Overseas Bike Purchases

[Somebuddy]

Hi Folks, I'm back from my coast to coast in the USA where on reaching the east coast I sold my Tricross sport. I went back to Edinburgh Bicycle coop where they had a Koga Miyata on display for over a year, but when I got back from the States it was gone. But I was informed that they have an identical one in the store room. Identical means same spec, same size.........it doesn't mean same price. The previous sold one was on sale from £1700 down to £1400 which I know is a lot of money, but I was prepared to stretch to 1400 but not over. It was kitted out with front and rear racks, and lights and hub dynamo etc etc. it was nice. But for the store room one they want £1769.00, they could take 10% off that but I still think it over my budget.

So the big question, has anyone purchased a bike from for example Holland and then brought it to UK?

 

[CopperBrompton]

Haven't done it, but it would be very easy - just cycle back to Hook of Holland (around 70 miles from Amsterdam, for example) and ferry back to Harwich from there.

 

[raleighnut]

Who's to know you didn't have it when you went.

 

[raleighnut]

[QUOTE 3319507, member: 45"]When MTBs started to become popular all that time ago, a friend of mine used to regularly get the coach to Holland, but one and ride it home. And then sell it to fund her drug habit.[/QUOTE]
But what had she got stuffed down the seat-tube.

 

[steveindenmark]

Sorry Dave I have just seen the message you sent me.

Which Koga are we talking about. Is it the World Traveller like mine?



If it is it is a great touring bike. I am just going to my lbs which is where I bought my Koga and I will ask him a price. I can get one couriered over to the UK through the Company I work for as we get a big discount.

I will let you knowwhat I find out.

Steve

 

[steveindenmark]

The cheapest he can do the World Traveller is £1550.

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

When we were looking into buying a Bike Friday for Mrs F, we seriously thought about flying out to the US with suitcase full of "bike parts", flying back with suitcase full of "bike parts". It would have been a whole bunch cheaper, less faff than Bike Friday's UK importers, and we'd have had a holiday in Oregon out of it.

Obviously we didn't do it because evading import duties is bad.

(And because Mrs F bought an Airnimal in the UK instead, which turned out to be much better suited to her!)

 

[ayceejay]

The trick is to use pounds sterling in another country where the exchange rate is good, like Canada for instance, postage is expensive and you will have to pay VAT and customs on top of that but...
The problem is that even though Argon 18, Cervelo, Louis Garneau, Marononi are all local to me they are cheaper to buy elsewhere

 

[Blue Hills]

[QUOTE 3319507, member: 45"]When MTBs started to become popular all that time ago, a friend of mine used to regularly get the coach to Holland, but one and ride it home. And then sell it to fund her drug habit.[/QUOTE]
Well at least that sounds like a relatively healthy druggy.

 

[andym]

Given that the pound's value against the euro has gone up over the last year, (and I doubt that the UK Koga distributors will have reduced their prices to reflect that), then there's got to be an opportunity. Do a bit of googling on google.nl, use Google Translate if you need to. Probably the Koga website will have a list of Koga dealers in the Netherlands. I'd have thought it would take only a few minutes to get an idea of whether it's worth the trouble.

If nothing else, a bit of research might give you the opportunity to see if a UK dealer will do a price match.

I don't know the legal ins and outs of warranties for purchases elsewhere within the EU but I'd have thought it would be pretty low risk as a) there's not much that could go wrong b) Dutch law consumer protection should still apply c) I'd have though it very unlikely that Koga wouldn't honour a warranty on a bike bought in the Netherlands even though you live in Scotland.

 

[Brains]

As long as you pay the VAT somewhere (NL, DE or UK) then you can bring it into the country

 

[Brains]

With a big enough suitcase you can (illegally) get a US bike into the UK, but it needs to high spec to make it worth it and also dismantle-able enough to fit in a suitcase and you need to make it look 2nd hand, ie ride it a couple of hundred miles so that it is not 'new'

Be careful though on overseas purchases, as someone I was working with in Exhibitions bought a Rolex watch in the USA, put all the packaging into the Exhibition stand for the next event in Greece. We then flew to the UK. about 6 weeks later we went to Greece for the next Exhibition. Only to find the stand still had not cleared customs and no amount of calls could get it out of the shed.

We eventually had to abandon the exhibition as we had no equipment.
About 3 months later the Greeks shipped the stand back to the UK, with no explanation as to why it had never been cleared
End cost was in the thousands, two flights, two international carriages, wasted exhibition space, wasted brochures, hotels etc.
.

 

[Somebuddy]

Sooooo indecisive........ I have eventually managed to persuade a bike shop to put their Koga Miyata from the storeroom into the store for me to trial. But! I still have reservations......it is an expensive bike, I think it will be great for touring, but how often am I likely to go on tour. I want a bike that I can also take out for a local ride, maybe even keep up with the others on a group ride. I don't think the koga is that bike. I have done my once in a lifetime big tour. So any other tour is likely to be two weeks or shorter.
If I opt out of the koga, then I'm likely to get another tricross ( wife says no) or a genesis croix de fer........and then have to add mudguards, racks, pedals, etc etc..... Maybe the Ridgeback Panorama, is that the bike I'm after?

 

[willem]

If value for money in a tourer is what you are after, your best bet is probably a German Fahrrdamanufaktur bike. They are excellent quality, completely specced with hub generators and B&M lights, mostly Tubus racks etc, and very competitively priced (much more so than Koga). They are marginally cheaper in Germany than in Holland, but if you want convenience, there is a very good specialized touring bike shop in Rotterdam: www.bike4travel.nl . In Germany on the other hand you can often find discounted models from last year. But don't buy withhout trying for size: they have sloping top tubes and are relatively long.
Willem

 

[Crankarm]

[QUOTE 3319437, member: 259"]It's unlikley to be any cheaper in NL than in the UK, (Germany would be a better bet for a bargain).

But anyway, there are no import duties payable for a bike you've bought in another EU country.

The only difference would be that the brake levers are on the wrong way round [/QUOTE]

And they are left hand drive as they ride on the other side over there.