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Passport:And make sure it's valid. That doesn't mean just 'not expired yet'... The EU/Schengen requirement is that your passport much have been issued less than ten years before your outward travel date, AND that it has three months' validity on your planned return date. Every comprehensive UK motorbike insurance policy should have some basic measure of EU cover. But some policies might be more generous than others. Insurance: You no longer need a Green Card to ride in the European Union, but you will need your insurance certificate (again, not a copy, though if it’s supplied digitally, you can print it out). Even if you're not actually going to France, you’ll probably be passing through and you need to be legal while you're there.
The first 5 letters are from your family name, unless there’s not that many letters in your name in which case any shortfall will be filled by a 9. If you have a paper driving licence, or a licence issued in Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle on Man then you may need an international driving permit. Depending on which countries you're visiting, you may need extra paperwork, equipment and/or knowledge. Here's a start for the most popular destinations for Brit bikers…Travel/breakdown insurance: This is not obligatory, but it is highly recommended, and should include repatriation for you AND you bike if it's going to be worth having. You need to make sure the policy you choose actually covers you not just for riding bikes, but for the type of bike and the type of riding – you don't want to find out the hard way that it doesn't cover a spot of off-road, for example, or a trip into the Armco at the Nürburgring. At time of writing (December 2022) the ETIAS application portal wasn't live, but you can sign up to be informed of developments here. A puncture kit is well worth having too, but completely pointless unless you know how to use it, so make sure you practice a couple of times on an old tyre before you go. The good news is that because the Government has reached an agreement with the 27 EU member states, we can ride in those countries without the need for an international driving licence. This also applies to Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, but only as long as you’ve got a photocard licence. Most road safety organisations recommend a break of at least 15 minutes every 2 hours. Mind your load
If you’ve got an A1 UK licence– which lets you ride up to 125cc motorbikes– you’re still limited to the same engine size in Europe.Different EU countries have different rules around slow-moving or stationary traffic. Some allow filtering. Other countries, like France, don’t. As your motorbike will be loaded up, this changes your machine’s performance. So, anticipate that braking and acceleration might be slower and less responsive. Be respectful of local traffic laws This also means that if your motorbike is stolen while riding abroad, your policy might not cover you. Depending where you go, noisy pipes can get you into hot water, and some roads are sometimes closed to motorcycles completely at certain times as a result of noise problems.
Contrary to popular wisdom you do NOT need to carry a spare bulb kit… although it's not a bad idea anyway. Often the motorways are too congested to go fast anyway, in which case remember filtering's only legal in completely stationary traffic. The motorcycle must not be derived from a vehicle of more than double its power. So you can’t ride a Ducati Panigale V4R that’s been restricted to 35kWLine 5 displays your driving licence number, which is made up of a mixture of your family name, date of birth and some random code. But it’s not that simple… Even derestricted motorways still carry an advisory limit of 130km/h (80mph) – if you ride faster, you accept the consequences if it all goes wrong, and you also expose yourself to prosecution for even minor driving faults. The DVLA has a useful flow chartto navigate your way through the different motorbike licence requirements. It covers both A1 and A2 motorbikes as well as all age-group limitations. After the date comes your initials, unless you’ve only got one initial in which case the second character is replaced by a 9. Standard comprehensive motorbike insurance policies tend to give you third-party cover in Europe for up to 90 days. This covers other riders and their property, not your own.
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