Shipping/Renting sportbikes

jaspreet n

New member
Problem - I'm flying out to Cali (from the Midwest) in July to meet my brother and head to the Laguna Seca MotoGP race. He has an R1 out there and we want to ride to Monterey and stay the weekend with our bikes. There are places in Cali that rent sportbikes but its fairly expensive. So my questions are:

1) Does anyone know a cheap sportbike rental place around Napa/San Fran? I found this place on the internet but they obviously don't want my business because they never answer the phone and don't return my messages:
http://www.sportbikerental.com/

2) Does anyone know of a cheap shipping company where I could just ship my 1098 out there?

3) Is anyone else hauling their bike out there and would be willing to take mine along for some extra $$$ (stolen bike would result in execution of the perpetrator by crushing )

Thanks
 
I think it's ridiculous the amount of money some places want to rent a bike, or worse yet, an RV. Just one day nearly covers the cost of the payment for the entire month!! Oooooooooooooohhhhh sore subject!

For shipping, I just shipped my Hayabusa from Cali to NC, and it cost $605. Which, is actually pretty good. But yeah, for you, at least a $1,000 for both ways, not financially feasible.

There are some places in San Francisco to rent, but, not too cheap, but they do answer the phone. If you're going to rent, I would fly into SF, rent, ride down, ride up.

Now.....

Another idea (I've done this with RV's...) is to call up someone who is trying to sell thier bike on Craigslist right before the GP event. Tell them "hey, i know you're trying to sell you're bike. Would you consider letting me rent if from you for, say, $350-500 for the week? I got insurance, all that, M1 license......"

I paid a guy his RV's payment for 1 month ($720) to rent his RV for a week. Gave it back to him all cleaned up. Told me to call him again anytime. This was a big difference to, at the time, almost $500 a DAY plus fees plus mileage plus blah blah blah.....

It's an idea, but I think you can make it work.

Oh, and I'll be corner working at Turn 2 this year. If my idea works, you owe me a Gatorade.
 
I have always heard good things about Sportbike Rental in the bay area. It is weird that they won't return your calls. I would give them another try because the have the best prices in the area. Other wise call Mach 1 Motorsports in Vallejo. They are great guys and should have the inside track on who to rent from.

Where in the Napa Valley will you be?
 
One of my teammates is shipping his Night Train from AZ to NC and the one way cost is right around $600. I would say $1K is accurate for shippingit out and back.

Might be better to rent....
 
My brother-in-law lives just off highway 29 between Napa and St. Helena. I plan to be there all week before the MotoGP race (7/5). We plan to head down to Monterey on our bikes Friday morning before the race and stay there the whole weekend.

Anyone else going to be there?
 
I've done Laguna and went through the efforts of renting or shipping my bike for the event. Once all the evaluation was finished we just rented a car. Actually it worked out fine as you can carry more, sit in traffic with ac, and in the long run obviously way cheaper.

For cost and convenience I'd do the car thing again.
 
www.uship.com

you can put your bike up there and shippers will bid backwards....lowest bid wins. You set the dates and work everything out with the shipper.
 
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