can’t wait for our next adventure”, – sherrell and jan from chattanooga, tn, “life is filled with memories, and we have so many good memories with our knoxville tours travels.”, – julie from tellico village, “i miss you all and think about the tours we have been able to take all the time. hope to see you in 2021.”, – sue and john from knoxville, tn, “i really miss traveling with knoxville tours and sure hope we can get back on the road later in 2021.”, – toni, “ralph and i have always enjoyed all the trips we have taken over the past nine years. we have stayed in wonderful places, eaten great food, and seen many terrific sites. we also have enjoyed meeting great people who have traveled with us. we will keep many memories of fun times and look forward to having many more in the future. i guess one of the best trips we took was to mackinac island. we got to spend two nights at the grand hotel which was out of this world. somehow, we were given the beautiful esther williams suite along with our friends ken and martha. we pray that knoxville tours will once again be able to schedule trips in 2021 and that this pandemic will go away. we thank knoxville tours for being the best tour company ever. they have brought a lot of joy and happiness into our lives”, – pat and ralph, “knoxville tours is the best a trip i especially enjoyed was the trip to new york city when i took three granddaughters and their mothers–their first trip to the big city. it was great fun thank you.”, – dana from abingdon, va, “boy, tessa and i sure missed traveling this year so glad to hear knox tours is still in business and planning for 2021. i, too, hope with vaccines, we can travel again in summer 2021.”, – brenda from maryville, tn, “ready to roll when you travel with knoxville tours you become extended family. i have made so many new friends and memories on our trips seeing the world with friends is amazing can’t wait for the next adventure filled excursion.”, – linda and ken, knoxville, tn, office hours.

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4910 Clinton Highway Knoxville, TN 37912 Phone: (865)-688-6232 Email: [email protected]

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By Alexandra Jacobs

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THE EDITOR: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America, by Sara B. Franklin

People outside the publishing industry often wonder what it is, exactly, that editors do . “Most of them do nothing,” one of the most storied, Robert Gottlieb , told the author Sara B. Franklin. Nothing is as bad as too much, and yet I’ve long thought the profession — not for nothing does it include “book doctors” — should have its own version of the Hippocratic oath.

Judith Jones, the subject of Franklin’s essential if adulatory new biography, “The Editor,” was the rare text surgeon who also had an excellent bedside manner. Jones, who died in 2017 — six years before Gottlieb , who came in over her head to run Knopf — was widely memorialized as a culinary editor, and rightly so. A passionate home cook, she introduced Julia Child to America and published books on a wide range of cuisines by Edna Lewis , Madhur Jaffrey , Claudia Roden and many others. She fended off Big Agriculture with small, local asparagus spears and reawakened a national palate lulled by midcentury convenience foods.

But as “The Editor” makes painfully apparent, Jones’s contribution to the history of regular old literature has often been minimized or outright erased. A certain recessiveness is part of the job, of course, and yet mention of her name can draw blank stares even among the best-connected in “the biz.”

We owe to her nothing less than “The Diary of Anne Frank” reaching these shores and, after she met him in a hallway, almost the entirety of John Updike’s oeuvre. Ditto Anne Tyler’s. Jones was also a gravitational force, for better and worse, in Sylvia Plath’s brilliant and shortened arc . Working with dozens of other authors, helpfully listed in a coda, she burnished and sustained Knopf’s reputation as the most prestigious publishing house in the country while also earning it piles of money.

Franklin, who has a Ph.D. in food studies, met Jones for an oral-history project toward the end of her life, when “she wore her age like a fact,” as she nicely writes. Cooking and confiding, they became friends. At the funeral, a family member pulled her aside and offered turnkey access to two rooms filled with personal papers. It isn’t so often you flip to the acknowledgments page of a biography and read valedictory lines to the subject like “I loved you so much; I love you still.” But perhaps this is in keeping with Jones’s own defiance of patriarchal convention.

She was born Judith Fifield Bailey, the younger of two daughters, and raised Christian — we’re not told what denomination — with extended family in a solid but second-tier building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Prone to invalidism, she read a lot. Her father was a lawyer from Vermont, where they spent summers, and her mother a chilly social climber; for college, Judith chose not a Seven Sister but Bennington, where, as a founder said, “a girl could hang upside down in her bloomers if she felt like it.”

Her first big affair was with one of her teachers, the poet Theodore Roethke, who urged his students to “listen, listen, listen.” Later on, as a junior staffer at Doubleday, she would work with him.

With a letter of introduction from the Hungarian-born intellectual Arthur Koestler, young Judith traveled to postwar Paris, where authors were thicker than pigeons on the sidewalk. There she also discovered the market and kitchen, horrifying her mother, who considered such pursuits low-class. Working for a short-lived glossy called Weekend, she fell in love with the editor Richard Evan Jones , a married father of two with whom she’d eventually elope to Vienna and enjoy a long, loving and professionally fruitful union. (I highly recommend their 1982 gluten salute, “The Book of Bread.”)

Afflicted with painful endometriosis, which doctors infuriatingly used to call “the career women’s disease” — Franklin recounts Jones bleeding profusely in her assistant’s cubicle, then going back to her desk — she was unable to conceive children, which she wanted badly. But the couple adopted two of a relative’s teenagers, including them in adventuresome dinners. “That was mean of me,” she admitted, of serving tripe.

Franklin revels in all the food stuff, but does not skimp on general publishing history, like Jones’s apprenticeship to the colorful Blanche Knopf . (We’ll need more time to contextualize recent upheaval at the house.) Plath’s suicide came distressingly soon after Jones, who’d published her “ The Colossus and Other Poems” in the States, had rejected her novel, “The Bell Jar.”

Lionized in recent years, especially after release of the documentary “ Turn Every Page ,” Gottlieb comes off here as dismissive of Jones’s talents. He called her a “lady” with a “rich husband,” suggested her authors didn’t need much input, and was defensive about underpaying her. She was not a “marcher,” as a colleague put it, but firmly feminist in her achievements, and remarkably tenacious in mind and body, surviving a flash flood with dog in arms months after her widowhood.

I don’t mind that “The Editor” is a valentine. But surprisingly, given the richness of the material, I closed it feeling slightly underfed, wanting more butter between the slices of this big life. We learn about Tyler’s development as an author, for example, but there’s nothing about her ’80s blockbuster, “The Accidental Tourist.” Jacqueline Susann would probably dispute that Child’s then-publicist invented the modern book tour. Jones’s failure to see the talent of Alice Munro — twice — is alluded to in the introduction, but never explained.

And the editor herself would probably have excised a few of her biographer’s clichés, the striking of gold and going over the moon and firing on all cylinders. But with the utmost tact, bien sûr .

THE EDITOR : How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America | By Sara B. Franklin | Atria | 336 pp. | $29.99

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

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Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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