Modern Vespa

So I got the insurance back and my bikes totaled. Damage to the braking and steering is extensive enough for it to be a write off.

Good news is I found one exact same year with 1000 miles on great shape. But it's way out of state for me.

Does anyone have any experience shipping a bike and buying it out of state they'd like to share? I'm 100% sure the guys not a scammer and I'm just looking to figure out how to do this in the most convenient way for both of us


Always willing to fly there and drive it back buuuuut if it costs the same it might be easier to have it shipped lol

Shiply.com I had a GTS300 shipped from Minnesota to Denver in March. It was a little over $400. I had 23 bids within 3 days. Wait until someone is headed your way with 2' of empty space. The Vespa showed up in an enclosed trailer between 2 new Corvettes headed to California. If your carrier doesn't provide insurance coverage, get your own. I had the same load on uship.com. 2 bids came in with the lowest being $700.

That's great news! It came in all right? How much was insurance?

Fly n ride over the weekend. Unless its in Alaska.

Some of my best road trip stories come from doing those.

One example was being delayed at a hotel in Kansas City cause my bike was inside the perimeter of crime scene tape in the parking lot. Cops wouldnt let me roll it out. That added 1 day to my trip home. stuck at the hotel wasnt that bad, A really good steak house was next door.

Flight, fuel, 1 hotel night, food. still cheaper than shipping and waiting 7 days.

Just My 2cents.

if you can ride back, then you can easily rent a U-haul trailer for about $20 per day and drive there and back....

this real id thing has it so i cant fly out to florida, huge bummer, im settling for a 2019 yacht club bike, which should be pretty great but man, im so bummed out i cant get another green one

Agreed! But be sure you thoroughly examine the bike when you receive it. I've done this twice and both times there was a little damage inflicted by the shipper. Nothing significant, but I use my bikes as transportation; I'm not hugely sentimental, so the little things don't bug me.

You'll need clear "before" photos if you want to make a claim.

Also agreed. Once I took a train, a bus, then walked to get the bike, and rode it back through the mountains. Another time I took a plane and a bus; that was an epic journey across the states in all sorts of crazy weather. I really honed my inclement-weather riding skills that time. It was late fall, so I was prepared.

I used an online shipping company called uship.com which uses independent shippers that conveniently have reviews on the website. The experience of having a scooter shipped from nc to ct was easy and good. It cost $325 incl some insurance and taxes. Considering just the gas, tolls and my time involved driving round trip to nc from ct plus i'd need to rent a van or the idea of flying to nc and then trying to ride a scooter that I had no real idea of its condition mechanically back to ct the uship solution was most time and cost efficient. Id do it again in a ny minute, lol.

I think uship.com is a hasbeen at this point. When I bought Bob's 300, I posted it on uship. In the course of one week, I only received 2 bids. Both were pretty high. Within 4 hours of putting it on shiply, I had a dozen bids. They kept getting lower and and lower. When it was all said and done I had over 20 bids to choose from.

My experience with U Ship was in Nov 2022 so its entirely possible Shiply has become the bigger competitor in this space. Back when I used Uship someone had recommended it to me, and I had about a dozen quotes within a day or 2 of listing. Everything went smoothly, I thought to myself if I drive a rented van 600 miles each way how much fuel alone will I use, add in a hotel, tolls, meals. Then I dont really have 2 days to waste doing this. So $325 seemed like a no brainer.

The concept of both though is similar I'm guessing in that you get bids on shipping your item and theres reviews to look at to make sure your potential shipper has good feedback.

Seems to make more sense to me to have your scooter shipped to you rather than going to get it and riding it or transporting it home but other people dont seem to mind doing that. I mean, if its 2 hours away then that wouldnt seem too crazy but if its 1,000 miles away or more I just cant imagine doing that.