Shipping a bicycle.

[beagledave]

My father lives in San Antonio, Texas and I live in Iowa.

He has a nice Trek bicycle that he no longer is using. He has offered it to me if we can figure out a good way to get it to me.

Does anyone have experience shipping a bike? Do you get a box from a bike shop..is there a lot of disassembly involved?

Thanks!

[lafinfil]

If you can get a bike box from a shop he should be able to just remove the pedals and wheels
and handlebars and it should fit right in the box. Sometimes you can just loosen the gooseneck
on the handlebars and turn them sideways - depending on the box.

If he's not able to do it, there might be a friendly bike shop that would pack it and supply a box
for a few bucks / mechanics hourly for disassembly.

I used to take my bike with me on vacation and would get a box (like described) and ship it ahead.

A quick google search came up with a few good hits -

On good tip I left out was a block between the forks to keep them from being damaged

http://reviews.ebay.com/How-to-pack-a-bi...0001786622

[Drew]

Use lots of bubble wrap! Bikes and their parts can easily get dinged in transit.

[Black Landlord]

[quote lafinfil]If you can get a bike box from a shop he should be able to just remove the pedals and wheels
and handlebars and it should fit right in the box. Sometimes you can just loosen the gooseneck
on the handlebars and turn them sideways - depending on the box.

If he's not able to do it, there might be a friendly bike shop that would pack it and supply a box
for a few bucks / mechanics hourly for disassembly.

I used to take my bike with me on vacation and would get a box (like described) and ship it ahead.

A quick google search came up with a few good hits -

On good tip I left out was a block between the forks to keep them from being damaged

http://reviews.ebay.com/How-to-pack-a-bi...0001786622 Great post, nothing to add.

[davester]

This reminds me of a funny story. After completing a bike tour through Europe (many years ago), my girlfriend and I realized that we'd bought too much stuff and now exceeded the airline luggage weight limit by a lot. Being resourceful college students, we took many of the heaviest bike parts and camping gear apart (gear cluster, pedals, stove, etc, etc) and stuffed them into the pockets of our parkas in order to lighten the luggage (bikestore boxes as described by lafinfil). Worked like a charm except for one small technicality....the airport metal detector. It took us an hour to get through security. In these days of terrorist paranoia there'd be no way on earth you'd make it past security.

[Mr Downtown]

Amtrak is a good way to ship things like this.

[cbelt3]

Since Dad's doing the work and you're paying- just suggest he take it to his bike shop and have them handle the whole packaging / shipment. And you'll pay for it.

You'll both be happier with the end result- no hassle for him at all, and if something breaks, it's on the bike shop, not your Dad. They'll even use their UPS account and so forth.

[mrmahann]

good: about 10 yrs ago, i shipped alot of stuff from SFO to my new home in balto on bus, including my bike. inexpensive.

bad: another time, got a 1971 gazelle (dutch bike) in sarasota, for u$50. ex-g/f's parents said they'd bring it up w/ them when they next came to visit us in NYC, a couple months later.

ended up, they flew. they had a local bike store take bike apart and pack it, and ___DHL OVERNITED IT____. it was the only shipping label the DHL guy had when he came to pick up the bike, and the parents went along w/ it. cost me $160, then another u$30 or so to piece it back together.