Motorcycle Safety & Driveability: Shipping motorcycle, suzuki 600, suzuki dealer

Question
Hi,
I know, I know. Your area of expertise makes no mention of anything related, but you probably have some idea about such things. In the next few months, I need to get a Susuki 600 from Jacksonville, Florida to San Francisco without riding it myself. At this point, I'm considering the idea of building a crate and shipping it with Yellow Freight or Averitt through my company. And based on my estimated size and weight of crate and contents, the quote is somewhere around $700. Now this does not seem unreasonable, but I was just wondering if there might be other possibilities.
Art

Answer
Art,

Thanks for the question. Actually, I have shipped about a dozen motorcycles all over the country, so I can claim some level of "expertise" (or perhaps "previous experience") on the matter.

For a cross-country run that you specify, I would say that $700 is "in the ballpark" for a Suzuki 600 in a crate. That's what it cost me to ship a bike from Atlanta to Portland (OR) a few years ago, in a crate. The other option you have is to "skid ship" the bike. The bike is secured to a pallet or other platform and tied down, but no crate is used. Typically this will save you about $100 or so (the cost of the crate), but it does leave the bike more open to damage, etc. I have had good luck with this option, but it's  your call. Also, contact your local Suzuki dealer and see if they will either GIVE you a used crate or sell it to you cheap. Also, check with them to see who ships their bikes and see if they (the shipper) will do a "dealer to dealer" ship to SF. That could save some time and money, and you can be confident the bike will be shipped correctly.

I would really shop the rate around, and do contact Allied Moving Systems, as they do have a bike shipping department. Also, check the back of magazines (Cycle World, Rider, etc) and call around to the various shippers that have ads, and make no pretense that you are shopping rates. A little time on the phone could save you some dough, but I doubt you'd be able to the bike shipped in a crate for less than $550 or so. But you never know.....

Best of luck to you,

William Roberson