My wife and I are educators, me retired and she still working, and we've done two great European trips, mostly by rented motorcycles. The prohibitive cost of rental motorcycles and/or the cost of shipping our own motorcycle is significant, and slowing us down. We decided to switch to bicycles (we're pretty strong fitness riders), and actually bought a couple of touring bicycles with the thought of shipping them over....but the airline "tariff" on bicycles and the difficulty of crating them for flight put us off........ we need folders that can go through checked luggage. We examined BikeFriday, but for the cost of two of those and their containers, we could easily ship our motorcycle over and back several times. My question: is there a budget folder, a second-rank bike maybe that can be toured on, and be purchased for less than one half your mortgage? I've discovered that a 29"X29"X10" container can be checked, and I think I could cobble up a couple cases if I could find a bike that would break down to fit.....

Thoughts?