Shipping a Bike

[Dean]

Anyone shipped a bike through UPS, USPS or Fedex. Curious if you wrapped it before or did any preparations, also how the whole transaction worked out.

[dave73ok]

Originally Posted by Dean

Anyone shipped a bike through UPS, USPS or Fedex. Curious if you wrapped it before or did any preparations, also how the whole transaction worked out.

I've done a couple. It's kind of a hassle, but if you do it right, you both will be happy. The first thing I do is head down to the local bike shop and snag a box big enough. They usually have a bunch. See if they have any leftover packing materials as well. Foam, bubble wrap, brown paper, I use it all. I then take the front wheel, pedals and handlebars off, wrap the bars and forks in bubble wrap a couple of times, as well as the front rim axle. I also like to do a layer of wrap around much of the frame, and make it so the axles won't punch through the box. I've seen it happen, it isn't pretty.
Basically, I just fill the box with as much packing material to keep everything from moving around as possible. I'm kind of lucky in that I can just weigh the box and ship it from work and I don't get hassled about bike box dimensions, so if you have that opportunity, take it.

[hophead]

Originally Posted by Dean

Anyone shipped a bike through UPS, USPS or Fedex. Curious if you wrapped it before or did any preparations, also how the whole transaction worked out.

I've never done it myself, but I have had bike shops ship bikes for me before. Just about every bike shop offers this service. Most recently, I had my On One shipped back from Colorado. It was cheaper than checking it as luggage.

In order to fit in a bike box, you should only need to remove the wheels, handlebars, fork, and pedals. There's not much to it. Probably the most time consuming aspect is the bubble wrapping part. They used cardboard for my On One.

I've used both Fed Ex and UPS. Fed Ex is cheaper, but UPS is more reliable and less likely to damage your bike. Get insurance, it's cheap! For the bike that I just had shipped UPS, it was .55/$100. Not sure if USPS handles stuff that big.

*EDIT*
I just received a re-boxed package that came to me via Fed Ex today. I'm pretty sure that Fed Ex now employs the American Tourister gorilla.

[Tarukai]

It's good to know that it can be done, because if/when I head back to Colorado to do some biking and sightseeing, I think it'd be easier to ship it than to bring with, even though I can keep a better eye on it when bringing it with (except for when the baggage people have their hands on it.).

I'm still going to look into a case by someone like SKB or Gator.

[hophead]

Originally Posted by Tarukai

I'm still going to look into a case by someone like SKB or Gator.

That's probably a really good idea even if you do ship your bike. A bike case would greatly reduce the likelihood of being damaged in shipping.

[tajcrews]

If you travel enough a hard travel case will pay for itself in no time. If you ship it make sure you package it very well or pay a bike shop to do it and get INSURANCE! This is the thing not to forget. Easily destroyed but impossible to replace w/o it and UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc will not help you unless you have it. We shipped tons of bikes at the shop i used to work at and i have personally shipped a bunch too. Its not too hard to do as long as you know how to take a few bolts out.