Hi from Essendon

New Forum member.

Have owned a 2002 ZRX1200s since new (8 Dec 2002, I think) and it's now done 68,000kms.

My wife had an ER5 in 2001 to 2005 and a new Z750 from early 2004. In June this year when she saw (at the Isle of Man behind the main grandstand and it was actually the brilliant colour which grabbed her) the new 2007 green Z750 she couldn't resist it so another bike was added to the family collection.

Then 2 months ago a friend of a friend was looking at the 2004 Red Z750 and it kinda wandered out the drive for a good price to a new woman owner, so we're back to 3 bikes.

The ER5 went to a client and he took it to the IoT TT our our tour in 2006 - he's still got it and reckons it's a better touring bike than all the old Brit bikes he owned in his youth.

My other bike is a 2007 Triumph Bonneville T100 - black & white - I was going to buy a 2008 KLR650, but didn't really want a dirt bike with it's tall seat, but when I noticed the Bonne had a 19" x 100 section front wheel I knew it would easily handle the shingle roads I wanted to explore in New Zealand so I bought it.
The Bonne will be in a container going to Christchurch on Monday.

That's what we do for a living. Ship motorcycles internationally from Australia. We do 15 shipments each Summer to Chch, NZ from Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne and are doing a trial shipment in January from Perth. Our business is called Get Routed and although we don't make a lot of money, we have more fun than most people I know. Ya just don't need a lot of money to have fun.

We also do an annual shipment to the UK out of Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne (this year we shipped 88 bikes, most of whom went to the 100 year Isle of Man TT meeting) and another annual earlier shipment into Southern Europe (Athens next year and those bikes will come back from the UK) and next year we are doing shipments to San Francisco in the USA - most of the bikes going to the USA will be Harley Davidsons going to Sturgis for the annual Rally or going to Milwaukee for the HD 105 year celebrations.

With 90% of our shipments we DON'T run tours. The only tour we run is the annual Isle of Man TT tour and it's a self guided effort - we provide the accommodation on the IoM, the IoM ferry tickets, the return airfares, return bike shipping and a few other necessary bit & pieces, but essentially you decide when and when you go each day.

Kind regards
Dave Milligan

hi mate.... welcome...

glad to see ur kwaka fans..u should fit in here ok... just watch out for the madness...

hmm might come in handy..always wanted to tour NZ on bike..hehe

Welcome Dave...

Do you remember the awesomely handsome bloke you sat next to on a flight to London back in September??? THAT WAS ME!

And then I was chatting to Matt and Di at the GP who were apparently having diner with you later that night - i hope they said hi for me.

Talk soon

Hi red_dave,

Yes I do remember. Did have dinner with Matt & Di (and the rest of the tour group) who came with us the following week to the Sepang MotoGP.

Had done nothing about this forum because we've been so damned busy and then yesterday morning Maggie pulled out the ksrc stickers you gave us and I decided to join up. Thanks for the stickers. We'll put them on our bikes.

The business keeps us sufficiently out of mischief that I won't be a regular daily poster here, but will pop in as time permits.

Kind regards
Dave Milligan

gidday and welcome

another worldly traveller joins us....

Hiya ......

to yet another Dave.....

hello and welcome

Welcome aboard - crazy globe trotter you.

Would you be the kinda person I'd talk to if I wanted a load of bikes shipped from Melbourne to Perth? Might need those services in April 09...

G'day! - It's amazing how small the world is!!

I had friends who went to the Isle of Man this year - who also set up the Jack Findlay memorial in Mooroopna, Vic
they said it was incredible -

I still have my ER5 and now the ER6 - hardy little buggers..

Great job! how did you get started?

Later
Poss

Hi All,

Thanks for all the welcomes. Much appreciated.

G'day! - It's amazing how small the world is!!

You'd better believe it. Since we started this business we've had hundreds of Aussies ship their bike through us to NZ & the UK. For them it has made thw world a smaller place in terms of us getting their bikes there and back with no hassles.

I had friends who went to the Isle of Man this year - who also set up the Jack Findlay memorial in Mooroopna, Vic
they said it was incredible

The TT this year was amazing. Huge crowds everywhere. We were down the South end of the Island (had leased houses in Port Erin, Port St Mary & Castletown) to get a little peace & quiet. Had 151 in our tour group on 88 bikes. So just flew over and back - about 48.
The rest of us (who had brought our own bikes) were out doing laps of the Mountain Circuit most days before practice of racing. Road closures happen an hour before racing and it's chaos anywhere up to 2 hours before a race so we were getting up an 4.30am and doing laps on empty roads - great fun.

