Originally I truly believed fear, be it of the unknown or danger or whatever, was the cause of why so few people would undertake such an endeavor. We have come to the sobering realization that the hardest part of the trip is by far the never ending paperwork. Its not fun, satisfying, and always takes many more signatures on the right colored piece of paper than one would be inclined to believe. We shall start with the bikes.
First, Nate and I had to hunt 2 bikes of the same type. We chose the BMW F800 GS. We believe it is the best on road/off road bike made today, or at least the one that fits our needs the best. As it has only been produced for about 3 years and dual sport riding is not that popular in America, finding two used ones at a dealership was not that easy. But why a dealership you ask. We believed we could finance the bikes to save money and pay later. This did not happen as I will explain later in the shipping paragraph. Nate found a good bike at the dealer in San Francisco. I also found a good one there with some suspension modifications that would fit me well, but the guy wanted to much money. I almost bought a bike in Sacramento, but it was sold about an hour before we arrived. I threatened to fly to San Diego (almost did) and eventually got the French Canadian guy to drop to a reasonable price and pulled the trigger.
We had bikes, woohoo, anchors away right. wrong.! BMW holds the title until the bike is paid in full and customs does not allow shipment of the bike without original title in hand. As fakes are not available due to car theft and such, paying for the bikes was the only option. So some big cashiers checks later, and the bikes are ours, well sort of. BMW would be happy to mail us the title but as it takes DMV 6-8 weeks to change ownership and print a new title they had not come close to receiving it yet.
so we meander down to DMV who proceed to tell us Nate's was no problem. He was in the computer as the registered owner and the title was in the mail. I was on the other hand in DMV purgatory. No record of me buying the bike. I also was in close contact with Larry at the San Francisco Dealership (awesome guy) as the dealership goes through a business only registration process. He was informed that the previous owner moved to Hawaii so the DMV needed a letter from them stating it was not registered there. Larry called Hawaii and had the letter to DMV in one day. More waiting. Finally, I asked Larry if he could keep on the guys at DMV to see what was going on. After many phone calls my file was found accidentally left in the mail room, ooopssyyy.
to be continued.....
