A notable project involved organising multiple containers to Vladivostok, Russia, to support adventure tours, which was disrupted by the pandemic and geopolitical events.
Our broad experience with diverse destinations and shipment types enables us to adapt quickly and leverage a wide network of partners to provide end-to-end solutions.
Approaching 2019 into 2020 we had we we we recognised that there was quite a lot of interest in a place called Vladivostok, which is sort of it’s the Eastern-most part of Russia.
At that time, with all the inquiries and activities we had, it was basically on the back of Charley Boorman’s and Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round, you know all of that type of stuff. Compass Expeditions were doing the Road of Bones at that time and we had a lot of interest in people starting their trips in Eastern Russia and riding all the way through or driving all the way through Mongolia, all the Stans, Central Asia, etc.
All the way through, and at the time, I was so confident that I had sort of cracked the code on a new service. I had it set up right before COVID hit.
I had six containers booked from Australia to Vladivostok, six containers full of individual bike bookings. A couple of cars are in there as well, it was going to be amazing, right? And then COVID hit, and then that was all she wrote. If you remember, just after COVID: the Ukraine war.
Prior to that, we were we were flying – it was unbelievable. Now, since then, everything has changed in the freight space. You probably remember that airfares went through the roof – that includes freight, and it’s never quite settled back into what it was pre-COVID. It never will.
There are certain things that have changed in in the way that that customs will handle shipments these days – you can’t walk into the to the customs office in Los Angeles anymore, for instance. You as an individual, you can’t walk in there.
It’s forced us to change how we approach specific shipments to specific locations. One of the biggest positive attributes of Bikes Abroad, is the fact that we we are dealing with quite the spread of shipments to quite the spread of locations. We have inherited knowledge about most of the places that we’re shipping to. Nobody can be 100% across everything, every detail to every location. It’s it’s simply not possible.
Administrations change on a dime, and you just can’t keep up with that type of stuff. What we can do is align ourselves with all the right people in all the right locations, so that we are putting an end-to-end solution together in almost all cases. I can’t tell you categorically it’s every one because it’s just not possible, but we’re we’re trying to remove all of those difficulties that an individual would have in putting something like this together.
It’s problem solving and it’s all about connecting you with the right people.