I still have my ER5 and now the ER6 - hardy little buggers..

Maggie did 54,000kms on hers from memory before buying the 2004 Z750. Loved it, but it just sat in the garage after the Z750 arrived so we sold it to John Daley who took it to the 2006 IoM TT on our tour.

Great job! how did you get started?

By accident. Back in 1996 we wanted to go tour NZ (I'm from Chch) on hire bikes, but soon discovered we couldn't afford 2 hire bikes for 4 weeks. Then looked at shipping our own bikes in crates with a freight forwarder. When I was at his yard discussing it one of the forklift drivers smashed a box of books on a pallet and it put me right off crating the bikes and giving them to a stranger to smash. Then a mate in the freight industry told me to lease a container and load it myself. But with only 2 bikes it would end up being more expensive than 2 hire bikes. Some riding mates overheard us talking about it and decided to join us - now we had 4 bikes, but it was still more money than we wanted to pay, so I contacted Ken Wootton at AMCN and he ran a small story in Briefs. From that we got another 5 bikes. Full container at last and it worked out at approx $890 per bike return with everything shipping wise included.

We went to NZ in January 1997 and came back (broke) in Feb/March and had 5 weeks - had a ball. In August 1997 I had 3 phone calls from people who had talked to the 5 owners (from the AMCN story) and they represented 16 owners who wanted me to show them how to do it. Well, as I wasn't working and they were I ended up doing all the work including loading and unloading in Chch etc. Then along came 5 more bikes just before we loaded them in Melbourne so our 2nd shipment (in Jan 1998) had 21 bikes and at that stage I decided there was sufficient demand out there to attempt to start a business.

Maggie kept working at her pub job until January this year to keep a roof over our heads and food in the fridge and I kept badgering away getting the business up to a level where it could replace Maggie's $30,000 a year income and still survive. We are now at that stage and bloody happy to be doing something we enjoy, even though it can be damned hard work. There are perks. I put our bikes in some NZ shipments and we now have bikes to ride in NZ when we're over there unloading our shipments. We did the same this year for the IoM TT. Fabulous.

That's how we started out.

Kind regards
Dave Milligan

Hi, what an amazing story!!! thanks for sharing... You certainly have passion, drive and determination.

Have you thought about writing a book? You must have plenty of great pic's from your travells... to inspire others to follow their passion?

Sounds like your fridge is full now!... ...not that your home long enough eat...or drink..lol
I'm going to start travelling a bit later in 08... will have to look you up!

Cheers Poss

Hi, what an amazing story!!! thanks for sharing... You certainly have passion, drive and determination.

Hi Poss. Thanks.

Have you thought about writing a book? You must have plenty of great pic's from your travells... to inspire others to follow their passion?

Writing a book!? I don't have time to read the buggers! I bought half a dozen real good pictorial history books relating to the IoM & racing in general in June this year and they're still sitting on the book shelf, along with the 7 unopened DVDs on the IoM racing & history. All good stuff, but I just haven't had the time.

Pics, yeah, since I learned to use the digi camera, but I just download them into the PC and delete the rubbish ones when I get home from a trip. Some I've used on the web site.

Inspiration? You want inspiration. Spend an hour watching the video "One Man's Dream" about the late John Britten and his bikes.

Sounds like your fridge is full now!... ...not that your home long enough eat...or drink..lol
I'm going to start travelling a bit later in 08... will have to look you up!

Yeah, can give you some advice on NZ and the UK and a little on Europe. We've not travelled a lot in Europe, but want to in 2009 if we can find the time. Plan is to do a shipment of bikes into Izmir in Turkey, spend 2 weeks touring Turkey then island hop to Athens then ride up through Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia, Slovenia into Northern Italy. That will take a further two weeks then we'll need to be back in Felixstowe to unload the UK shipment.
That's the plan, but our plans have come unstuck before!

Kind regards
Dave Milligan

G'day mate and welcome, always great to see another ZRX rider here, i've got an 03 with a few mods

BTW I'll send you a PM, may have something that will interest you

No worries.... I'll will definately look you up! - talking about great inspirational movies - the fastest indian was sensational!

In any case good luck with all your endevours, i'm sure you've got a great recipe for success!
There's also plenty of knowledge floating around here should need any advice...

Cheers Poss