email ken glah, he'll tell you what to do I guess.

Keith,

If you find a cheap way, definately post it here. It would be nice not to have to deal with the bikes after the race. In my case we are talking two, both my wife and I are racing.

I did a 100 miler on Sunday. :) The week before it was 90. I plan on heading to the mountains this weekend for some hill training.

Good Luck with the Race.

Ahh, Rio. Dude, that's huge. Go with the greek shipping magnate look at you'll be very popular. Shipping your bike out of any South American country may be a slightly sketchy proposition. You may be better served to keep it in your care just ot be sure it doesn't go missing. A pain? perhaps, but it is less of a pain than trying to talk to Senor' Manuel Lostluggagez over a bad phone connection from the U.S. while some Sandanista is going long on his new (your old) bike. Good luck. Do you Samba? Dance the Lambada?

Both FEDEX and UPS operates in Brasil if is the case to use them....

I don't know if do they have offices in Jurere Internacional ( that is beach that is going to be the race... ) but in downtown Florianopolis you can find them for sure....

The best option is to contact the race director... Mr Nubio Oliveira napromoc@uol.com.br

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Luiz Eng

"Shipping your bike out of any South American country may be a slightly sketchy proposition. You may be better served to keep it in your care just ot be sure it doesn't go missing. A pain? perhaps, but it is less of a pain than trying to talk to Senor' Manuel Lostluggagez over a bad phone connection from the U.S. while some Sandanista is going long on his new (your old) bike"

You forget to tell him to do not forget the JUNGLE SUITS in the trip to Brasil and maybe to learn some Smoke Signs language to communicate from place to place....Some ropes to travel between the trees ( like Tarzan.... ) I think that a good idea is maybe to talk with "Senor' Manuel Lostluggagez" to get some more instructions.... But it's better to write a letter... maybe he doesn't have a phone system working....

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Luiz Eng

I didn't mean to offend, but in 2000 I had to pay a $2000 bribe to be allowed to leave a popular South American country and in 1997 I was in a Central American village where more than 10 people were massacred by "Men with machetes". It was all over CNN. Two years ago I made a flight arrangement to "San Pedro, Belize" in Miami International Airport. As I was boarding the flight and made a comment about how nice it was going to be in Belize the airline agent said, "Oh, but we're not going to Belize- we're going to San Pedro, HONDURAS." Minor difference. So, suffice it to say (prehaps more politically correctly) that travel logistics can become an issue when language barriers and other complexities manifest themselves. I do sincerely apologize for any offense. It was meant in humor, perhaps somewhat ill-conceived. All apologies.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Sorry TOM....

I was talking about BRASIL...... I can't speak about Miami airport operations, Belize, Honduras ... and I don't believe that your popular South American country was Brasil....

I work for an American company in Brasil and we receive a lot of gringos each month... so for we never had such problems for anyone... or even heard from my friends anything about bribes to leave a country..... US$ 2000,00 is too much... you should go to press and tell your story !!!

We have in Brasil a lot of problems with violence , poor people, discrepances on our economy ( and they are really bad ... I can tell you... ) but to be honest I never had problems with my bags here... but instead I had two bag in two different trip lost by UNITED AIRLINES in New York and L.A. and they didn't pay me 20% of the value of my bags....

Brasil is such different of the rest of Latin America.... even the language is different... we speak portuguese here.... I reenforce that all the time when comments about Brazil pops-up because I know that you guys doesn't receive a lot of info about us.....But this doesn't give right for people to just GUESS....

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Luiz Eng

Thanks for the responses.

Leng,

Bom dia, como vai vo se? About the country...I'm planning on visiting Rio post race and was wondering what your suggestions would be regarding safety, places to see, and avoid. I have some Brazilian friends here who are intent on filling me with fright. I also heard all the news about the mayhem during Carnival and saw City of God.

Also, I've been working on portuguese, but I'm by no means fluent. How difficult is the language barrier? I'm a huge fan of the music, especially the classic stuff...Jorge Bem, Vinicius de Moraes, Bebel (more recent), and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Any places to see and experience this type of authentic Brazilian culture/music?

Muito obrigado, KP

Keith,

If you have friends in Rio, that will be a good idea to be on their heels all the time... They will be your safety gun.... Places to see.... : Go visit all the tourist points... Corcovado, Copacabana, Jardim Botanico, Pao de Acucar ( sugar loaf ), Night Shows.... I will recommend you to use taxis instead renting a car... It's too complicate to drive in brasil since the streets and avenues doesn't have any rule ... ( we use names instead of numbers... ) If you go in a wrong direction you could be inside a FAVELA . The movie City of God is real thing... but inside of the Favelas, isn't like that in the streets, yet. ( You don't want to go to these Favelas... )

Our language is a kind of complicate... If you speak spanish that will be a smooth transition for portuguese... All the brazilians can understand spanish very easy... the problem will be you understanding them....

In Rio for sure will have plenty of tipical brazilian music... We have a lot of Bars in Rio that closes late of the night that you will have live musicians playing ( Bossa Nova, Jorge Benjor, and all the new brazilian songs.. ) ... Don't forget to try our CHOPP ( draft beer... )...

I live in Sao Paulo area which is more like business oriented, but we have here excelent restaurants and a lot of cultural things...

