This article discusses the amount of time required to ship a motorcycle.
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Customers often ask about the time frames it takes to transport a motorcycle from one location to the other. They often don’t realize everything that is involved in developing a schedule for both the pick up of the motorcycle and the delivery of the motorcycle.
What you need to keep in mind is that many motorcycle transport companies are able to transport as many as 25 to 35 motorcycles on one truck. When you consider picking up and delivering that many bikes on one truck, the pick up and the delivery time frame could be longer than anticipated for most customers. The shippers have equipment for loading and unloading the bikes at businesses or residences. That is a positive when using a motorcycle specific transport company like the shippers we work with. In most cases, you do not need to provide a dock or a forklift for loading or unloading the motorcycle on and off of the shippers transport truck.
In addition to the shippers being able to transport 25 to 35 motorcycles on a given truck, many times throughout the shipping process they are dropping off motorcycles and picking up additional motorcycles. As such, there is a possibility that as many as 70 motorcycles or more could be on a given truck route throughout the shipping process. When you consider the time it takes to do one pick up or drop-off and you multiply that by as many as 70 or more motorcycles you can see where the time frames for pick up and for delivery can be extensive with the shippers that run large 18-wheel type trucks.
We generally start the shipping process by providing a detailed quote and then collecting a small down payment via a credit or debit card over the phone. When we have the down payment in place we refer you directly to the motorcycle shipping company that you selected to transport your motorcycle. That shipper usually has a booking contract form for you to fill out with your origin and destination names, addresses and phone numbers. Their form will also requires the year, make, model and VIN number of the bike you are shipping.
After you submit the booking contract form in to the shipper, they will start the scheduling process. Some shippers do their scheduling on a daily basis Monday through Friday and some shippers do their scheduling once a week. All the motorcycle specific shippers that we work with set up a preliminary transport schedule and provide you with a range of days when they are likely to be at the pick up location and the delivery location. The shippers usually call within 24 hours of their actual arrival and usually call about an hour prior to arrival as well.
Many shippers do the majority of their pick ups and drop-offs Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm local time. Some shippers do run 7 days a week and sometimes pick up and deliver in the evening and or over weekends. None of the shippers we work with guarantee time frames. If you let the shipper know up front what works best for you for both the pick up and the delivery they will do their best to try to accommodate your requests. They will not guarantee the date or time of day for pick-up or delivery however but will try to accommodate your needs as much as possible.