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Luiz Eng

I would love to go to Rio. And the country I had to pay $2000 to be allowed to leave was Argentina, after bribing some customs guys at the border to not tear through all our expedition equipment at the border. I'd love to visit Brazil.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Brasil is a wonderful country to visit - did Ironman in Floripa in '01 and '02 - in both instances I did post race travel - left my bike at the baggage store in Sao Paulo both times - no problems - the baggage store used to be near to where you catch the bus downtown but they were doing some construction and it may have moved. Ist year went to Rio / Sao Paulo and Bahia - last year went to Amazon - Rio is extremly beautiful however locals (Cariocas - excuse the spelling) are not as friendly and helpful as the Paulista's in Sao Paulo while Bahia was probably the poorest yet most friendly part of the country - a lot of people in Sao Paulo speak English while in Rio English is spoken in most tourist places - Floripa and Bahia and Manaus I found tough going with language. Now if only they would speak American your problems would be solved.....in Rio do the tourist spots - Sugar Loaf, Statue of Christ etc etc - the local bus system is safe although an experience with some wild drivers - ask the hotel etc which bus to take - I would advise skipping Copacabanna / Ipinema (again spelling??) - beaches in Floripa less crowded and poluted - Copacabanna although famous is mainly just a VERY high density residential area sandwiched between the mountains and sea......if you go to the Amazon beware the Mozzies - they attack in squadrons!! - not so bad on the water but once you get off the river to walk etc beware!! With regards to the race the bike is a 2 lapper with a couple of longish but gentle climbs while the run has a series of wicked hills at about the 12 km mark which you descend on the way home. The race was well organised both times with well stocked tables - I wouldn't think twice about going back again if given the opportunity.

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http://www.endurancesports.ca
Coaching and Training Camps

Ok, I know nothing about Brazil.

What I do know is that if you dont travel back with your bike things are going to get a little awkward with the shipping regardless of how you do it.

If you travel with it, you're not going to run in to Customs issues because as you come back and walk through Miami or whereever else you arrive it will be with you.

If you ship it back UPS they wont know that it's yours, its just a bike being imported from a foreign country. as a result you are going to have to get yourself a broker and could actually end up paying import duties and taxes on a bike that you actually own. So youre now at a couple of hundred bucks in shipping and anywhere up to 20+% in import duties on the value of the bike for which they will use the insured value assuming theres no receipts......the whole thing is a racket.

You wont be able to get your bike yourself for the time while you are away, you'll need to arrange for someone thats a licensed broker to go pick it up.

If I were you, I'd figure out when you leave the race and when you will arrive at your final nights stay. Book those hotels, do a call tag with UPS and have them ship it to the hotel.

Insure the S**t out of it just in case but call the hotel and tell them to expect the bike in 3-4 days, go travelling, check on its status en route, when it shows out for delivery that day call them and confirm its arrival and that they will keep it until your arrival and then fly back with it.

The cost of UPS'ing a bike from Brazil to any US city is going to be quite substantial and more so if you cant work out the customs thing before hand.

Andrew

Zulu,

I did a pretty good explanation about Brasil....Myself as a "Paulista" agree with you about the " cariocas ".....

Keith,

I sign below everything that Zulu is describing ( about Rio, Sao Paulo, Bahia em Amazonia.. )

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Luiz Eng

Tom,

You are more than welcome to come here .... Maybe next year for IM Brazil...

I´m planning to rent a house in Floripa for next year... If anybody on the site wants to share the house the price will reduce a lot...... I have two more friends that will do the race next year and we are already planning the stuff....

For the people that did the race already , you guys knows what kind of house I´m talking about.... They are really good !!!!! Jurere Internacional is an very RICH area of Florianopolis and all the houses there are to weekend purposes and summer time vacation.... They are impressive !!!

...

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Luiz Eng

I'll be connecting out of Rio to Sao Paolo to home UNLESS, I decide to head down to Buenos Ares for the following weekend. Is there a way I can have the bike shipped to a hold of some sort at Sao Paolo airport? Maybe I should direct all of these to the race director...

Leng, Thanks for all the info. I'll look out for all the sites. Also, I'm not real big on Jorge Ben Jorg's stuff. I like his earlier stuff when he was Jorge Ben i.e. Negro e Lindo, Comanche, Oba La Vem Ella etc. I'll look out for more info on Rio. Any suggestions on Buenos Ares?

I know nothing about Brazil, except Ronaldo was playing for Middlesborough at one point.

That said just from a personal aggravation standpoint you really want to have your bike in your possesion coming through customs.

Its not to say you cant do it the other way, you probably can and eventually you can probably do it without paying exise duties but my experience with brokers and shippers internationally has been nothing but aggravation.

Even samples coming in UPS at 1 cent value took 3 days and a broker to get out who obviously charged us for the service.

Actually what you can do, if UPS will do it is ship it to yourself in SP and arrnage to pick it up at the UPS depot i.e. hold for delivery. You probably cant do it at the airport but I almost guarantee you could ship it to be picked up at the dist center.

Call them.

One clarification.

I bought my own bike from Enduro sports in Canada and it was shipped to me, came through Customs no problem.

You want to call UPS international if you want to ship it back directly but its always seemed to me to be quite a crap shoot, sometimes its smooth as silk and other times its taken days to get something with zero value out.